23 ms·

Spotify hits 83M paying subscribers, more than double Apple Music’s 40M

194 points by myroon5 8y ago

ohitsdom 8y ago
I've tried Apple Music twice, both on a free one-month trial offer. Both times I found the product to be so frustrating that I stopped using it within the first day. To me, Spotify is the clear winner in streaming subscription services with a great UX and by doing a decent job of finding new interesting music. I'd rank Google Play second, followed by Amazon Music. Apple Music is the only one I truly dislike.
- digikata 8y ago
  I still feel like Pandora does the best job of finding similar new music to an initial set of tracks, but other than that I like most aspects of spotify better.
  - pro_zac 8y ago
    I stumbled across a great Spotify feature the other day. If you right click on a playlist, there is an option called "Create similar playlist". I did this with a playlist I had created from a bunch of random tracks. It basically went through track by track and found similar songs. It was a bit hit or miss on some songs, but a neat feature. I think Spotify does a great job because they give you so many options for finding new music, but sometimes you have to dig into the UI to find them.
    - digikata 8y ago
      It's very subjective, but I've been comparing the "create a station" from a spotify playlist to Pandora for a while, and just find more music that I both like and have never heard of from Pandora than spotify. Then I generally add the tracks I like best to a spotify playlist. On the other hand, Pandora, it feels like has recently been making picks that somewhat mush your likes and seeds from all your stations together.
    - dom96 8y ago
      > I think Spotify does a great job because they give you so many options for finding new music, but sometimes you have to dig into the UI to find them. While this is true it's ridiculous how often, at least for me, Spotify creates a playlist with songs that I've listened to hundreds of times already. At least 70% of my discovery weekly playlist is a song I've already heard. If I create a "Similar playlist" it stuffs it with songs that I listen to regularly. It's deeply disappointing.
      - stubish 8y ago
        Discovery playlists filled with songs I've already 'liked' or added to my library. Discovery playlists with duplicates. And in other playlists, having to 'do not play' songs I don't actually mind because they are generally popular and the algorithm thinks I want to hear it three times a day, every day. A great way to kill your love of a song. While I love the concept of Spotify, I'm certainly not going to pay for it and eagerly waiting for competitors to be available in my regions.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    Spotify is great if I want to hear a specific song, but I've managed to curate Pandora over many years that I almost never hit the down thumb. I haven't tried the Spotify equivalent. But SoundHound and Spotify is a pretty great experience.
  - sixothree 8y ago
    Agreed. With Spotify I find the songs are far too similar to be enjoyable.
    - ericd 8y ago
      That's surprising, my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist is usually super eclectic. I guess you're talking about the Radio, though?
  - cheesedoodle 8y ago
    It should be a real ease to create good music discovery/curation for spotify since they acquired the echonest. It it really simple to add similar music to what you are currently listening to, too a rolling playlist. Unfortunately, the way they fo it feels like promotion instead of individual curation. It was easy when I created trushuffle some 8 yrs ago (before Spotify aquired echonest) and it should be even easier for a multi billion company.
  - Najda 8y ago
    I'm the other way, I can't stand Pandora. I suppose it's probably good for finding the popular songs of the genre, but I feel it always ends up playing the same small set of songs pretty quickly regardless of what I put in. Spotify gives me much more variety and of people that would be much harder to discover myself.
- jasonlotito 8y ago
  I had the same experience with Apple Music. Apple should know what music I enjoy listening to. Spotify rarely disappoints. Apple Music disappointed right out the gate. This completely ignores the confusing nature of Apple Music. Couple that with no ability to import playlists from Spotify, I don't see the benefit.
  - djrogers 8y ago
    I had the exact opposite experience - when I used Spotify, I never got good music recommendations, and every 'radio' station I created eventually devolved into horrible music of a genre that I actively dislike. Apple usic on the other hand does a much better job for me of playing music that I like, and the human-curated playlists are excellent.
  - chewz 8y ago
    I had them all and in different countries. Apple Music had lost me forever when day after day for a month they has been suggesting Heavy Metal albums and playlists to me - genre that I do not listen too which is obvious based on my music library and habits. Spotify is getting on my nerves due to caned music in curated playlists. But I have free subscription as part of family package. I like Google Music best and miss Rdio.
- danieldk 8y ago
  I love Apple music. For me the distinguishing feature is Beats radio. Even though I don't listen live, I regularly listen to various programs to find new music. Since the music is picked and narrated by various DJs (Mike D of the Beastie Boys, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, etc.), it has a far less algorithmic feeling and there are fun stories in between, etc. Also, the different programs serve far more diverse audiences than mainstream radio.
  - themagician 8y ago
    Same. The UX doesn't matter so much to me because I spend so little time using it. I've never cared about the social features in any music service. I either want to listen to something specific that I search for and play, or just play Beats 1 or another radio station.
    - canuckintime 8y ago
      Beats1 is free to listen to though.
      - danieldk 8y ago
        True, but AFAIR only for live Beats Radio. I think to play shows later you need a subscription.
- mikec3010 8y ago
  I've never tried spotify but I'm very happy with Google Play. It's worth the money and it has led me to discover many artists and genres that I didn't know I liked.
  - elialbert 8y ago
    just switched from play to spotify a couple months ago, despite having hours of work to get things set up correctly. gotta say - so happy I did. killer app tho was spotify's remote control functionality.
- Moto7451 8y ago
  Spotify does a great job generally but they lost me as a customer because they keep testing removing the Discovery functionality. I don't understand why that's a section they want to kill, but so be it. I canceled in 2016 after a year of being annoyed by the on again-off again presence of the Discovery section. It looks like the same game is still going on. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-recommendations-gone/td-p/1623221 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-re... https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_section_gone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_se... I tried Google, Amazon, and Apple's offerings and went with Apple Music since I'm a Mac, iPhone, Apple TV user. Couldn't be happier. Should Apple remove their discovery section I'll find a different provider. Rinse, repeat. I've found a lot of awesome bands that way without any effort on my part.
  - ljm 8y ago
