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Rdio made a mistake by trying to compete directly with Spotify. And Pandora is making a huge mistake by shutting down the service and losing a valuable niche gr

Rdio made a mistake by trying to compete directly with Spotify. And Pandora is making a huge mistake by shutting down the service and losing a valuable niche group of users. Everyone I know who actually uses Rdio is DIE HARD (I see evidence of this in the comments too). The users I know are pro audio guys, musicians, programmers, artists, etc who use the app 6+ hours a day across desktop and mobile. Rdio could easily carve out a dedicated customer base at the high-end who would pay MUCH MORE for a Pro version (I'd do $50 a month).

tallerholler 11y ago
ever since I discovered rdio a year or so ago I am always telling friends etc.. I think their UI is superior and the experience is just better than e.g. pandora imo...
- jeremyrwelch 11y ago
  Exactly. I've recruited at least 4 friends to use the service. How many hours a day would you estimate you use it?
  - viiralvx 11y ago
    I constantly use the service. I download songs to listen to offline while driving, streaming albums / playlists while coding, and if I'm at home and chilling, I normally have the Rdio Roku app playing music while I'm cooking or keep my laptop on and connected to Bluetooth while remote controlling it from my phone (phone notifications over Bluetooth audio get annoying). It's an amazing service and I'm really sad to see it go. :/
  - tallerholler 11y ago
    I listen to it on and off all day at work most days...
fredkbloggs 11y ago
Such is the way of the world. 50,000 customers willing to pay $50 a month aren't worth the trouble, especially if they're even slightly demanding. Everyone wants the 50 million users willing to put up with ads that bring in $3 a month or are willing to pay $5 or $10.
- cruelfate 11y ago
  Exactly. As if the only conceivable profitable business is a one-size-fits-all mono-culture product.
  - fredkbloggs 11y ago
    In fairness, it's probably the only way to get the coveted billion-dollar valuation. If that's your metric for success rather than operating margins or return on shareholders' equity, you don't really have much of a choice. A small company could serve those 50,000 very well and make its founders and investors quite rich, but very few people want to run a small company. It's all about getting to $1 billion and either selling out huge or going public. That status is more important to almost everyone than actually making money or creating something people like. So enjoy your Apple Music and your Pandora!
dioltas 11y ago
Yeah, I just switched to rdio and I love it. The interface is so clean and slick. It's a lot less buggy / unreliable than Spotify imo. It's such a pity.
- colmvp 11y ago
  Strange. I was the biggest Rdio advocate until it just flat out didn't work on my MacBook. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no luck. Support couldn't do much for me. I ended up moving to Spotify and while I agree that Rdio has a superior UI, Spotify worked consistently on my machine. Plus, their mobile app, especially offline playback, is a godsend on long trips.
elg0nz 11y ago
The UI is the best since gasp Winamp. But their networking was terrible. I could never use the app while traveling abroad plus the Mobile streaming was useless to say the least. Yes, I'm an audio purist, but I don't mind sacrificing quality for the convenience of not listening to listening to regular radio payola. It's sad, a simple buffer implementation would have kept me as a customer, but looks like they focused more on failed Video platforms (did anyone ever use Vdio?)
thespace12 11y ago
I love you rdio!!! Spotify sucks don't go!!!
jclulow 11y ago
Die hard audio people using the desktop application surely must have been turned off by the fact that the desktop application could not even do gapless playback, even after years of subscribers begging for it over their forums. In my experience the Android application, while able to do gapless, was not able to consistently _stay logged in and play music_. Or feed back track identity through bluetooth devices to cars and the Pebble. The only "improvements" made to either the desktop or the mobile application seemed to be about making it harder to see or filter which songs you had added to your Favourites. I wanted it to work out, but it became so frustrating that I gave up a bit under a year ago and went back to Spotify.
thirdsun 11y ago
This is my impression too - and as a rdio subscriber myself, I also have annecdotal evidence: I maintain a huge offline library of losslessly bought music and that will never be replaced by a streamign service. Still, I love rdio as a preview, discovery and social hub - the people I interacted with there are all very similar: Audiophiles, with deep knowledge about music, digital crate diggers. Most, including me, still buy everything they like. Rdio has always been the service for true music enthusiasts in my mind and, frankly, I don't know where to go from here - I tried most other services at some point and have been pretty disappointed with their superficial approach to discovery and social features. Just now I tried Spotify again and I don't like it all: No album focus, no label focus. Social features via Facebook? Meh.
cruelfate 11y ago
Amen^10
johntotenhammer 11y ago
I agree that it seems like a big misstep to discontinue the service so quickly. Given their relative size, there have to be hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, and an order of magnitude more Free subscribers that are dedicated Rdio customers. That's significant. Why inspire all those people to go away and risk them getting attached to another competing service? Why not simply re-brand Rdio as Pandora for the time being? I understand that there are costs associated with maintaining the Rdio application back-end; all the API services the clients use, databases, content delivery network, media storage, new music ingestion, royalty payment system, the mobile, auto, TV and set-top apps etc. It costs a lot of dough just keeping the lights on. But how much does it cost to a) keep the lights on for say 6 months to a year versus b) what, develop your own product and market the hell out of it so you can start from 0 paying subscribers and try to work your way back up to where Rdio was? (is what Pandora has in mind? Can't believe they just wanted to snuff the service.) But somebody must have done the math and said "yep, makes sense, kill it." Either because they just wanted to flush Rdio out of the way or because the math comparison was a no-brainer. In the meantime, I'm going to join you in continuing to enjoy the best, and most beautiful on-demand streaming service available. (not sure about the comments regarding buggy mobile streaming. At 320 it may drop in the countryside, but dial it down to 192 or lower and you're fine. Yeah I like high grade audio too, but I prefer lower grade music to no music at all.)

