4 ms·

Free ("The iTunes Store is a failure.")

19 points by mikecane 16y ago

troygoode 16y ago
Wait, what? iTunes is a "failure", and YouTube is the "go-to platform" for "listening to music?" Citation needed.
- derefr 16y ago
  If I tell you "play me [X song you've never heard of] within the next five seconds", what will you open?
  - pierrefar 16y ago
    That doesn't mean iTunes is a failure. And I'd probably open Spotify for a song.
  - troygoode 16y ago
    Grooveshark. Also, there is a difference between on-demand playing a song that I have never heard of within 5 seconds and typical listening patterns (at least for me - YMMV).
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - X-Istence 16y ago
    Grooveshark.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I don't know. What does that have to do with the question at hand? My telling you "Play me 'Arms So Real' off the NMH 'Shannon House Tapes' within the next five seconds" isn't the music business. The music business in "Mine" by Taylor Swift.
  - marksmen 16y ago
    Youtube, wait I will just search on google and I am sure i will get correct on 99.999999999% of times [even obscure songs in marathi] with first result being youtube.
- paul9290 16y ago
  Hmmm ... i just googled Britney Spears 3 . I then looked to see if Google Suggests, suggested Britney Spears 3 youtube. Nope, because her demographic is not tech savvy enough to append Youtube to their search. On the other hand if you do the same for Arcade Fire Wake Up ... google does suggest Arcade Fire Wake Up Youtube. Thus YouTube is slowly becoming the go-to platform(as tech savvy/early adopters per google suggests are using youtube as such). Personally this is how i listen to songs I want to hear on my PC or on my iPhone. The Youtube iphone app is cool as it saves all songs(videos) you listened to under "history"
w3matter 16y ago
Oh boy. So just because music is intangible it should be free? I'm no musician, but I love music and the people who spend 100% of their time creating it. Saying music should be free is like saying the work of a graphic designer, visual artist, or other artist should be free too. It's easy to sit in front of your pc and spout off about music being free when you don't value the work of artists.
ugh 16y ago
(Stupid anecdote but since the linked article provided no data, only opinion, I have no bad feelings about telling it here:) I like iTunes because it lets me actually own music and build my collection. Sure, I will head over to YouTube if someone tells me about an awesome song but if that song really is awesome I will just buy it. Free music I cannot own and which would be reliably available would be awesome but I still would buy music from iTunes. It wouldn’t matter.
- Qz 16y ago
  The problem with 'music I own' is that then you have to organize and manage it. I have many multiple gigabytes of music on my hard drives, but I rarely bother with that anymore when I can just click open Pandora and it plays music I like without me having to think about it.
  - marksmen 16y ago
    I haven't downloaded a single song in last 3 years! and haven't bought one since last 10+ years (I am 22 years old. Why buy when you can listen for free on you tube! I have spent that money wisely on lot of book and good food which is actually needed rather than mindless itunes spending.
  - ugh 16y ago
    I buy about three to five albums per month. Organizing that is no big deal. I just name it consistently (I have my own capitalization rules ;) after it finished downloading. That’s what, maybe two minutes per album? Doesn’t seem like work.
    - Qz 16y ago
      My issue isn't with the process of cataloging, but with deciding what music to play when it comes time to listen to music. Sure you can just pick some random albums from your collection and throw them on, but if you have a nontrivial number of albums, or a large collection of individual songs, then you quickly end up managing multiple playlists, skipping tracks you don't want to hear not because you don't like them but because you're just not in the mood, etc. Alternatively, I can just turn on Pandora and it plays music I like. It's literally a one click solution. It makes better playlists than I could if I spent 2 hours a day perfecting my own. It also goes out and finds new music that I haven't even heard yet, but because Pandora knows more about the music I like than I do, there's a pretty damn good chance it will be right. In the time since I've started using Pandora I've discovered more new music that I like than I ever did when I was buying individual albums or songs off of iTunes or whatever. Not only that, but I actually buy more CDs because I've heard all the songs on Pandora and I can buy the CDs with confidence, rather than wonder whether I'm going to waste another $15 on crappy music. Although, I was mostly buying CDs to play in my car, but soon I'll be getting a Droid, and then I can just play Pandora directly in my car so CDs might get obsoleted.
