IIRC, Spotify watches the system volume and doesn’t pay for streams playing when it’s muted. Physically unplugging your speakers should work, though.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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If you have a desktop and not a laptop, it's always a great idea to get a separate sound controller. Either a dac/amp for nice headphones, volume controls on a wireless headset, or even buy a sound mixer like the rodecaster duo so you can assign independent applications to each physical slider on the mixer. I do that last one and it's such a quality of life improvement if you use your PC a lot.
All of these options can't be seen from Spotify.
I don't think a site can view your system volume. They can however see if a tab is specifically muted https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/tabs/MutedInfo
I think the Spotify application may be able to, I assume this is what OP was talking about.
I was not expecting that mixer to be nearly $1,000 lol
Yeah that one is pricey, but you can certainly get cheap ones for a fraction of the price. Most people don't need the one I have, and smaller ones can serve the same purpose.
I have a Zoom L12 for mixing/recording my synthesizers, PC system sound and additional PC audio interface. I got it used for $500.
You can get super cheap mixers as well, but the quality will probably be hit-or-miss. (Proper grounding and interference being the biggest issues.) I got lucky with a $40 4 channel mixer that I use when running too many synths and just need to route sound somehow.
Interesting, I actually just adjust the volume knob on my desktop speakers so I didn't think of this when I wrote the meme.
But now I kinda wanna see if I can hijack this monitoring it does and fake 100% volume to the application at all times...hmm welp to the mile long project list it goes!
Cut the jack off a crappy earbuds, then stick the unconnected jack into your headphone port
https://www.midilifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_0008.jpg
I was on a team testing multimedia for a while and this was the solution for the big lab full of desktops and laptops running automated tests.
I think if you just use voicemeeter and set it to a monitor as output that should work
What if the volume is really low? That’s how I do it
Why not just stop using spotify? You cant possibly stream enough to cost them more then they earn in a month from you using it. Even on mute they can still count you as an active user when it comes to selling ads and promiting themselves.
If you really want to hurt spotify, use one of the services like Soundiiz that lets you export your lists and library, grab a 2 month trial of tidal for $2 and point tidal-dl to download it all for offline use. Get yourself a nice dedicated music player like a classic ipod running rockbox. If space is an issue convert from flac to opus.
If you really, really, want to hurt spotify do what i did and take the above instructions and then also spin up your own FunkWhale pod so everyone can also enjoy that music without giving corporations like spotify a dime.
We arent going beat corporations by using their products "too much", the way to beat them is to replace them with self hosted alternatives.
It's not about using or not using Spotify. It's about getting the artists more money.
Well if thats your goal buy their music or merch, or just send them cash directly, most artists are on bandcamp, smaller artists will at least have a venmo or cashapp you can send to.
Artists arent making their rent money on whatever pittance spotify pays them, you would do more good for the actual artist if you just promoted their work and gave them a few bucks directly.
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Tidal is pretty good for that. Better app than Spotify and better quality too!
I'll look into tidal. I've never used it before.
I'm a big fan of Tidal from my usage thus far, they pay their artists something like 1.3 cents a stream versus 0.3 cents (numbers pulled from my memory and may be slightly off). Plus, the higher audio quality available and the 6 person family plan are nice to have.
Getting the artists more money is ALL about not using Spotify.
Is there a good FOSS service for discovering new music based on taste? I hate a lot of the closed-source algorithm BS that corpo apps force users into, but Spotify winds up doing a fair job at finding deep cuts that I enjoy
You mean something like Last.fm and Listenbrainz.org ?
Can they shut down your funkwhale for sharing?
In theory funkwhale can be private, but no one is going to bother you for having a public one. Mine has been running for 2 years without any takedown requests.
If enough people started using funkwhale to the point it actually affected spotifys revenue they might start to care, but as much as i would like for that to happen, i dont think its very likely.
Is funkwhale lime peertube for music?
So if I make music, could I upload it to, let's say, your funkwhale instance and the that would be federated to all funkwhale instances?
Or is it more like Plex in that, you upload everything to your instance and I can just listen to it?
can you link your funkwhale? i don't know any songs
They stopped paying out for that after Sleepify in 2014.
That was Vulfpeck, wasn't it? I ought to get back into them.
AFAIK this fucks with artists, not Spotify.
Spotify doesn't pay artists a flat amount per stream. Instead, Spotify's profits are split between artists based on their streams. A single user heavily streaming is imperceptibly lowering 'revenue per stream' by increasing overall streams but only paying for one subscription.
By playing a bunch of songs, all you do is give those artists slightly more, and other artists slightly less – at least in theory. In practice you're probably not steaming enough to change overall percentages.
So if anything, you are moving profit to support the artists that Spotify is promoting by putting in your 'radio'. Which likely means instead of going to small undiscovered musicians, it goes towards popular established ones that Spotify assumes you'll like.
But since this is probably not enough to move those percentages, you're only messing up your own algorithm.
Why even use Spotify at all? Isn't it like the worst option in terms of actually paying creators? Even YouTube Music is much better option imho, although the app is unresponsive and a UX nightmare.
I think one of the allures of Spotify is a good algorithm which often recommends niche and small artists according to your taste
I always do this accidentally when my earphones' battery runs out
Revenue is distributed proportionally as a percentage of revenue based on streams relative to other artists, not per stream
...doesn't that just give them free advertising credits?
Spotify wants this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sNsrwokPSY
Tl;Dw?
I tried. Endured 10 minutes of a long intro and a lady selling her book saying "um like" every other two words...
I have no info to share.
That's an hour long video without a timestamp bro ;-;
Excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.
Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them.
Your chaos won't convert them.
They're so happy to rebuild it.
You'll never really kill it.
Yeah, excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking what they're selling.
Excess ain't rebellion.
You're drinking,
You're drinking,
You're drinking what they're selling.
Spotify loves you for this. And the artists can't perceive it.
I just run it on the TV through my Xbox for the cats
Do your cats have any favorite? I've noticed whenever i play alice in chains or type o negative my cat sits next to me and looks at the speaker.
They never seem to care but I listen to pretty chill stuff, Mitski, Courtney Barnett, Lucy Dacus. They probably just fall asleep
I really thought it said "nutting" instead of "muting". I was so confused and the photo of Hank Hill did not help with that confusion.
Who... who are the corpos paying to?
RIAA assholes paying more to Spotify and some of that going to the artists isn't the radical act of rebellion it's painted to be, but still acceptable.
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