I'm definitely in the minority here, but I cancelled my Spotify subscription in favor of SiriusXM.
There were a couple changes they've made recently that made this make sense. One, all their car subscriptions now come with an app version. And two, they have a pretty cool Web UI (https://player.siriusxm.com) where you can listen to any channel live or experiment with "Xtra" channels (it's a Pandora integration.)
My use case is that I work mostly from home and want something mindless to play in the background while I'm working. Spotify playlists quickly become repetitive. Sirius is "set it and forget it"--I have all the channels and Xtra channels I want in a grid on their website, and I have it up on a second monitor so I can just click on whatever channel I want.
I still miss Spotify on occasion, but if I want a specific song or artist I can just go to YouTube and stream it.
Having said all this, yesterday and today I've just been streaming long house mixes on YouTube. I wanted something a bit more upbeat than the Chill channel and I've heard all the songs on BPM. But I'm sure I'll be back to Sirius soon. :)
If you really want to lock in your long mix/specific moods, check out di.fm. Its all hand curated and the genre's all have a particular mood about them, many of which are just the right amount of vocal/nonvocal to push you through a day.
Also just a warning - SiriusXM doesn't just let you leave. They have some of the most aggressive "winback" salespeople in the business, and they will NEVER stop mailing you offers that look like something else, calling you, and emailing you offers once you manage to leave. Their skeevy tactics have put me off the company as a whole forever.
Yeah, I bought a used car and have never even been a customer of theirs but I guess they bought my info from someone and I have been getting their mailings nonstop.
The worst are the ones in blank envelopes with no return address that look like they could be from a bank or something.
Also di.fm will play artist's shows (aka podcasts) at certain times on certain channels. It should be under the calendar tab.
I have never subscribed to a streaming music service as I would rather purchase a song I like once and own it forever. So di.fm and several dance music artist shows keep new music coming in.
I have SiriusXM in the car and had it when it was just XM. I only listen to small number of channels and when I don't want to hear what's on any of them, I have an iPod Touch that I can use over Bluetooth to listen to purchased music, downloaded podcasts, and audiobooks.
I really wish Sirius would simulcast di.fm's channels just for the variety that they can't (and don't try to) compete with.
> My use case is that I work mostly from home and want something mindless to play in the background while I'm working.
XM used to have a clever little device specifically designed for this use case -- the XM-PCR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM_PCR). It was a little XM receiver that plugged into your PC and could be driven from there via client software. And the protocol for communicating with the device was pretty open, so hackers quickly put together really good native clients for Windows, OS X, Linux, etc. that were miles better than both XM's default client and their Web player.
It only lasted for a couple years, though, because those same hackers eventually figured out a way for clients to just rip every song that passed through the XM-PCR into high-bitrate MP3 files on your hard drive. So what went from a neat, hackable little device quickly turned into a music pirate's dream.
There was a gentleman's agreement for a while between the developers of the major clients not to take advantage of this capability, as they all knew that if it ever got exploited at scale XM would shut down the PCR and all their work would instantly be rendered worthless. But inevitably someone shipped a client with this "feature", and XM predictably stopped selling the PCR and remotely disabled all existing units. Boom, so ends a scene.
It was all too bad, as like I said, if your use case was playing music while you worked the PCR was a really cool little device. I suppose this is why we can't have nice things :-/
I renewed Sirius recently since they sent me an acceptable deal with free Echo dot.. which I sold.
I will admit that I really like some of the programs. Business channel in particular is decent. Between interviews of Larry Summers and Madeline Albright it feels like a nice departure from BREAKING NEWS COVERAGE.
And I am saying it as a person who has audio books ready to go if traffic gets too heavy.
Sirius used to have some of the best comedy talk radio but all the good talent got fired or watered down. Sirius like most mega corp media companies became very PC conscious, especially after the merger with XM, which is a precarious place for (quality) comedy to exist. Especially as they matured. But early on it was great for that stuff and helped build many of today’s famous comedians careers as guests on the shows.
Now even Howard Stern hardly shows up and is doing puff piece shows with Hillary Clinton in between his reality TV nonsense.
I remember listening to one show and half the callers were truckers where it became a running joke.
I got really lucky. Bought my car 4 years ago. They said it included a 3 month sirius subscription. It still works to this day. My wife bought a car a couple years ago with a 3 month subscription and it ended on day 90 :(
Nope, not the only one, I much prefer radio programmed by a human to one programmed from an algorithm. I have an actual sat radio in the car, and I use the streaming with amazon speakers at home.
There were a couple changes they've made recently that made this make sense. One, all their car subscriptions now come with an app version. And two, they have a pretty cool Web UI (https://player.siriusxm.com) where you can listen to any channel live or experiment with "Xtra" channels (it's a Pandora integration.)
My use case is that I work mostly from home and want something mindless to play in the background while I'm working. Spotify playlists quickly become repetitive. Sirius is "set it and forget it"--I have all the channels and Xtra channels I want in a grid on their website, and I have it up on a second monitor so I can just click on whatever channel I want.
I still miss Spotify on occasion, but if I want a specific song or artist I can just go to YouTube and stream it.
Having said all this, yesterday and today I've just been streaming long house mixes on YouTube. I wanted something a bit more upbeat than the Chill channel and I've heard all the songs on BPM. But I'm sure I'll be back to Sirius soon. :)