    I never honestly noticed the difference here, but now you point it out... it looks like they're pushing advertising no matter what kind of user you are. What made me notice that is how subtle the payola is. I follow my best friend's Discover Weekly playlist too because we share similar tastes, and every now and then I would spot that we get the exact same songs (typically some new release but not always from a big band), at the exact same position in each of our playlists. I still enjoy Spotify greatly, but it's a shame that they're trading serendipity for marketing. The Release Radar thing is practically useless.
    - johncalvinyoung 8y ago
      My interpretation of a similar scenario (my girlfriend and I both followed & listened to each other's Discover Weekly) was that Spotify noticed that traffic and started assuming our tastes were converging (they were).
  - mekkkkkk 8y ago
    This also drives me crazy. Maybe not exactly the discovery feature, but how flimsy the UX feels. Features disappear and reappear all the time. I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. A/B might be valuable, but to me it should be conservative.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  I already had iTunes Match, and then Apple Music launched first in my country, I tried Spotify but when they finally launched but their catalog was worse, and syncing your existing library of music never worked well (network error? let's delete everything!). Apple Music's killer features for me are the iOS integration and cloud sync+playback of your existing library of MP3s and iTunes purchases. Also as bad as the iTunes UI has gotten, my experience with the Spotify app was even worse.
  - krrrh 8y ago
    Apple Music seems to be the only service that handles uploaded music and syncing well, integrating uploads seamlessly into your library. I think it has an edge with anyone who downloads albums that are too obscure to get licensed to the streaming service or unofficial releases. It probably partly accounts for the popularity of Apple Music with younger hip hop heads who need to integrate mixtapes in their libraries.
    - timdierks 8y ago
      Google Play Music has a cleanly integrated locker, which I love, loads of my favorite music isn't available from services. Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on anything related to music.
- moolcool 8y ago
  Spotify is the best there is today, Rdio is the best there ever was
- ksec 8y ago
  >Apple Music is the only one I truly dislike The same here, being half an Apple Fans I would have put up with minor annoyance, in the hope they will improve one day. But no, it was another iTunes. They may succeed in US or EU, but I would bet $100 they won't succeed in Asia + Japan Region.
  - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
    I'm an Apple Music user. On my iPhone, it's very good. performs well, features that weren't there 3 months ago have been added (like when I select the album/artist on the now playing it asks if I want to go to that album or the artist, for example.) Apple Music on the desktop has been functional but like iTunes (I'm on Windows) it's not quite as fluid. Having said that, trying Spotify after using Apple Music has been awful. The UI to me is very clunky. It's slow. And I find its classical music collection (a big piece for me) is woefully lacking.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Is Google Play Music anything more than the audio from YouTube uploads? Music uploads on YouTube can have wildly variable audio quality.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Is Google Play Music anything more than the audio from YouTube uploads? Yes, Google Play Music is a regular “official digital content from music publishers” streaming service. The All Access bundles commercial-free YouTube access and if the same song has an official video on YouTube you can switch to it instead of the audio directly from the GPM app, but the catalogs are separate.
mk89 8y ago
There is also deezer.com. I don't know if the amount of tracks is the same, however, the service is fantastic. The app is super easy to use, and the Flow they provide (a sort of randomized playlist based on your likes) is great.
- ChildOfChaos 8y ago
  I like Deezer, I am an Apple music subscriber (nothing special about Apple music but the devices I listen to are Apple and I don't see any reason to switch to Spotify, it doesn't seem to offer good at all), but I do miss the Flow feature from Deezer, I really liked this. I would often listen to it. However my ideal setup, which nobody yet offers is to have all my favourite songs (somewhat like Deezers flow) where I can like them and then have a playlist of all my favourites, but mixed in with what I am currently listening too, like priority playlists. So it plays more of what I am currently listening to (10-20 songs in a separate playlist) mixed in with a bigger selection of my classic song playlist (thousands of songs). The currently listening to playlist would get a higher priority, say 60% of the songs would be from here and since there are less songs I would hear them more often. Kinda like a personal radio station, that's kinda how radio stations do it, they have a, b,c playlists with priorities. p.s the biggest problem I had with Deezer is they took too long to add new releases, an artist would announce something and it would be on spotify or apple music, but not yet deeper, being very much into music and certain artists, this was not acceptable.
- canuckintime 8y ago
  Deezer also aportions each individual's payments directly to the artists they listen (unlike Apple Music, Spotify et al who distribute in aggregate to the music labels)
djb_hackernews 8y ago
I'm a paying customer but can anyone tell me why shuffle play is the default? If i'm listening to an album I typically want to listen to it from start to finish and the extra clicks to do that are annoying. But there must be a reason it is designed like that?
- spicyj 8y ago
  Do you mean the big green button? You can usually click the first track to start playing in order.
- test1235 8y ago
  That's funny - I was thinking today that I really like this feature, but I do think it's an odd default. I have massive playlists of all random songs, so I like that I can hit the button when I'm on the move to play a random selection of my preselected music.
- gervase 8y ago
  > why shuffle play is the default I expect it's because A/B testing showed that most users preferred that behavior. This makes sense from their radio/playlist-centric model, which seems to de-emphasize single album listening.
jqbx_jason 8y ago
This is great news IMO. Spotify's platform is leagues better than apple music. Also I know they don't have the best track record w/ third party apps but Spotify also offers the most comprehensive API when compared to the other major streaming services. This lets people like me make apps[1] which (I think) attract more subscribers and create a stronger network. That being said I don't know if I would run out and buy the stock... there's still serious competition and the music labels run their business like the mob. [1]https://www.jqbx.fm https://www.jqbx.fm
- scarface74 8y ago
