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They bought rdio. A service that was regarded by many, including me, as the best streaming service, certainly better than Spotify and with a thriving, enthusias

They bought rdio. A service that was regarded by many, including me, as the best streaming service, certainly better than Spotify and with a thriving, enthusiastic community of music lovers - even today I still can't comment on or discuss albums, playlists and songs with others in Spotify, which is a social graveyard. And then they shut it down.

kpennell 10y ago
You made me realize that I really like that about Spotify
- thirdsun 10y ago
  It's not as if they forced you to participate and the quality of the discussion was rather worthwhile - it certainly wasn't a Youtube comment section. In my case, without social features and lack of discussion Spotify is relegated to a simple preview hub for music I discovered elsewhere with an incomplete catalog. I'm considering dropping my subscription since I buy and own my music anyway. The community and the discovery through it is the feature that made rdio special. Bandcamp comes close since the users are also very passionate. Spotify, however? Discover Weekly can't replace real human curation. The results are either already known to me (which Spotify should know) or just very mediocre. It falls short like most other recommendation engines.
amorphid 10y ago
I mostly enjoy streaming music, as I find it a hassle to manage a music library. For about 3 years, I was a paying Pandora member, and mostly happy with it. I had created one super station with 250-ish artists. One day, I decided to create a new station for each artist. That went fine until I hit 100 artists. I email customer support to ask if they could lift the limit, or just remove it all together. They replied... Thanks for writing. There is a 100 station limit on all accounts, free or paid. You'll need to delete some stations you don't listen to much anymore in order to create more. To delete a station, click on 'options' and select 'Delete this Station. Sorry for the inconvenience, but thanks for your support! That was the day I switched to Rdio. I loved Rdio up until the day Pandora shutdown the service. I most certainly didn't go back to Pandora after that. Now I'm pretty happy with Google Play Music. Hopefully they won't nerf it.
pepr 10y ago
That's exactly why I like Spotify - it doesn't shove the social nonsense down my throat like everybody else. Don't take it the bad way but I don't care what you, or anybody else with very few exceptions, thinks about this or that album.
- thirdsun 10y ago
  Neither do I. I'm very selective about my music, which is why I only followed very specific people on rdio, which led to very valuable social circles. I only saw their recommendations and what was trending within this community. This doesn't happen at all with Spotify. And maybe it wouldn't work due to the rather mainstream audience / user base the service has. The problem remains however: The music I listen to and buy is very rarely discovered on Spotify. I can't share the rave reviews of Discover Weekly at all. - it's very mediocre to me.
  - noxToken 10y ago
    How much do you listen to music on Spotify? If you were rating music on scale of 1-10, how much music that you listen to on Spotify is at a 7 or above? My Discover Weekly used to be pretty mediocre until I started better curating my playlists. I'd grab a playlist, throw it on in the background and call it good enough. There were certainly songs that I didn't like playing, and the algorithm had no way of differentiating what I did and didn't like. I pruned my playlists so that the music playing is only stuff that I highly enjoy. This made a huge change to my Discover Weekly and my Daily Mixes.
    - thirdsun 10y ago
      I use Spotify as a way to preview music in order to make a buying decision - so there may be a lot of confusing things for Spotify to figure out. However I also maintain many playlists which are large and only consist of songs I like. Yet, Discover Weekly keeps recommending me music that is already known to me (or even part of those playlists) or simply not that relevant. My Bandcamp feed does a better job.
- Touche 10y ago

kpennell 10y ago

You made me realize that I really like that about Spotify

thirdsun 10y ago
It's not as if they forced you to participate and the quality of the discussion was rather worthwhile - it certainly wasn't a Youtube comment section. In my case, without social features and lack of discussion Spotify is relegated to a simple preview hub for music I discovered elsewhere with an incomplete catalog. I'm considering dropping my subscription since I buy and own my music anyway. The community and the discovery through it is the feature that made rdio special. Bandcamp comes close since the users are also very passionate. Spotify, however? Discover Weekly can't replace real human curation. The results are either already known to me (which Spotify should know) or just very mediocre. It falls short like most other recommendation engines.

amorphid 10y ago

I mostly enjoy streaming music, as I find it a hassle to manage a music library. For about 3 years, I was a paying Pandora member, and mostly happy with it. I had created one super station with 250-ish artists. One day, I decided to create a new station for each artist. That went fine until I hit 100 artists. I email customer support to ask if they could lift the limit, or just remove it all together. They replied... Thanks for writing. There is a 100 station limit on all accounts, free or paid. You'll need to delete some stations you don't listen to much anymore in order to create more. To delete a station, click on 'options' and select 'Delete this Station. Sorry for the inconvenience, but thanks for your support! That was the day I switched to Rdio. I loved Rdio up until the day Pandora shutdown the service. I most certainly didn't go back to Pandora after that. Now I'm pretty happy with Google Play Music. Hopefully they won't nerf it.

pepr 10y ago

That's exactly why I like Spotify - it doesn't shove the social nonsense down my throat like everybody else. Don't take it the bad way but I don't care what you, or anybody else with very few exceptions, thinks about this or that album.

thirdsun 10y ago
Neither do I. I'm very selective about my music, which is why I only followed very specific people on rdio, which led to very valuable social circles. I only saw their recommendations and what was trending within this community. This doesn't happen at all with Spotify. And maybe it wouldn't work due to the rather mainstream audience / user base the service has. The problem remains however: The music I listen to and buy is very rarely discovered on Spotify. I can't share the rave reviews of Discover Weekly at all. - it's very mediocre to me.
- noxToken 10y ago
  How much do you listen to music on Spotify? If you were rating music on scale of 1-10, how much music that you listen to on Spotify is at a 7 or above? My Discover Weekly used to be pretty mediocre until I started better curating my playlists. I'd grab a playlist, throw it on in the background and call it good enough. There were certainly songs that I didn't like playing, and the algorithm had no way of differentiating what I did and didn't like. I pruned my playlists so that the music playing is only stuff that I highly enjoy. This made a huge change to my Discover Weekly and my Daily Mixes.
  - thirdsun 10y ago
    I use Spotify as a way to preview music in order to make a buying decision - so there may be a lot of confusing things for Spotify to figure out. However I also maintain many playlists which are large and only consist of songs I like. Yet, Discover Weekly keeps recommending me music that is already known to me (or even part of those playlists) or simply not that relevant. My Bandcamp feed does a better job.
Touche 10y ago