kolektiv 16y ago
Spotify’s got it right. A perfect interface with free streaming and a paid for mobile app that allows thousands of tracks to live on your handset as if you owned them. Wrong. As if I owned something isn't good enough for many people. It's the same problem as streaming. If I stop paying you a monthly fee I don't own them anymore. Spotify does allow you to buy DRM free downloads. But there's not a huge difference in price between that and any other service as far as I'm aware. Spotify hasn't really changed the long term situation. Music is still seen as more financially valuable by sellers than by buyers. While the difference in price between legal and free (illegitimately) is still perceived as too high, "piracy" will continue. (And yes, the quote marks there are a mark of disdain for that term. If I were to call parking infringements "illegal land invasions" I'd be a laughing stock. If you can't make your case with emotive terminology, improve your case)
marksmen 16y ago
Frankly I never understood why people actually buy music in first place and not just listen on Youtube???? First you pay 20$ per month for the expensive 3G service and then waste a dollar per song WTF? I wouldn't be surprised if these are the same people who took million $ mortgages and 100k$ + debt for a degree in communications and marketing. No doubt these people require advice from people such as ramit sethi et.al. Note: I am an FOB Indian who studies CS at a very good school, so maybe I overestimating intelligence of average Americans.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
napierzaza 16y ago
Since when was pirating music hard at all? With today's bandwidth and bittorrent you can have an entire popular album in minutes.
jsz0 16y ago
"Why on earth should anybody pay for it?" Because you don't want to deal with ads. You want to listen to music away from your computer. You don't want to use up your Internet cap re-streaming the same content over and over again. Maybe you occasionally have some times in your life where you don't have Internet access 24x7. Maybe you want higher quality audio. Maybe you like albums and don't want to live in a single shuffle world. Maybe you have exotic tastes in music and these services don't offer you the content you like.
mikecane 16y ago
Is there anyone here who gets Spotify where it's available? I wonder if you could relate your experience and if it's changed your attitude towards music and particularly iTunes and downloading music. I ask because people don't seem to have a problem borrowing books from a public library but never buying them after reading. So why is music different?
- hackermom 16y ago
  I've been using a normal, free account on Spotify for about a year. The quick summary: The upsides: fast, and free - and I don't mind the occasional "radio ad" being played. The downsides: not everything I like can be found there as the assortment is heavily geared towards contemporary popular mainstream music, and there is no guarantee that something you find will stay - it has happened plenty of times that a single track has been pulled from an album on Spotify, as well as an entire album being pulled from a represented artist's selection. I consider the product genial, but as long as the assortment isn't complete (nor guaranteed), I will keep downloading (as well as buying).
taylorlb 16y ago
I'm enjoying the comments about the lack of data in the linked article. As a tech person who works in the music industry, I've stopped reading most music business centric news as there always seems to be a lack of data driven analysis. So much of the music business is driven by a "vibe" or a "feeling" which can be great for deciding which artists to be in business with, but pretty terrible for most other important decisions. Considering how many iPods the iTunes Music Store helped sell, I'm not sure it can be referred to as a failure. Perhaps it's a failure for the major music companies in terms of the revenue it drives for THEM (and I assume this is what Lefsetz is saying), but that wasn't the reason for creating the ITMS any more than the reason Apple launched the App Store was to drive revenue for App Developers.
mjcohen 16y ago
My current source of choice for finding music I like is Time-Warner cable's music channels. I usually have something like "Singers and Swing", "Jazz", "Blues", or "Classical" playing. When I hear something I really like, I look it up in Google or in Amazon and see where it is and what people think. I prefer to buy a CD from Amazon and rip it (at 256 kb) unless the MP3 is significantly cheaper. It then it in iTunes (on my MacBook Pro) and then onto my iPod Classic (160 GB is nice). I sometimes but rarely buy from the iTunes store. I do subscribe to more podcasts than I can keep up with, but WTH.

