5 ms·

Is Spotify Going Bankrupt in 2017?

21 points by scarhill 10y ago

ricardobeat 10y ago
It really pisses me off that a company to which I pay €120/year, for a service that costs pennies to operate, is milked to death by the labels and has to "find a path to profitability". Makes me think of just stop listening to mainstream music at all and just live off my old MP3 collection.
- scriptkiddy 10y ago
  Pretty much anyone can self publish on Spotify. I listen to a lot of Folk Punk that is independently produced. I really hope none of these record companies are trying to take a cut for music they didn't even produce.
  - cschmittiey 10y ago
    It'd be even more of a shame if they destroyed a place where I can get to indie music just as easily as their music, for their own purposes. Unsurprising, but a shame nonetheless.
  - ardaozkal 10y ago
    Bandcamp is a good source of indie songs. The cut is less than spotify too.
    - scriptkiddy 10y ago
      I've bought a couple albums off bandcamp. I like how they usually make the tracks available in lossless format.
  - guitarbill 10y ago
    I'm finding that more and more annoying. Often bad cover versions swamp the search results, especially if the original song isn't available. Is the same problem steam has. Unfortunately, it seems lowering the bar of entry without some kind of curation lowers the quality, too.
nickthemagicman 10y ago
Back to torrenting music for me and many others if Spotify goes under. The record labels dont seem to be able to see the forest for the trees..
- guitarbill 10y ago
  On paper, there's alternatives. In practice, I strongly prefer Spotify's UI, cross-platform apps (which are dying but still work for now) and social functions. So for me and many of my friends, it would also be back to mp3s (+ last.fm?) instead of a different streaming service. This wouldn't be the first time one of the more user friendly streaming services have been taken down. Happened to Rdio, too.
  - nickthemagicman 10y ago
    Yeah there's no streaming services I like better than Spotify. I would love it if there was some sort of self hosting version that could read from a torrent folder haha.
- px1999 10y ago
  Like print media, cinemas and taxi companies it seems like the record labels think they're special and somehow immune to the march of progress. If Hollywood bled Netflix dry, people would still stream/watch movies at home, but none of that money would go to the content creators. Same with game studios and steam.
wcarron 10y ago
Well, back to torrenting for the digital and slowly building a vinyl collection for the physical, gonna hold out as long as possible, since the service if fantastic. Nothing in the space , that I've seen, approaches the quality. This is unfortunate for all, since if labels think they'll see any of the money they currently make off Spotify, they're fucking insane. Nobody likes labels, and all the people I know who are technologically literate enough to torrent music, DO torrent their music. As another commenter said: Milking spotify dry is not seeing the forest for the trees.
yladiz 10y ago
As a Spotify premium subscriber, I'd happily pay an extra $5 a month (as in, $15 total per month) and I feel like many people would be in the same boat (okay, maybe not $5 but $1-$2 per month). I use Spotify nearly every day and in the US any music I could ever want (I don't listen to Taylor Swift) is on there. I've had some issue with less common music, especially from Asia, but in general this is not the case and I really like the service. I would guess that some people would initially balk at the idea of raising subscription prices (the same happened with Netflix I believe), and some people would move to another service, but I would guess that the majority of people wouldn't move. On the flip side, Spotify may have some negotiating power but the labels unfortunately have a ton of power and if they couldn't negotiate a contract with e.g. Sony and that music wasn't available, that would cause more people to move. I'm hopeful that Spotify can renegotiate with labels. Maybe they can pull a Netflix and somehow make their own content/become their own label. I'm not worried about these loans and their terms causing too much issue for Spotify, but I am worried about their lack of profitability. They seem to not have a war chest full of money to run at a loss forever so eventually someone will come knocking, and I just hope the person on the other side of the door isn't asking for enough to cause the house to collapse.
phmagic 10y ago
The one size fits all pricing model that Spotify has doesn't work well with how record labels want their royalties to be paid out. Perhaps it's time Spotify became a record label, like Netflix became a content producer.
rosstex 10y ago
The comments here seem to conflict with the comments on today's other Spotify article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714
jakebasile 10y ago
I don't really see these types of services staying alive independent of a larger company. Google and Apple can afford to pay what the labels want and can justify it through improving brand recognition, getting lock in, or whatever else they dream up. Spotify has nothing else to prop up, and will get priced out by the big corporations in the same space. I'm not really happy about it. Spotify has warts but it also has some things I really like that the competitors don't have. The social features are great and I often find links to Spotify playlists around the net, but not for Apple Music.
anotheryou 10y ago
Why don't the labels just build their own spotify? Because they would have to work together?
- dbbk 10y ago
  The labels have their own Spotify. It is Spotify. They have equity stakes in it.
  - anotheryou 10y ago
    well than it won't go bancrupt I guess... There is not really a competitor.
    - dbbk 10y ago
      How is Apple Music not a competitor?
      - anotheryou 10y ago
        ah, not an apple person, didn't have it on my radar...
RichardHeart 10y ago
Music should not live behind a corporate wall. If your overlords are unhappy with you, or they just decide to turn their servers off, no more music for you. Want to recover your costs by selling off the music you bought? No. Want to pass it down to your children? Not allowed. Remember the days when you could own and share things? Those were nice days. These walled "gardens" are slowly reducing the human digital experience into a prison.
- dbbk 10y ago
  That's a bit overly dramatic. The Spotify model is just renting vs buying. You still have the option of buying, you have ever since the dawn of the iTunes Store. No one is going to take away songs you have digitally purchased.
  - RichardHeart 10y ago
    This is the problem. I do not believe iTunes allows you to sell or hand down to your offspring your music "licenses." So yes actually, someone is going to take away the songs you have digitally purchased. Try playing a game on release date when all the drm servers are overloaded as well. The people who didn't pay get to play, while the paying folk do not. Because truly owning a thing means not having to beg to use the thing.
    - dbbk 10y ago
      I was under the impression iTunes songs haven't had DRM for a long time.
      - RichardHeart 10y ago
        Physical access ≠ Legal ownership