tallerholler 11y ago

ever since I discovered rdio a year or so ago I am always telling friends etc.. I think their UI is superior and the experience is just better than e.g. pandora imo...

jeremyrwelch 11y ago
Exactly. I've recruited at least 4 friends to use the service. How many hours a day would you estimate you use it?
- viiralvx 11y ago
  I constantly use the service. I download songs to listen to offline while driving, streaming albums / playlists while coding, and if I'm at home and chilling, I normally have the Rdio Roku app playing music while I'm cooking or keep my laptop on and connected to Bluetooth while remote controlling it from my phone (phone notifications over Bluetooth audio get annoying). It's an amazing service and I'm really sad to see it go. :/
- tallerholler 11y ago
  I listen to it on and off all day at work most days...

fredkbloggs 11y ago

Such is the way of the world. 50,000 customers willing to pay $50 a month aren't worth the trouble, especially if they're even slightly demanding. Everyone wants the 50 million users willing to put up with ads that bring in $3 a month or are willing to pay $5 or $10.

cruelfate 11y ago
Exactly. As if the only conceivable profitable business is a one-size-fits-all mono-culture product.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  In fairness, it's probably the only way to get the coveted billion-dollar valuation. If that's your metric for success rather than operating margins or return on shareholders' equity, you don't really have much of a choice. A small company could serve those 50,000 very well and make its founders and investors quite rich, but very few people want to run a small company. It's all about getting to $1 billion and either selling out huge or going public. That status is more important to almost everyone than actually making money or creating something people like. So enjoy your Apple Music and your Pandora!

dioltas 11y ago

Yeah, I just switched to rdio and I love it. The interface is so clean and slick. It's a lot less buggy / unreliable than Spotify imo. It's such a pity.

colmvp 11y ago
Strange. I was the biggest Rdio advocate until it just flat out didn't work on my MacBook. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no luck. Support couldn't do much for me. I ended up moving to Spotify and while I agree that Rdio has a superior UI, Spotify worked consistently on my machine. Plus, their mobile app, especially offline playback, is a godsend on long trips.

elg0nz 11y ago

The UI is the best since gasp Winamp. But their networking was terrible. I could never use the app while traveling abroad plus the Mobile streaming was useless to say the least. Yes, I'm an audio purist, but I don't mind sacrificing quality for the convenience of not listening to listening to regular radio payola. It's sad, a simple buffer implementation would have kept me as a customer, but looks like they focused more on failed Video platforms (did anyone ever use Vdio?)

thespace12 11y ago

I love you rdio!!! Spotify sucks don't go!!!

jclulow 11y ago

Die hard audio people using the desktop application surely must have been turned off by the fact that the desktop application could not even do gapless playback, even after years of subscribers begging for it over their forums. In my experience the Android application, while able to do gapless, was not able to consistently _stay logged in and play music_. Or feed back track identity through bluetooth devices to cars and the Pebble. The only "improvements" made to either the desktop or the mobile application seemed to be about making it harder to see or filter which songs you had added to your Favourites. I wanted it to work out, but it became so frustrating that I gave up a bit under a year ago and went back to Spotify.

thirdsun 11y ago

This is my impression too - and as a rdio subscriber myself, I also have annecdotal evidence: I maintain a huge offline library of losslessly bought music and that will never be replaced by a streamign service. Still, I love rdio as a preview, discovery and social hub - the people I interacted with there are all very similar: Audiophiles, with deep knowledge about music, digital crate diggers. Most, including me, still buy everything they like. Rdio has always been the service for true music enthusiasts in my mind and, frankly, I don't know where to go from here - I tried most other services at some point and have been pretty disappointed with their superficial approach to discovery and social features. Just now I tried Spotify again and I don't like it all: No album focus, no label focus. Social features via Facebook? Meh.

cruelfate 11y ago

Amen^10

johntotenhammer 11y ago

I agree that it seems like a big misstep to discontinue the service so quickly. Given their relative size, there have to be hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers, and an order of magnitude more Free subscribers that are dedicated Rdio customers. That's significant. Why inspire all those people to go away and risk them getting attached to another competing service? Why not simply re-brand Rdio as Pandora for the time being? I understand that there are costs associated with maintaining the Rdio application back-end; all the API services the clients use, databases, content delivery network, media storage, new music ingestion, royalty payment system, the mobile, auto, TV and set-top apps etc. It costs a lot of dough just keeping the lights on. But how much does it cost to a) keep the lights on for say 6 months to a year versus b) what, develop your own product and market the hell out of it so you can start from 0 paying subscribers and try to work your way back up to where Rdio was? (is what Pandora has in mind? Can't believe they just wanted to snuff the service.) But somebody must have done the math and said "yep, makes sense, kill it." Either because they just wanted to flush Rdio out of the way or because the math comparison was a no-brainer. In the meantime, I'm going to join you in continuing to enjoy the best, and most beautiful on-demand streaming service available. (not sure about the comments regarding buggy mobile streaming. At 320 it may drop in the countryside, but dial it down to 192 or lower and you're fine. Yeah I like high grade audio too, but I prefer lower grade music to no music at all.)