  How is this such “great news”? Spotify is having a Dropbox issue - in the grand scheme of things, their only reason for existing is just a tiny line item to their major competitors - Apple, Google, and Amazon. They are a feature not a product. Revenue means nothing without profit. http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/spotify-ipo-profit/ http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/spotify-ipo-profit/ bit bullied. Despite steadily increasing paid subscribers (75 million and counting) and revenue (about $1.36 billion last quarter), Spotify continues to bleed. The $49 million or so that it lost in the first three months of 2018 wasn’t because the company can’t keep a tight rein on its own spending, but because it can’t keep a rein on its suppliers. Yes, that’s right: As Spotify grows, so do its royalty payouts to record labels and other music providers. And those marginal costs are an anchor on the Stockholm company’s profit potential
  - jqbx_jason 8y ago
    Okay sure the full picture isn't all sunshine (I didn't say I'd buy the stock) but it's not bad news either. With the lions share of the streaming market and low churn rate I would expect they can negotiate some better deals (or possibly get enough of an edge to raise prices).
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Why would the music industry negotiate? If Spotify tries to play hardball and doesn’t agree with the terms of one of the three major record labels, they lose access to the music. Neither Apple, Google, nor Amazon really care if their music streaming service is profitable or barely break even, they are using music streaming to sell other higher margin products. Apple is still growing faster than Spotify and YouTube is a bigger brand. If they try to raise prices - Apple Music and the YouTube offering starts to look a lot more attractive - it’s hard to compete against the default.
drdaeman 8y ago
Good for them. After some of my favorites were just gone (because license was not renewed or something like that - no clue) I'd rather stick with having files on my devices, like in old good days.
fullshark 8y ago
How do they get profitable? Won't the big three music publishers just squeeze their margins cause they can?
- notyourwork 8y ago
  My understanding is they have started trying to become publisher as well similar to what Netflix is doing. Perhaps remove the middle man and have content which can be exclusive on Spotify or content they can license to others.
  - adventured 8y ago
    That's an interesting problem, because Netflix is unable to achieve any sense of real profitability in their model either. Netflix is pretending to be profitable, while they bury themselves massively in debt to pay for content (ie they can't properly fund business expansion out of operations after 20 years). A particularly inherently unsustainable model when you've got single digit margins. Here's the Netflix balance sheet the last four years: 2014: -$914m; 2015: -$2.08b; 2016: -$4.6b; 2017: -$6.7b; 1Q18: -$7.3b They took on on roughly $5.7b in new debt in three years, at an accelerating clip, versus combined earnings of $850m. While they might be able to sustain that for some time, it's a dead-end model: eventually the whole stacking scheme gives out, subscriber growth tails off (plausibly beginning now), and you've got a mountain of debt that costs you ever larger sums of interest and limits your ability to maneuver. Right now their annual interest costs are eating the equivalent of a full quarter of their profits. They'll more than double their debt in the next few years by necessity to keep up the content spending, and their interest costs will ballon to a billion dollars per year.
    - macspoofing 8y ago
      Netflix needs to become HBO, i.e. a content creator. And it's clear as day they are trying to be that. It's smart and they need to do that to survive, to the point where they are willing to debt-finance this. If they don't do that, publishers will extract every little bit of profitability from them.
hobofan 8y ago
I'm pretty surprised of the high number of Apple Music subscribers. As hinted at the end of the article, geographic, but also age distribution would be interesting to see. Anecdotally in my mid 20 central European bubble, ~95% of my peers use Spotify, with the rest using Google Play Music (including me). I don't know a single person using Apple Music, and I wasn't even aware that it existed as a paid service (though I think I've heard of it a few years ago).
- jonknee 8y ago
  > I'm pretty surprised of the high number of Apple Music subscribers. As hinted at the end of the article, geographic, but also age distribution would be interesting to see. Just shows the power of controlling the platform.
- cam3ham 8y ago
  This. Spotify should be worried about the growth of Apple music - which is only available on iPhone's but already have 50% of the subscribers? Then you account for the other big platform which is Google Music... I don't see a play for spotify here.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Spotify should be worried about the growth of Apple music - which is only available on iPhone's Say what now? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    Apple Music is on Android. I heard it isn’t a great experience but it’s been there for a while.
- acomjean 8y ago
  > and I wasn't even aware that it existed as a paid service If you have an iPhone and tried to use the music app to play your songs, you should be well aware that apple music exists. One of the more blatant up sells on ios. I use iTunes-match and the built in music on ios ("upload" and stream all your music) and eventually figured out you can tone down the apple music reminders by turning of settings->music->show_apple_music
ChildOfChaos 8y ago
I use Apple music, simply because my devices are apple and it links with them kinda okay. There is no difference between these services really, they are all trying to have various playlists, recommendation engines etc and all are absolutely awful. As an avid music listener, what I want is more control over my music, not for someone else to do that for me. I want to be able to like the songs by my favourite artist, so when i browse for them, I see all my favourite songs, not those selected by someone else or an algorithm (ps this is fine for a new artist, in which case it would be nice to see other peoples likes so i can listen to a few to decide if i like the artist) I want a service and an app that gives me more control over the music that I like. I want to have a giant playlist of all the songs that I have liked and be able to then mix this in with a "currently listening" playlist, so I have my own personal radio station of tracks (personal radio station features on these services do not work this way and suck) I'd like perhaps to be able to weight (rate) artists as well as my favourite songs and have different options to shuffle be presented such as: My current listening (Simple playlist top 10-20 tracks that are big for me at the moment) Current listening + Classics (A mixture of what I am currently listening to from the current listening playlist and all the tracks that I have previously liked maybe with a 60/40 mix) Artist mix - Playing my favourite songs from my favourite artists with weighted Priority based on what I have rated the artist. Artist select - Where I can select multiple artists that I am in the mood to listen too and it shuffles through my favourite songs by them. Playlist select - Option to select multiple playlists that music will be shuffled from, with presets and ability to select priority of the playlists. Whats new - With notification, when a previously higher rated artist or favourite releases new content.
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wufufufu 8y ago
If Apple Music had as many curated playlists as Spotify, I'd be in. And almost solely for the Siri integration.
- rwc 8y ago
  Don't know how the two compare, but my experience is there are countless seemingly impossible to discover curated playlists in Apple Music. This helps: http://mixing.io/ http://mixing.io/
