Last.fm is now independent

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Ownership & “Independence”

  • Last.fm announces it is now independent from CBS/Paramount, but the thread notes the announcement is vague: no clear buyer, structure, or ownership details.
  • Public UK accounts (cited in-thread) show 2024 losses, large net liabilities, and explicit dependence on Paramount support, raising questions about how “independence” is being financed and whether Paramount retains a stake.
  • Some welcome independence as an escape from corporate neglect; others fear it could just precede “enshittification” via ads or monetization pressure.

What Last.fm Is Now

  • Many returning users find that it’s primarily a scrobbling and stats tracker now, not a place to stream music directly.
  • Core current value: long-term listening history across devices/services, detailed stats, and neutral metadata that isn’t tied to a specific streaming catalog.
  • Some users still treat it as their only “social media,” tracking gigs and life phases via listening history over 15–20+ years.

Recommendations vs Streaming Algorithms

  • Several comments argue Last.fm’s collaborative-filtering recommendations were (or are) better for non-mainstream discovery than Spotify/YouTube Music, which are seen as:
    • Short‑memory, heavily biased to recency and hits,
    • Potentially payola- and business-model-influenced,
    • Poor with niche, experimental, or non‑English music.
  • Others counter that Last.fm’s similarity model is shallow and struggles with artists whose styles change over time.

Community & Nostalgia

  • Strong nostalgia for the 2000s era: Audioscrobbler, integrated forums, concert pages, and meeting friends/partners through shared taste.
  • Many note that community features and shoutboxes feel hollow or buried now, though some still value being able to comment on tracks/albums.

Technical, API, and Integrations

  • Positive sentiment around Last.fm’s relatively open, stable API, especially contrasted with Spotify’s sudden deprecations.
  • Numerous tools and extensions (scrobblers, visualizations, dashboards) are mentioned as thriving around the API ecosystem.
  • Some report broken sign‑up/login flows and aggressive firewall blocks (406/403), though others say these were later fixed.

Alternatives, Data, and Privacy

  • ListenBrainz, libre.fm, and self-hosted tools are frequently cited as open or FOSS alternatives.
  • Some users have migrated off Last.fm over ownership, tracking, or export difficulties; others remain loyal but wish historical streaming data could be backfilled with timestamps.