19 points by mikecane 16y ago

troygoode 16y ago

Wait, what? iTunes is a "failure", and YouTube is the "go-to platform" for "listening to music?" Citation needed.

derefr 16y ago
If I tell you "play me [X song you've never heard of] within the next five seconds", what will you open?
- pierrefar 16y ago
  That doesn't mean iTunes is a failure. And I'd probably open Spotify for a song.
- troygoode 16y ago
  Grooveshark. Also, there is a difference between on-demand playing a song that I have never heard of within 5 seconds and typical listening patterns (at least for me - YMMV).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- X-Istence 16y ago
  Grooveshark.
- tptacek 16y ago
  I don't know. What does that have to do with the question at hand? My telling you "Play me 'Arms So Real' off the NMH 'Shannon House Tapes' within the next five seconds" isn't the music business. The music business in "Mine" by Taylor Swift.
- marksmen 16y ago
  Youtube, wait I will just search on google and I am sure i will get correct on 99.999999999% of times [even obscure songs in marathi] with first result being youtube.
paul9290 16y ago
Hmmm ... i just googled Britney Spears 3 . I then looked to see if Google Suggests, suggested Britney Spears 3 youtube. Nope, because her demographic is not tech savvy enough to append Youtube to their search. On the other hand if you do the same for Arcade Fire Wake Up ... google does suggest Arcade Fire Wake Up Youtube. Thus YouTube is slowly becoming the go-to platform(as tech savvy/early adopters per google suggests are using youtube as such). Personally this is how i listen to songs I want to hear on my PC or on my iPhone. The Youtube iphone app is cool as it saves all songs(videos) you listened to under "history"

w3matter 16y ago

Oh boy. So just because music is intangible it should be free? I'm no musician, but I love music and the people who spend 100% of their time creating it. Saying music should be free is like saying the work of a graphic designer, visual artist, or other artist should be free too. It's easy to sit in front of your pc and spout off about music being free when you don't value the work of artists.

ugh 16y ago

(Stupid anecdote but since the linked article provided no data, only opinion, I have no bad feelings about telling it here:) I like iTunes because it lets me actually own music and build my collection. Sure, I will head over to YouTube if someone tells me about an awesome song but if that song really is awesome I will just buy it. Free music I cannot own and which would be reliably available would be awesome but I still would buy music from iTunes. It wouldn’t matter.

Qz 16y ago
The problem with 'music I own' is that then you have to organize and manage it. I have many multiple gigabytes of music on my hard drives, but I rarely bother with that anymore when I can just click open Pandora and it plays music I like without me having to think about it.
- marksmen 16y ago
  I haven't downloaded a single song in last 3 years! and haven't bought one since last 10+ years (I am 22 years old. Why buy when you can listen for free on you tube! I have spent that money wisely on lot of book and good food which is actually needed rather than mindless itunes spending.
- ugh 16y ago
  I buy about three to five albums per month. Organizing that is no big deal. I just name it consistently (I have my own capitalization rules ;) after it finished downloading. That’s what, maybe two minutes per album? Doesn’t seem like work.
  - Qz 16y ago
    My issue isn't with the process of cataloging, but with deciding what music to play when it comes time to listen to music. Sure you can just pick some random albums from your collection and throw them on, but if you have a nontrivial number of albums, or a large collection of individual songs, then you quickly end up managing multiple playlists, skipping tracks you don't want to hear not because you don't like them but because you're just not in the mood, etc. Alternatively, I can just turn on Pandora and it plays music I like. It's literally a one click solution. It makes better playlists than I could if I spent 2 hours a day perfecting my own. It also goes out and finds new music that I haven't even heard yet, but because Pandora knows more about the music I like than I do, there's a pretty damn good chance it will be right. In the time since I've started using Pandora I've discovered more new music that I like than I ever did when I was buying individual albums or songs off of iTunes or whatever. Not only that, but I actually buy more CDs because I've heard all the songs on Pandora and I can buy the CDs with confidence, rather than wonder whether I'm going to waste another $15 on crappy music. Although, I was mostly buying CDs to play in my car, but soon I'll be getting a Droid, and then I can just play Pandora directly in my car so CDs might get obsoleted.