  - mi100hael 8y ago
    Thanks for the link. Discoverability has been my biggest complaint with Apple Music so far.
- djrogers 8y ago
  AM has a ton of curated playlists - and not just customer-created/shared ones, they have full-time staff that does this stuff. In fact, that was the biggest strength of Beats when Apple acquired it - I was a Beats customer at the time, and the curated playlists were widely regarded as their best feature.
farnulfo 8y ago
Still no lyrics ! :-(
tnolet 8y ago
Spotify conquered the living room. I recently canceled my Netflix subscription. I was an early and long time Soundcloud paid user. Also canceled that this year. Somehow Spotify keeps me hooked. The Discover Weekly is great. Listening to some Paul Simon on the Bose Bluetooth speaker thing as I type this.
wmblaettler 8y ago
FTA: Spotify operating at a $460m loss up from $220m a year ago...
greggarious 8y ago
I tried Spotify once but it was too complex for my tastes... I liked Pandora's simplicity of training a station and being able to be hands off.
- crazygringo 8y ago
  Spotify has a "radio" functionality that is very similar to Pandora's... but vastly more flexible, and with a seemingly far greater selection of tracks to draw from.
  - bhj 8y ago
    Yes, being able to create a station based on an artist, album or song is great for discovery. The stations are somewhat finite and pre-generated, I think (a few times I've seen it outright fail/come up empty with newer niche artists, like it hadn't gotten around to processing them yet) but what it does uncover has been good.
  - djrogers 8y ago
    When I was a Spotify customer, every 'radio' station I started eventually wound up playing crass, offensive, and angry shout-rap, filled with words your drunk uncle never even heard in the Navy. It was very disturbing, and highlighted one of their biggest flaws - no way to specifiy 'clean' music only. Say what you will about artistic integrity etc, but if you're listening to music with a 5 year old in the house and someone starts dropping n-bombs, c-bombs, m-f etc and you have no way to prevent that, it's a problem.
    - crazygringo 8y ago
      Wow, that is pretty shocking they don't have an option to disable that. And looking at the forums, it's been requested for years. Crazy.
simonbarker87 8y ago
Spotify are about to loose me as a customer after the better part of a decade as a paying premium subscriber for one reason: putting videos in the form of mini documentaries and puff pieces in curated playlists and not adding a way to auto skip them. I have had Spotify in the background of pretty much all aspects of my life for years but these videos discussing the inspiration of a song through to an artist designing his own sneakers breaks my concentration and is driving me mad. Spotify don’t care, an option to block these videos has been asked for, a “Community Idea” for the feature to block them has over 2,000 votes (the threshold for Spotify paying attention is 100) so I am off to Deezer. Spotify was in the category of non negotiable and alongside heating and internet as a household bill so I’m pretty bummed they now want to be YouTube but in portrait only.
- patrickbolle 8y ago
  Putting some Spotify addresses in your /etc/hosts file will block those - I haven't seen one of those videos on my desktop ever.
- ksec 8y ago
  >putting videos in the form of mini documentaries and puff pieces in curated playlists and not adding a way to auto skip them. That sounds super annoying. I haven't had any of those? Are they region specific?
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    Everything in Spotify is extremely region specific. I’ve flown from the US to Asia and lost the ability to play some songs.
    - eli 8y ago
      Surely the labels are to blame for that and Spotify is just the messenger.
      - ggg9990 8y ago
jordansmithnz 8y ago
If there are any Apple Music engineers reading this: My wife and I changed our Apple ID country/region a few weeks ago. Without warning, we both lost our entire Apple Music library. I’m a little surprised that a service with 40M subscribers doesn’t seem to consider that users might do this.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, your Apple ID is the key to your music library. How else would they tie it? Anything else used as the key would still cause you to lose your library if you changed it. Besides, was it really lost? You can switch your old ID to a new ID and keep your library. Was it lost or merely waiting for you to link it to the new ID? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389
  - joshstrange 8y ago
    They changed the country/region of an existing Apple ID, they didn't change their Apple ID.
- thesauri 8y ago
  Interesting. When I changed my Apple ID region I couldn't do it without canceling my subscription first. Just canceling wasn't enough though, as my current subscription period wouldn't end until later. I had to contact customer support to have them terminate my subscription prematurely to switch regions immediately. After switching regions I also switched back to Spotify and I haven't bothered using it since. I just went back to check in the Apple Music after reading this—surprise surprise, all my playlists and songs are gone too.
  - jordansmithnz 8y ago
    Yeah, we had to wait until our Apple Music subscription expired too. In general the country switching experience seems pretty sub par: if you had just purchased a year long app subscription (I believe some apps can offer that), your options for changing country would either be to forfeit your purchase by calling up to terminate the subscription, or wait an entire year for it to expire...
dja-io 8y ago
I love Apple Music - the ability to control my music through Siri, add songs to playlists via Siri, and I really have no problem finding what I'm looking for in the catalog or via curated playlists. Also, my stations have become pretty customized at this point, so I hardly ever have to hunt for music to listen to.
desireco42 8y ago
Spotify is great, I couldn't care less about Apple Music, but you know what is really awesome and I didn't see anyone mentioning it... YOUTUBE ! Get on Premium so you don't have to listen to ads, and it is just amazing. I paid initially so my kids would not be exposed to commercials, but I really love it and most of the time it is the most convenient because it is always there. I marked few playlist I like for commute and roadtrips to be downloaded, so it works offline.
- genericid 8y ago
  > Get on Premium so you don't have to listen to ads That's an ad blocker I haven't heard of yet.
earenndil 8y ago
I'm surprised apple music is that big! Most of my peers have iphones, yet 95% of them use spotify.
nacho2sweet 8y ago
All apple music did was ruin the interface for my own mp3's on my iPhone and push me to Spotify completely. Apple thought pop-stars and EDM chart toppers and anyone associated with BEATS has good taste and to promote the playlists. It is top40 shlock.
- dudus 8y ago
  I wonder if this is not an oversight and rights for purchased music are only for the country where they were bought. I'm not sure, but this might be working as intended, and if so I doubt this is Apple's fault.
- djrogers 8y ago
  > Apple thought pop-stars and EDM chart toppers and anyone associated with BEATS has good taste and to promote the playlists. It is top40 shlock. Apple music has over 45 million tracks, so if what you meant to say was top40Million, then yeah - you're close. If however you really think Apple Music only has top 40 type music in it, you're waaaay off base. They even have curated playlists for super-esoteric genres, and do a great job keeping those playlists updated. Yes, if you only looked at a couple of "A-List" playlists, then you'd see top 40 type stuff - but that's the point of those playlists.
