7 ms·

I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify? I'm sure it won't be deliberate, just a combination of stubbornness, g

by iamben 10y ago

I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify? I'm sure it won't be deliberate, just a combination of stubbornness, greed and living in the past. Spotify and music is like a library and books. It's fantastic and accessible for listening and discovery. I'm hard pushed to find a friend that didn't use napster or limewire that's moved to Spotify - it's just easy, there and the price is right. And with the exception of a few hold out artists (lost back catalogues, or smaller artists who are unaware of 100% revenue services like distrokid.com) it's pretty complete. It'll be such a shame if it slowly goes the way of the buffalo.

Eridrus 10y ago
I think Spotify's saving grace is that it's not owned by a big tech company. I think the music industry would prefer to negotiate with Spotify than with YouTube.
- Micoloth 10y ago
  Isn't it a big tech company itself? Well at least they want to be one. It's not like they want to be the good guys there. This is what disappoints me a little bit
  - rak00n 10y ago
    At least it's focused on Music industry. At least I'm comfortable as a patron that some egoist exec won't just shut it down out of nowhere.
patrick_haply 10y ago
What I often find is that artists will have have everything on Spotify except their latest album, at least for a few months. Fair enough, they want people to buy their albums; it's just one area where I find Spotify consistently incomplete.
- pimeys 10y ago
  There are other big areas where it's seriously lacking content: 1) Modern contemporary electronic music, which is usually available vinyl only. 2) Classic albums in their original form. When there's a remaster, Spotify typically only has the remaster, original was either never there or will be removed when remaster is out. Now, when you start to invest to your sound system even a bit (not talking about 100k wires here), you notice the lack of dynamics in many remasters. The originals just sound better with good soundsystem, not so much with below-average systems. When I listen to music, I like to have the best possible master from it. And preferably lossless, or that I have the control of the compression parameters and format. I guess Spotify will take the masses, but I'm not the only serious listener who prefers my own files and physical copies. Streaming is handy, but you can do a lot of things already with big hard disks with your computers, some syncing NAS system (as in Synology), beets[0] and a big enough microSD in your phone. [0] http://beets.io/ http://beets.io/
  - hluska 10y ago
    Honestly, if this is how you evaluate music, the current generation of streaming is not for you. Do yourself a favour, buy a good quality turntable and start collecting vinyl!! PS - I've been collecting vinyl for over twenty years and consider it my one serious vice. This comment is the equivalent of a drug addict suggesting that you "just try it once." You've been warned...:)
    - pimeys 10y ago
      I own plenty of vinyl, two Technics SL1200's and a mixer and I think it's a huge waste of resources. What I need is to just get lossless music effortlessly and with the right mastering. For new stuff it's pretty easy because you only have one option (or then some mega rare double vinyl versions, I'm looking at you Björk!). But for these old rock albums... In the 2000's their record labels wanted people to buy them again and so we got these super bad remastered versions, which are the ones you find from Spotify. Yes, now I need to get CD's to have the best mastering, rip them to flac and opus and put the CD's to a box collecting dust. Or in some cases I need to buy the vinyl, record it to flac and opus and maybe play the vinyl a couple of times more when I do a house party. Waste of resources...
bogomipz 10y ago
>"I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify?" But will it be the music industry ruining Spotify if that happens or will it simply be a failure of the business model? You could certainly argue the latter.
- nine_k 10y ago
  Is dealing with the music industry, which cranks licensing costs up every year, a failed business model? Maybe. Spotify is allowed to live but not to thrive.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    >"Is dealing with the music industry, which cranks licensing costs up every year, a failed business model?" I think it could possibly be. Nobody has been successful yet at least that I can think of. I think the problem is the better you do the more those licenses will cost. I am trying to think of another industry that works that way. I guess cable is similar with content in that the more subscribers a cable operator has the more expensive licensing the content is. So maybe licensing entertainment content is just a very constrained business model? I can't imagine if I ran a restaurant and my costs from my food purveyors increased with the success of the restaurant. I think it would be very difficult to make a go of that.
ivraatiems 10y ago
The music industry doesn't need to ruin Spotify. It's ruining itself. Its support is abysmal, its apps are bug-riddled and get worse with every update, and it's consistently doing boneheaded "pivot" moves (like mandatory Facebook login a couple years back, "version 1.0" of the desktop app more recently), and so on. It's squandering the good faith and great library it has.
- rak00n 10y ago
  Still it's arguably better than the alternatives out there. When I cast music to my TV Spotify has a nice interface. When I cast Google Music there is this icon dancing around all over the TV. I think their web interface is superior as well.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    It is, and I pay for a subscription still. I wish there were a good alternative.
  - ldev 10y ago
    I like Apple Music more - more songs and it uploads your mp3s that are not matched and make them available everywhere.
    - majewsky 10y ago
      Does it still replace your local music files with inferior copies from the cloud?
- zpr 10y ago
  I agree. Never cared much for the UI, and always found it too buggy to keep using. At my old job, we used it for office tunes, and it was often showing the wrong song that was playing, (so you never knew what you were listening to unless you used something like SoundHound), and going to previous or next tracks was inconsistent, so you might not get back to the last song ever again. Pardon my ignorance but why is Google Play Music not worth mention here?
NTripleOne 10y ago
>with the exception of a few hold out artists fuck you Tool. :(

by iamben 10y ago

Eridrus 10y ago

I think Spotify's saving grace is that it's not owned by a big tech company. I think the music industry would prefer to negotiate with Spotify than with YouTube.