kolektiv 16y ago

Spotify’s got it right. A perfect interface with free streaming and a paid for mobile app that allows thousands of tracks to live on your handset as if you owned them. Wrong. As if I owned something isn't good enough for many people. It's the same problem as streaming. If I stop paying you a monthly fee I don't own them anymore. Spotify does allow you to buy DRM free downloads. But there's not a huge difference in price between that and any other service as far as I'm aware. Spotify hasn't really changed the long term situation. Music is still seen as more financially valuable by sellers than by buyers. While the difference in price between legal and free (illegitimately) is still perceived as too high, "piracy" will continue. (And yes, the quote marks there are a mark of disdain for that term. If I were to call parking infringements "illegal land invasions" I'd be a laughing stock. If you can't make your case with emotive terminology, improve your case)

marksmen 16y ago

Frankly I never understood why people actually buy music in first place and not just listen on Youtube???? First you pay 20$ per month for the expensive 3G service and then waste a dollar per song WTF? I wouldn't be surprised if these are the same people who took million $ mortgages and 100k$ + debt for a degree in communications and marketing. No doubt these people require advice from people such as ramit sethi et.al. Note: I am an FOB Indian who studies CS at a very good school, so maybe I overestimating intelligence of average Americans.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

napierzaza 16y ago

Since when was pirating music hard at all? With today's bandwidth and bittorrent you can have an entire popular album in minutes.

jsz0 16y ago

"Why on earth should anybody pay for it?" Because you don't want to deal with ads. You want to listen to music away from your computer. You don't want to use up your Internet cap re-streaming the same content over and over again. Maybe you occasionally have some times in your life where you don't have Internet access 24x7. Maybe you want higher quality audio. Maybe you like albums and don't want to live in a single shuffle world. Maybe you have exotic tastes in music and these services don't offer you the content you like.

mikecane 16y ago

Is there anyone here who gets Spotify where it's available? I wonder if you could relate your experience and if it's changed your attitude towards music and particularly iTunes and downloading music. I ask because people don't seem to have a problem borrowing books from a public library but never buying them after reading. So why is music different?

hackermom 16y ago
I've been using a normal, free account on Spotify for about a year. The quick summary: The upsides: fast, and free - and I don't mind the occasional "radio ad" being played. The downsides: not everything I like can be found there as the assortment is heavily geared towards contemporary popular mainstream music, and there is no guarantee that something you find will stay - it has happened plenty of times that a single track has been pulled from an album on Spotify, as well as an entire album being pulled from a represented artist's selection. I consider the product genial, but as long as the assortment isn't complete (nor guaranteed), I will keep downloading (as well as buying).

taylorlb 16y ago

I'm enjoying the comments about the lack of data in the linked article. As a tech person who works in the music industry, I've stopped reading most music business centric news as there always seems to be a lack of data driven analysis. So much of the music business is driven by a "vibe" or a "feeling" which can be great for deciding which artists to be in business with, but pretty terrible for most other important decisions. Considering how many iPods the iTunes Music Store helped sell, I'm not sure it can be referred to as a failure. Perhaps it's a failure for the major music companies in terms of the revenue it drives for THEM (and I assume this is what Lefsetz is saying), but that wasn't the reason for creating the ITMS any more than the reason Apple launched the App Store was to drive revenue for App Developers.

mjcohen 16y ago

My current source of choice for finding music I like is Time-Warner cable's music channels. I usually have something like "Singers and Swing", "Jazz", "Blues", or "Classical" playing. When I hear something I really like, I look it up in Google or in Amazon and see where it is and what people think. I prefer to buy a CD from Amazon and rip it (at 256 kb) unless the MP3 is significantly cheaper. It then it in iTunes (on my MacBook Pro) and then onto my iPod Classic (160 GB is nice). I sometimes but rarely buy from the iTunes store. I do subscribe to more podcasts than I can keep up with, but WTH.