whitepoplar 8y ago
The one thing that frustrates me with both Apple Music and Spotify is the lack of information density; it's really hard to use for people with large libraries or who depend on extended album metadata. It's particularly problematic for classical music.
eddieh 8y ago
The only thing keeping me with Spotify is last.fm integration.
- eddyg 8y ago
  Eavescrob[1] does a great job for me... as long as the tracks you want scrobbled are in your library... [1] http://wil.dog/eavescrob/ http://wil.dog/eavescrob/
electriclove 8y ago
Are there any numbers for Google Play Music subscribers? I've been a user of that for several years and I'm curious to see how they compare.
ibdf 8y ago
I've been using spotify for a few years now. I don't mind paying for premium given the amount of music available. Anything to skip ads. However I agree with other comments here, Spotify simply does not listen to their customers. Their community ideas are worthless as nothing there ever comes to fruition, and yet we know they are working on their Apps as they continue to receive UI updates.
habosa 8y ago
I kind of think this is more impressive for Apple Music. Spotify had a massive head start on streaming music, they basically invented the model that everyone uses now. If I worked at Apple and knew that I had half the subs of Spotify I'd be very pleased with myself.
tobyhinloopen 8y ago
Last time I tried Apple Music I found it terrible... it messed with my existing iTunes library and the damage could only be undone with restoring an old backup that was done by copying my drive. Never again I trust Apple Music application as long as it is the same app also managing my "offline" music AND my iPhone sync. Like, wtf? 3 completely different things in a single app? Why?
- nerdponx 8y ago
  it messed with my existing iTunes library and the damage could only be undone with restoring an old backup that was done by copying my drive This is classic Apple, going back to the original iPod days. It's one thing to promote "convention over configuration", but Apple's destructive "my way or the highway" approach to user interface design has never made sense to me. At least with their proprietary connectors, they're usually pushing some kind of improvement over the status quo.
- nfriedly 8y ago
  Hah, that reminds me of the first time I got an iPod - I let it spend a couple of hours loading songs from my computer, and then a day or two later I tried to add a single song from my dad's computer. When I hit "sync", it first deleted everything on the iPod, and then added the one new song >_<
- eridius 8y ago
  There was a bug that affected a tiny number of iTunes users where iCloud Music Library screwed up their iTunes library. This was all over the media briefly, and about a week later Apple put out a fix.
remir 8y ago
I guess Spotify (or Deezer) is the better option since they aren't trying to lock you in their ecosystem and they're available on every platforms, including Linux. Also, I think they nailed the UI, Spotify Connect is great (also works with chromecast audio!) and Discover weekly is amazing.
- mekkkkkk 8y ago
  What blows my mind is that you cannot connect to a Chromecast from the desktop client. Apparently there is no official desktop SDK for Google Cast (outside of Chrome). So perhaps that is what really blows my mind. Errhm.
  - yojex 8y ago
    You can actually get the desktop client connected to your Chromecast in a roundabout way. What I do is connect to my Chromecast from the Spotify app on my iPhone, and then the option will appear in the desktop client to connect. I have no idea why you have to channel through the phone first, but it works perfectly from desktop to Chromecast once it's connected.
AcerbicZero 8y ago
I've been using Google Play Music for years now, although it wasn't my only music app until the Songza acquisition in ~2014, its now become the only thing I listen to, except for the occasional XM radio in the car when I'm bored. The YouTube Red thing seemed useless at first, but I've found myself consuming more YouTube content these days, and while I wouldn't pay for it on its own, as an add on feature its pretty useful. At this point there is no way I'd go back to listening to music with ads in it, and unless google ruins it, I don't see any reason to even try to switch.
- sandyarmstrong 8y ago
  I'm confused by your last sentence. What music service can you pay for that has ads in it? Whether you pay for Spotify or Apple Music, there are no ads in your music.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Spotify had that giant Drake "promotion" a few weeks ago, which a rational person would think is an ad.
    - wilsonnb2 8y ago
      I use Spotify on multiple devices every day and didn't notice anything about Drake recently, so it must not have been that effective a promotion.
      - ClassyJacket 8y ago
        It was obnoxious and took over the whole discovery section.
  - ClassyJacket 8y ago
    This is wrong. There are ads in Spotify premium, in the UI. There was a gigantic obnoxious one a few weeks ago for an artist starting with D and ending with E.
notadoc 8y ago
Spotify is a vastly superior service in my opinion.
alkonaut 8y ago
Granted I’m from Sweden where Apple probably never even properly tried marketing to displace Spotify, but I was still surprised to learn Apple even had a streaming music service. I had heard the name Apple Music but just assumed it was a new name for buying songs on iTunes. Why is their service having such a low profile? Is it for example that it isn’t yet launched in all countries?
- alienreborn 8y ago
  No, It seems like Apple Music's initial focus is mostly on US customer base although its available in nearly double the number of countries(113) than Spotify(59). It recently crossed Spotify in no. of paying customers in US. https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/06/apple-music-more-us-subscribers-than-spotify/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/06/apple-music-more-us-subs...
fencepost 8y ago
I'm only a very casual free user of Spotify, but the thing that has stuck with me is that if I start it off playing from an album and just let it continue on from there eventually it almost always ends up in very strange places with me looking up and saying "What the H am I listening to?" I'm also surprised that out of > 100 comments there's barely a mention of Pandora - has it truly fallen so low?
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Pandora has never been good if you listen to things that aren't so popular. I tried it years ago, and eventually got frustrated at their sheer lack of variety. It also wasn't available for some folks I knew. I considered re-checking them to see if there was improvement. But alas, I had switched countries and it simply wasn't available. Pandora was never a robust enough service, so it is unsurprising that no one mentions it.
quxbar 8y ago
Since there's so much Spotify hate in here, I'd just like to say, the service is so good it has changed my life. Specifically, my music library has grown in a thousand new directions because I find it so incredibly easy to discover new music. I think I would have stagnated long ago if it wasn't for Spotify's features. I'm 6 years into my subscription and it just keeps offering me more and more value. Maybe Apple Music is equally good? I haven't felt any need to switch.

