6 ms·

All out war for streaming customers with apple and google. Someone is going to collect $10 (plus $1 or $2 increase every couple years) per month for a huge seg

by x0x0 11y ago

All out war for streaming customers with apple and google. Someone is going to collect $10 (plus $1 or $2 increase every couple years) per month for a huge segment of the music listening population for basically the rest of our lives. Spotify want it to be them.

ghaff 11y ago
And Amazon which doesn't have as good a library but which includes it for "free" for Prime customers and which now has an Echo device that is gaining some attention?
danieltillett 11y ago
Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all? The labels will do anything to prevent another Apple arising including backing any upstart that wants to challenge the big players. When you are just a middle man it is hard to create a monopoly.
- estreeper 11y ago
  > Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all? I personally doubt it. Exceedingly few markets are winner-take-all. Plus, monthly subscribers are "sticky", so they're not going to leave overnight if one competitor gains a slight edge, and everyone else will have a chance to catch up. Your point about the labels and streaming services as middle men is a good one too. Labels own all the content, so they have a lot of power to influence the market as well.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  You need to have all, or almost all music, for people to sign up with you. I wouldn't be a paying spotify customer if it wasn't because they had almost all the music I wanted. What we really need are a change to copyright laws that requires a mandatory uniform-fee-only streaming license for all music, tv and movies.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    But they don't have all and never will. That's why I will never pay them. For me, I already have all.
    - croon 11y ago
      Not with consumers like you they won't. If you're expecting a market to grow from nothing to mature without paying consumers until they're perfect nothing will change nor evolve. You vote with your dollar by supporting the kinds of market you would like. I started using Spotify in 2008 because the concept was what I envisioned for the future and iTunes was an awful practice in buying music. I thought I'd still "download" music on the side, but I honestly never felt the need for it. Sure Spotify doesn't have _everyting_, but it has an impressively huge amount of fringe music that I would never have expected and more than enough music for me to listen to until I die. And it grows.
- usrusr 11y ago
  That entirely depends on how the power balance between content owners and streaming services develops. If labels deliberately protect themselves from a streaming monopoly by fostering competition via good deals for smaller competitors it might become a very balanced market. But if a dominant streaming service manages to press for better deals than smaller competitors, then it could be very much winner-takes-all (with some irrelevant indie for indies sake alternatives sprinkled in between). Labels might actually decide to deliberately let a monopoly happen, to keep the total annual "music tax" per listener high. Spotify is in a business where more hinges on smoky backroom deals than in arms manufacture.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I can’t see the labels being keen to let any one service get a monopoly as it risks them being played off against each other like Apple did to Sony a few years back. I do agree that the music industry is incredibly opaque and how really knows what is going on.
    - usrusr 11y ago
      How could a streaming monopolist play content monopolists? There is only one place to call if you want to license a given artist and fans will tell you that you can't substitute one rapper with a different one. The music business is more about identity than about chords and rhythms. "Sorry, no hits for your search term The Beatles, but try this nice, barely used Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, you will like it because it is also old and by a famous person with a funny haircut", that won't work. Only independent labels without established names, who need the exposure from streaming as much as they need the money would suffer from a streaming monopoly.
f_allwein 11y ago
Still waiting for competition to affect prices. Eg I would be happy to pay 5$/month for limited, ad free access to Spotify/ whatever, but 10$ seems excessive. Given that we may indeed pay this for the rest of our lifes, it's strange nobody seems to mind the cost.
- thirdsun 11y ago
  As someone who buys a lot of music, this attitude seems very alien to me - 10 bucks for a very large collection? It's an insane deal - so good that hardly any artist can live off it. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan of streaming services and prefer to own my music (a large part of which isn't available for streaming anyway) but for most people this is an incredibly fair deal.
  - andybak 11y ago
    $10/month when I already own a lot of music. I wasn't spending that on new music before streaming. I've gone with Google Music for this reason - my personal collection is in the cloud for streaming purposes (saved me the hassle of a home media server) - I occasionally buy new music from various sources and upload it to my account.
    - thirdsun 11y ago
      Ok, got it - I use streaming in addition to buying my music, mostly as a preview hub. Maybe you stopped buying music that frequently at some point, but since I easily buy 10 albums a month the price for streaming and comfortable previewing is a fair share of that budget.
      - JonnieCache 11y ago
        Yeah, spotify is not a great deal if you're just using it instead of your CD collection. OTOH you can listen to hundreds of dollars worth of new music in a day if you want to, with no risk. If you pick something on a whim that turns out not to be good, just move on to the next album or artist. It's like going to a record fair with an unlimited budget, and a truck to carry your finds home in. There is a never-ending supply of crazy stuff on there. If you use it like this, it's incredible.

