SomaFM, an ad-free online radio platform

14 Mar, 2025

Earlier today I was exploring Belka's blog and in one of their articles, they talked about their experience with Spotify and listening to music on SomaFM. Their article highlights some relevant criticisms towards Spotify, which is something I do agree is frustrating.

Although I do agree Spotify's algorithm is kind of broken - and perhaps exploitative (see this video by Jakob Burrows around the 7 minute mark), I believe podcasts is a little different in premium models in the sense where there would be ads in most of them across platforms, unless you pay to support them directly. I don't think it applies to all of them, but I believe there's many that operate on this model. One popular example of this is the Magnus Archives by Rusty Quills, which provides subscribers of their Patreon with ad-free copies of the podcast episodes. However, I also know that some shows have ad placements directly from the host (usually in the form of promoting something where they're doing the narration). Tim Ferris's Spotify seem to have that a few times in one episode, for example.

In the ideal world, we would have 0 ads in these and podcast hosts and production teams are properly compensated. Unfortunately, it seems like these hosts have to rely on models like these (similar to bands and artists who have to rely on live performances or the sales of merchandise) to keep their lights on.

Belka shared about SomaFM, a curated web-radio platform that has real humans behind the wheel, and it's marvelous! I love that it has a lot of genres to choose from, albeit it seems to be geared to does who predominently listen to music in English. Here are some in the featured list:

When you press into a radio channel, a pop-up will appear and you're able to see about 15 or so of what's next. You're able to browse stations from the pop-up as well, which is neat! But... best of all... it's ad-free. I was listening to the Indie Pop Rocks! station for a few hours and there was only maybe 2-3 times where a lady popped in to gently say that SomaFM is ad-free hahaha. I don't mind that at all.

I've already discovered two bands I've never heard of through this service, which I would love to listen more of:

• Broke Royals
• Woods

I quite like this find! Million thanks to Belka for sharing this :)

Additional readings:

• Why does the Spotify algorithm keep serving Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”?
• How to break free of Spotify's algorithm

[31/100] for #100DaysToOffload

#100DaysToOffload #music