194 points by myroon5 8y ago

I've tried Apple Music twice, both on a free one-month trial offer. Both times I found the product to be so frustrating that I stopped using it within the first day. To me, Spotify is the clear winner in streaming subscription services with a great UX and by doing a decent job of finding new interesting music. I'd rank Google Play second, followed by Amazon Music. Apple Music is the only one I truly dislike.

digikata 8y ago
I still feel like Pandora does the best job of finding similar new music to an initial set of tracks, but other than that I like most aspects of spotify better.
- pro_zac 8y ago
  I stumbled across a great Spotify feature the other day. If you right click on a playlist, there is an option called "Create similar playlist". I did this with a playlist I had created from a bunch of random tracks. It basically went through track by track and found similar songs. It was a bit hit or miss on some songs, but a neat feature. I think Spotify does a great job because they give you so many options for finding new music, but sometimes you have to dig into the UI to find them.
  - digikata 8y ago
    It's very subjective, but I've been comparing the "create a station" from a spotify playlist to Pandora for a while, and just find more music that I both like and have never heard of from Pandora than spotify. Then I generally add the tracks I like best to a spotify playlist. On the other hand, Pandora, it feels like has recently been making picks that somewhat mush your likes and seeds from all your stations together.
  - dom96 8y ago
    > I think Spotify does a great job because they give you so many options for finding new music, but sometimes you have to dig into the UI to find them. While this is true it's ridiculous how often, at least for me, Spotify creates a playlist with songs that I've listened to hundreds of times already. At least 70% of my discovery weekly playlist is a song I've already heard. If I create a "Similar playlist" it stuffs it with songs that I listen to regularly. It's deeply disappointing.
    - stubish 8y ago
      Discovery playlists filled with songs I've already 'liked' or added to my library. Discovery playlists with duplicates. And in other playlists, having to 'do not play' songs I don't actually mind because they are generally popular and the algorithm thinks I want to hear it three times a day, every day. A great way to kill your love of a song. While I love the concept of Spotify, I'm certainly not going to pay for it and eagerly waiting for competitors to be available in my regions.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Spotify is great if I want to hear a specific song, but I've managed to curate Pandora over many years that I almost never hit the down thumb. I haven't tried the Spotify equivalent. But SoundHound and Spotify is a pretty great experience.
- sixothree 8y ago
  Agreed. With Spotify I find the songs are far too similar to be enjoyable.
  - ericd 8y ago
    That's surprising, my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist is usually super eclectic. I guess you're talking about the Radio, though?
- cheesedoodle 8y ago
  It should be a real ease to create good music discovery/curation for spotify since they acquired the echonest. It it really simple to add similar music to what you are currently listening to, too a rolling playlist. Unfortunately, the way they fo it feels like promotion instead of individual curation. It was easy when I created trushuffle some 8 yrs ago (before Spotify aquired echonest) and it should be even easier for a multi billion company.
- Najda 8y ago
  I'm the other way, I can't stand Pandora. I suppose it's probably good for finding the popular songs of the genre, but I feel it always ends up playing the same small set of songs pretty quickly regardless of what I put in. Spotify gives me much more variety and of people that would be much harder to discover myself.
jasonlotito 8y ago
I had the same experience with Apple Music. Apple should know what music I enjoy listening to. Spotify rarely disappoints. Apple Music disappointed right out the gate. This completely ignores the confusing nature of Apple Music. Couple that with no ability to import playlists from Spotify, I don't see the benefit.
- djrogers 8y ago
  I had the exact opposite experience - when I used Spotify, I never got good music recommendations, and every 'radio' station I created eventually devolved into horrible music of a genre that I actively dislike. Apple usic on the other hand does a much better job for me of playing music that I like, and the human-curated playlists are excellent.
- chewz 8y ago
  I had them all and in different countries. Apple Music had lost me forever when day after day for a month they has been suggesting Heavy Metal albums and playlists to me - genre that I do not listen too which is obvious based on my music library and habits. Spotify is getting on my nerves due to caned music in curated playlists. But I have free subscription as part of family package. I like Google Music best and miss Rdio.
danieldk 8y ago
I love Apple music. For me the distinguishing feature is Beats radio. Even though I don't listen live, I regularly listen to various programs to find new music. Since the music is picked and narrated by various DJs (Mike D of the Beastie Boys, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, etc.), it has a far less algorithmic feeling and there are fun stories in between, etc. Also, the different programs serve far more diverse audiences than mainstream radio.
- themagician 8y ago
  Same. The UX doesn't matter so much to me because I spend so little time using it. I've never cared about the social features in any music service. I either want to listen to something specific that I search for and play, or just play Beats 1 or another radio station.