21 points by scarhill 10y ago

It really pisses me off that a company to which I pay €120/year, for a service that costs pennies to operate, is milked to death by the labels and has to "find a path to profitability". Makes me think of just stop listening to mainstream music at all and just live off my old MP3 collection.

scriptkiddy 10y ago
Pretty much anyone can self publish on Spotify. I listen to a lot of Folk Punk that is independently produced. I really hope none of these record companies are trying to take a cut for music they didn't even produce.
- cschmittiey 10y ago
  It'd be even more of a shame if they destroyed a place where I can get to indie music just as easily as their music, for their own purposes. Unsurprising, but a shame nonetheless.
- ardaozkal 10y ago
  Bandcamp is a good source of indie songs. The cut is less than spotify too.
  - scriptkiddy 10y ago
    I've bought a couple albums off bandcamp. I like how they usually make the tracks available in lossless format.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  I'm finding that more and more annoying. Often bad cover versions swamp the search results, especially if the original song isn't available. Is the same problem steam has. Unfortunately, it seems lowering the bar of entry without some kind of curation lowers the quality, too.

nickthemagicman 10y ago

Back to torrenting music for me and many others if Spotify goes under. The record labels dont seem to be able to see the forest for the trees..

guitarbill 10y ago
On paper, there's alternatives. In practice, I strongly prefer Spotify's UI, cross-platform apps (which are dying but still work for now) and social functions. So for me and many of my friends, it would also be back to mp3s (+ last.fm?) instead of a different streaming service. This wouldn't be the first time one of the more user friendly streaming services have been taken down. Happened to Rdio, too.
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  Yeah there's no streaming services I like better than Spotify. I would love it if there was some sort of self hosting version that could read from a torrent folder haha.
px1999 10y ago
Like print media, cinemas and taxi companies it seems like the record labels think they're special and somehow immune to the march of progress. If Hollywood bled Netflix dry, people would still stream/watch movies at home, but none of that money would go to the content creators. Same with game studios and steam.