Micoloth 10y ago
Isn't it a big tech company itself? Well at least they want to be one. It's not like they want to be the good guys there. This is what disappoints me a little bit
- rak00n 10y ago
  At least it's focused on Music industry. At least I'm comfortable as a patron that some egoist exec won't just shut it down out of nowhere.

patrick_haply 10y ago

What I often find is that artists will have have everything on Spotify except their latest album, at least for a few months. Fair enough, they want people to buy their albums; it's just one area where I find Spotify consistently incomplete.

pimeys 10y ago
There are other big areas where it's seriously lacking content: 1) Modern contemporary electronic music, which is usually available vinyl only. 2) Classic albums in their original form. When there's a remaster, Spotify typically only has the remaster, original was either never there or will be removed when remaster is out. Now, when you start to invest to your sound system even a bit (not talking about 100k wires here), you notice the lack of dynamics in many remasters. The originals just sound better with good soundsystem, not so much with below-average systems. When I listen to music, I like to have the best possible master from it. And preferably lossless, or that I have the control of the compression parameters and format. I guess Spotify will take the masses, but I'm not the only serious listener who prefers my own files and physical copies. Streaming is handy, but you can do a lot of things already with big hard disks with your computers, some syncing NAS system (as in Synology), beets[0] and a big enough microSD in your phone. [0] http://beets.io/ http://beets.io/
- hluska 10y ago
  Honestly, if this is how you evaluate music, the current generation of streaming is not for you. Do yourself a favour, buy a good quality turntable and start collecting vinyl!! PS - I've been collecting vinyl for over twenty years and consider it my one serious vice. This comment is the equivalent of a drug addict suggesting that you "just try it once." You've been warned...:)
  - pimeys 10y ago
    I own plenty of vinyl, two Technics SL1200's and a mixer and I think it's a huge waste of resources. What I need is to just get lossless music effortlessly and with the right mastering. For new stuff it's pretty easy because you only have one option (or then some mega rare double vinyl versions, I'm looking at you Björk!). But for these old rock albums... In the 2000's their record labels wanted people to buy them again and so we got these super bad remastered versions, which are the ones you find from Spotify. Yes, now I need to get CD's to have the best mastering, rip them to flac and opus and put the CD's to a box collecting dust. Or in some cases I need to buy the vinyl, record it to flac and opus and maybe play the vinyl a couple of times more when I do a house party. Waste of resources...

bogomipz 10y ago

>"I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify?" But will it be the music industry ruining Spotify if that happens or will it simply be a failure of the business model? You could certainly argue the latter.

nine_k 10y ago
Is dealing with the music industry, which cranks licensing costs up every year, a failed business model? Maybe. Spotify is allowed to live but not to thrive.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  >"Is dealing with the music industry, which cranks licensing costs up every year, a failed business model?" I think it could possibly be. Nobody has been successful yet at least that I can think of. I think the problem is the better you do the more those licenses will cost. I am trying to think of another industry that works that way. I guess cable is similar with content in that the more subscribers a cable operator has the more expensive licensing the content is. So maybe licensing entertainment content is just a very constrained business model? I can't imagine if I ran a restaurant and my costs from my food purveyors increased with the success of the restaurant. I think it would be very difficult to make a go of that.

ivraatiems 10y ago

The music industry doesn't need to ruin Spotify. It's ruining itself. Its support is abysmal, its apps are bug-riddled and get worse with every update, and it's consistently doing boneheaded "pivot" moves (like mandatory Facebook login a couple years back, "version 1.0" of the desktop app more recently), and so on. It's squandering the good faith and great library it has.

rak00n 10y ago
Still it's arguably better than the alternatives out there. When I cast music to my TV Spotify has a nice interface. When I cast Google Music there is this icon dancing around all over the TV. I think their web interface is superior as well.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  It is, and I pay for a subscription still. I wish there were a good alternative.
- ldev 10y ago
  I like Apple Music more - more songs and it uploads your mp3s that are not matched and make them available everywhere.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    Does it still replace your local music files with inferior copies from the cloud?
zpr 10y ago
I agree. Never cared much for the UI, and always found it too buggy to keep using. At my old job, we used it for office tunes, and it was often showing the wrong song that was playing, (so you never knew what you were listening to unless you used something like SoundHound), and going to previous or next tracks was inconsistent, so you might not get back to the last song ever again. Pardon my ignorance but why is Google Play Music not worth mention here?

NTripleOne 10y ago

>with the exception of a few hold out artists fuck you Tool. :(