  - canuckintime 8y ago
    Beats1 is free to listen to though.
    - danieldk 8y ago
      True, but AFAIR only for live Beats Radio. I think to play shows later you need a subscription.
mikec3010 8y ago
I've never tried spotify but I'm very happy with Google Play. It's worth the money and it has led me to discover many artists and genres that I didn't know I liked.
- elialbert 8y ago
  just switched from play to spotify a couple months ago, despite having hours of work to get things set up correctly. gotta say - so happy I did. killer app tho was spotify's remote control functionality.
Moto7451 8y ago
Spotify does a great job generally but they lost me as a customer because they keep testing removing the Discovery functionality. I don't understand why that's a section they want to kill, but so be it. I canceled in 2016 after a year of being annoyed by the on again-off again presence of the Discovery section. It looks like the same game is still going on. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-recommendations-gone/td-p/1623221 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-re... https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_section_gone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_se... I tried Google, Amazon, and Apple's offerings and went with Apple Music since I'm a Mac, iPhone, Apple TV user. Couldn't be happier. Should Apple remove their discovery section I'll find a different provider. Rinse, repeat. I've found a lot of awesome bands that way without any effort on my part.
- ljm 8y ago
  I never honestly noticed the difference here, but now you point it out... it looks like they're pushing advertising no matter what kind of user you are. What made me notice that is how subtle the payola is. I follow my best friend's Discover Weekly playlist too because we share similar tastes, and every now and then I would spot that we get the exact same songs (typically some new release but not always from a big band), at the exact same position in each of our playlists. I still enjoy Spotify greatly, but it's a shame that they're trading serendipity for marketing. The Release Radar thing is practically useless.
  - johncalvinyoung 8y ago
    My interpretation of a similar scenario (my girlfriend and I both followed & listened to each other's Discover Weekly) was that Spotify noticed that traffic and started assuming our tastes were converging (they were).
- mekkkkkk 8y ago
  This also drives me crazy. Maybe not exactly the discovery feature, but how flimsy the UX feels. Features disappear and reappear all the time. I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. A/B might be valuable, but to me it should be conservative.
kalleboo 8y ago
I already had iTunes Match, and then Apple Music launched first in my country, I tried Spotify but when they finally launched but their catalog was worse, and syncing your existing library of music never worked well (network error? let's delete everything!). Apple Music's killer features for me are the iOS integration and cloud sync+playback of your existing library of MP3s and iTunes purchases. Also as bad as the iTunes UI has gotten, my experience with the Spotify app was even worse.
- krrrh 8y ago
  Apple Music seems to be the only service that handles uploaded music and syncing well, integrating uploads seamlessly into your library. I think it has an edge with anyone who downloads albums that are too obscure to get licensed to the streaming service or unofficial releases. It probably partly accounts for the popularity of Apple Music with younger hip hop heads who need to integrate mixtapes in their libraries.
  - timdierks 8y ago
    Google Play Music has a cleanly integrated locker, which I love, loads of my favorite music isn't available from services. Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on anything related to music.
moolcool 8y ago
Spotify is the best there is today, Rdio is the best there ever was
ksec 8y ago
>Apple Music is the only one I truly dislike The same here, being half an Apple Fans I would have put up with minor annoyance, in the hope they will improve one day. But no, it was another iTunes. They may succeed in US or EU, but I would bet $100 they won't succeed in Asia + Japan Region.
- ntsplnkv2 8y ago
  I'm an Apple Music user. On my iPhone, it's very good. performs well, features that weren't there 3 months ago have been added (like when I select the album/artist on the now playing it asks if I want to go to that album or the artist, for example.) Apple Music on the desktop has been functional but like iTunes (I'm on Windows) it's not quite as fluid. Having said that, trying Spotify after using Apple Music has been awful. The UI to me is very clunky. It's slow. And I find its classical music collection (a big piece for me) is woefully lacking.
ams6110 8y ago
Is Google Play Music anything more than the audio from YouTube uploads? Music uploads on YouTube can have wildly variable audio quality.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Is Google Play Music anything more than the audio from YouTube uploads? Yes, Google Play Music is a regular “official digital content from music publishers” streaming service. The All Access bundles commercial-free YouTube access and if the same song has an official video on YouTube you can switch to it instead of the audio directly from the GPM app, but the catalogs are separate.

mk89 8y ago

There is also deezer.com. I don't know if the amount of tracks is the same, however, the service is fantastic. The app is super easy to use, and the Flow they provide (a sort of randomized playlist based on your likes) is great.