by x0x0 11y ago

ghaff 11y ago

And Amazon which doesn't have as good a library but which includes it for "free" for Prime customers and which now has an Echo device that is gaining some attention?

danieltillett 11y ago

Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all? The labels will do anything to prevent another Apple arising including backing any upstart that wants to challenge the big players. When you are just a middle man it is hard to create a monopoly.

estreeper 11y ago
> Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all? I personally doubt it. Exceedingly few markets are winner-take-all. Plus, monthly subscribers are "sticky", so they're not going to leave overnight if one competitor gains a slight edge, and everyone else will have a chance to catch up. Your point about the labels and streaming services as middle men is a good one too. Labels own all the content, so they have a lot of power to influence the market as well.
tomjen3 11y ago
You need to have all, or almost all music, for people to sign up with you. I wouldn't be a paying spotify customer if it wasn't because they had almost all the music I wanted. What we really need are a change to copyright laws that requires a mandatory uniform-fee-only streaming license for all music, tv and movies.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  But they don't have all and never will. That's why I will never pay them. For me, I already have all.
  - croon 11y ago
    Not with consumers like you they won't. If you're expecting a market to grow from nothing to mature without paying consumers until they're perfect nothing will change nor evolve. You vote with your dollar by supporting the kinds of market you would like. I started using Spotify in 2008 because the concept was what I envisioned for the future and iTunes was an awful practice in buying music. I thought I'd still "download" music on the side, but I honestly never felt the need for it. Sure Spotify doesn't have _everyting_, but it has an impressively huge amount of fringe music that I would never have expected and more than enough music for me to listen to until I die. And it grows.
usrusr 11y ago
That entirely depends on how the power balance between content owners and streaming services develops. If labels deliberately protect themselves from a streaming monopoly by fostering competition via good deals for smaller competitors it might become a very balanced market. But if a dominant streaming service manages to press for better deals than smaller competitors, then it could be very much winner-takes-all (with some irrelevant indie for indies sake alternatives sprinkled in between). Labels might actually decide to deliberately let a monopoly happen, to keep the total annual "music tax" per listener high. Spotify is in a business where more hinges on smoky backroom deals than in arms manufacture.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I can’t see the labels being keen to let any one service get a monopoly as it risks them being played off against each other like Apple did to Sony a few years back. I do agree that the music industry is incredibly opaque and how really knows what is going on.
  - usrusr 11y ago
    How could a streaming monopolist play content monopolists? There is only one place to call if you want to license a given artist and fans will tell you that you can't substitute one rapper with a different one. The music business is more about identity than about chords and rhythms. "Sorry, no hits for your search term The Beatles, but try this nice, barely used Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, you will like it because it is also old and by a famous person with a funny haircut", that won't work. Only independent labels without established names, who need the exposure from streaming as much as they need the money would suffer from a streaming monopoly.

f_allwein 11y ago

Still waiting for competition to affect prices. Eg I would be happy to pay 5$/month for limited, ad free access to Spotify/ whatever, but 10$ seems excessive. Given that we may indeed pay this for the rest of our lifes, it's strange nobody seems to mind the cost.

thirdsun 11y ago
As someone who buys a lot of music, this attitude seems very alien to me - 10 bucks for a very large collection? It's an insane deal - so good that hardly any artist can live off it. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a fan of streaming services and prefer to own my music (a large part of which isn't available for streaming anyway) but for most people this is an incredibly fair deal.
- andybak 11y ago
  $10/month when I already own a lot of music. I wasn't spending that on new music before streaming. I've gone with Google Music for this reason - my personal collection is in the cloud for streaming purposes (saved me the hassle of a home media server) - I occasionally buy new music from various sources and upload it to my account.
  - thirdsun 11y ago
    Ok, got it - I use streaming in addition to buying my music, mostly as a preview hub. Maybe you stopped buying music that frequently at some point, but since I easily buy 10 albums a month the price for streaming and comfortable previewing is a fair share of that budget.
    - JonnieCache 11y ago
      Yeah, spotify is not a great deal if you're just using it instead of your CD collection. OTOH you can listen to hundreds of dollars worth of new music in a day if you want to, with no risk. If you pick something on a whim that turns out not to be good, just move on to the next album or artist. It's like going to a record fair with an unlimited budget, and a truck to carry your finds home in. There is a never-ending supply of crazy stuff on there. If you use it like this, it's incredible.