wcarron 10y ago

Well, back to torrenting for the digital and slowly building a vinyl collection for the physical, gonna hold out as long as possible, since the service if fantastic. Nothing in the space , that I've seen, approaches the quality. This is unfortunate for all, since if labels think they'll see any of the money they currently make off Spotify, they're fucking insane. Nobody likes labels, and all the people I know who are technologically literate enough to torrent music, DO torrent their music. As another commenter said: Milking spotify dry is not seeing the forest for the trees.

yladiz 10y ago

As a Spotify premium subscriber, I'd happily pay an extra $5 a month (as in, $15 total per month) and I feel like many people would be in the same boat (okay, maybe not $5 but $1-$2 per month). I use Spotify nearly every day and in the US any music I could ever want (I don't listen to Taylor Swift) is on there. I've had some issue with less common music, especially from Asia, but in general this is not the case and I really like the service. I would guess that some people would initially balk at the idea of raising subscription prices (the same happened with Netflix I believe), and some people would move to another service, but I would guess that the majority of people wouldn't move. On the flip side, Spotify may have some negotiating power but the labels unfortunately have a ton of power and if they couldn't negotiate a contract with e.g. Sony and that music wasn't available, that would cause more people to move. I'm hopeful that Spotify can renegotiate with labels. Maybe they can pull a Netflix and somehow make their own content/become their own label. I'm not worried about these loans and their terms causing too much issue for Spotify, but I am worried about their lack of profitability. They seem to not have a war chest full of money to run at a loss forever so eventually someone will come knocking, and I just hope the person on the other side of the door isn't asking for enough to cause the house to collapse.

phmagic 10y ago

The one size fits all pricing model that Spotify has doesn't work well with how record labels want their royalties to be paid out. Perhaps it's time Spotify became a record label, like Netflix became a content producer.

rosstex 10y ago

The comments here seem to conflict with the comments on today's other Spotify article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714

jakebasile 10y ago

I don't really see these types of services staying alive independent of a larger company. Google and Apple can afford to pay what the labels want and can justify it through improving brand recognition, getting lock in, or whatever else they dream up. Spotify has nothing else to prop up, and will get priced out by the big corporations in the same space. I'm not really happy about it. Spotify has warts but it also has some things I really like that the competitors don't have. The social features are great and I often find links to Spotify playlists around the net, but not for Apple Music.

anotheryou 10y ago

Why don't the labels just build their own spotify? Because they would have to work together?

dbbk 10y ago
The labels have their own Spotify. It is Spotify. They have equity stakes in it.
- anotheryou 10y ago
  well than it won't go bancrupt I guess... There is not really a competitor.
  - dbbk 10y ago
    How is Apple Music not a competitor?
    - anotheryou 10y ago
      ah, not an apple person, didn't have it on my radar...

RichardHeart 10y ago

Music should not live behind a corporate wall. If your overlords are unhappy with you, or they just decide to turn their servers off, no more music for you. Want to recover your costs by selling off the music you bought? No. Want to pass it down to your children? Not allowed. Remember the days when you could own and share things? Those were nice days. These walled "gardens" are slowly reducing the human digital experience into a prison.

dbbk 10y ago
That's a bit overly dramatic. The Spotify model is just renting vs buying. You still have the option of buying, you have ever since the dawn of the iTunes Store. No one is going to take away songs you have digitally purchased.
- RichardHeart 10y ago
  This is the problem. I do not believe iTunes allows you to sell or hand down to your offspring your music "licenses." So yes actually, someone is going to take away the songs you have digitally purchased. Try playing a game on release date when all the drm servers are overloaded as well. The people who didn't pay get to play, while the paying folk do not. Because truly owning a thing means not having to beg to use the thing.
  - dbbk 10y ago
    I was under the impression iTunes songs haven't had DRM for a long time.
    - RichardHeart 10y ago
      Physical access ≠ Legal ownership