When comparing Earbits vs Slacker Radio, the Slant community recommends Slacker Radio for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming services?” Slacker Radio is ranked 12th while Earbits is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Slacker Radio is:
Actual human beings take time to decide what should be played, and on what stations. Sometimes people curating these stations are professional DJs who have experience in curating music content. This makes the music streaming service feel much more organic.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Paid for by the artists, not the users
The Earbits music streaming service has an interesting business model that allows the service to be complete free (and ad free) to listeners. Some musicians pay for added profile features or other different tools that aids in exposure for them. See the full explanation here.
Pro Great way to discover indie musicians
The Earbits music streaming service is open to independent artists only and does a great job of helping you discover lesser known music.
Pro Available on Android, iOS and Chrome
Easily use the app on your preferred platform, as it supports Android, iOS as well as Chrome.
Pro Curated music streaming service
Actual human beings take time to decide what should be played, and on what stations. Sometimes people curating these stations are professional DJs who have experience in curating music content. This makes the music streaming service feel much more organic.
Pro Large music library
Offering such a large library ensures there is enough music of different kinds to appeal to anyone.
Pro Algorithmically generated stations
Stations are created based on an artist, album or track. Slacker then recommends tracks to the user who can either upvote or downvote them, and Slacker will follow suit and recommend tracks considering how the user voted.
Pro Low cost subscription
There's a mid-tier subscription of only $3.99 and a full subscription of $9.99
Pro Works on a large number of platforms
Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry are all platforms that Slacker will work on.
Pro Streams for free on T-Mobile
Pro Allows downloading stations locally
Easily save music for offline use by downloading the tracks that you enjoy.
Cons
Con No app in other countries
Con Underdeveloped
Some areas of the service are lacking in polish and design. The user profiles are pretty sparse, making it difficult to customize. Navigation can be a bit unintuitive at times, which makes it a pain to browse the site. There are also issues with playback as well, adding up to many unpolished areas that leaves the user wanting.
Con Limited to independent artists
You won't find much of the Top 40 type music on Earbits as it's limited to independent musicians currently.
Con UI is too focused on social media
About half of the UI wastes space on social media info posted by Slacker Radio hosts and DJs. Basically advertisements (but different from their regular advertisements), but in a social media setting.
Con Rather intrusive ads
While it's understandable that the free tier will have ads, between video, audio and banners, they can be quite intrusive.
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