ChildOfChaos 8y ago
I like Deezer, I am an Apple music subscriber (nothing special about Apple music but the devices I listen to are Apple and I don't see any reason to switch to Spotify, it doesn't seem to offer good at all), but I do miss the Flow feature from Deezer, I really liked this. I would often listen to it. However my ideal setup, which nobody yet offers is to have all my favourite songs (somewhat like Deezers flow) where I can like them and then have a playlist of all my favourites, but mixed in with what I am currently listening too, like priority playlists. So it plays more of what I am currently listening to (10-20 songs in a separate playlist) mixed in with a bigger selection of my classic song playlist (thousands of songs). The currently listening to playlist would get a higher priority, say 60% of the songs would be from here and since there are less songs I would hear them more often. Kinda like a personal radio station, that's kinda how radio stations do it, they have a, b,c playlists with priorities. p.s the biggest problem I had with Deezer is they took too long to add new releases, an artist would announce something and it would be on spotify or apple music, but not yet deeper, being very much into music and certain artists, this was not acceptable.
canuckintime 8y ago
Deezer also aportions each individual's payments directly to the artists they listen (unlike Apple Music, Spotify et al who distribute in aggregate to the music labels)

djb_hackernews 8y ago

I'm a paying customer but can anyone tell me why shuffle play is the default? If i'm listening to an album I typically want to listen to it from start to finish and the extra clicks to do that are annoying. But there must be a reason it is designed like that?

spicyj 8y ago
Do you mean the big green button? You can usually click the first track to start playing in order.
test1235 8y ago
That's funny - I was thinking today that I really like this feature, but I do think it's an odd default. I have massive playlists of all random songs, so I like that I can hit the button when I'm on the move to play a random selection of my preselected music.
gervase 8y ago
> why shuffle play is the default I expect it's because A/B testing showed that most users preferred that behavior. This makes sense from their radio/playlist-centric model, which seems to de-emphasize single album listening.

jqbx_jason 8y ago

This is great news IMO. Spotify's platform is leagues better than apple music. Also I know they don't have the best track record w/ third party apps but Spotify also offers the most comprehensive API when compared to the other major streaming services. This lets people like me make apps[1] which (I think) attract more subscribers and create a stronger network. That being said I don't know if I would run out and buy the stock... there's still serious competition and the music labels run their business like the mob. [1]https://www.jqbx.fm https://www.jqbx.fm

scarface74 8y ago
How is this such “great news”? Spotify is having a Dropbox issue - in the grand scheme of things, their only reason for existing is just a tiny line item to their major competitors - Apple, Google, and Amazon. They are a feature not a product. Revenue means nothing without profit. http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/spotify-ipo-profit/ http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/spotify-ipo-profit/ bit bullied. Despite steadily increasing paid subscribers (75 million and counting) and revenue (about $1.36 billion last quarter), Spotify continues to bleed. The $49 million or so that it lost in the first three months of 2018 wasn’t because the company can’t keep a tight rein on its own spending, but because it can’t keep a rein on its suppliers. Yes, that’s right: As Spotify grows, so do its royalty payouts to record labels and other music providers. And those marginal costs are an anchor on the Stockholm company’s profit potential
- jqbx_jason 8y ago
  Okay sure the full picture isn't all sunshine (I didn't say I'd buy the stock) but it's not bad news either. With the lions share of the streaming market and low churn rate I would expect they can negotiate some better deals (or possibly get enough of an edge to raise prices).
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Why would the music industry negotiate? If Spotify tries to play hardball and doesn’t agree with the terms of one of the three major record labels, they lose access to the music. Neither Apple, Google, nor Amazon really care if their music streaming service is profitable or barely break even, they are using music streaming to sell other higher margin products. Apple is still growing faster than Spotify and YouTube is a bigger brand. If they try to raise prices - Apple Music and the YouTube offering starts to look a lot more attractive - it’s hard to compete against the default.

drdaeman 8y ago

Good for them. After some of my favorites were just gone (because license was not renewed or something like that - no clue) I'd rather stick with having files on my devices, like in old good days.

fullshark 8y ago

How do they get profitable? Won't the big three music publishers just squeeze their margins cause they can?

notyourwork 8y ago
My understanding is they have started trying to become publisher as well similar to what Netflix is doing. Perhaps remove the middle man and have content which can be exclusive on Spotify or content they can license to others.
- adventured 8y ago
  That's an interesting problem, because Netflix is unable to achieve any sense of real profitability in their model either. Netflix is pretending to be profitable, while they bury themselves massively in debt to pay for content (ie they can't properly fund business expansion out of operations after 20 years). A particularly inherently unsustainable model when you've got single digit margins. Here's the Netflix balance sheet the last four years: 2014: -$914m; 2015: -$2.08b; 2016: -$4.6b; 2017: -$6.7b; 1Q18: -$7.3b They took on on roughly $5.7b in new debt in three years, at an accelerating clip, versus combined earnings of $850m. While they might be able to sustain that for some time, it's a dead-end model: eventually the whole stacking scheme gives out, subscriber growth tails off (plausibly beginning now), and you've got a mountain of debt that costs you ever larger sums of interest and limits your ability to maneuver. Right now their annual interest costs are eating the equivalent of a full quarter of their profits. They'll more than double their debt in the next few years by necessity to keep up the content spending, and their interest costs will ballon to a billion dollars per year.
  - macspoofing 8y ago
    Netflix needs to become HBO, i.e. a content creator. And it's clear as day they are trying to be that. It's smart and they need to do that to survive, to the point where they are willing to debt-finance this. If they don't do that, publishers will extract every little bit of profitability from them.

hobofan 8y ago

I'm pretty surprised of the high number of Apple Music subscribers. As hinted at the end of the article, geographic, but also age distribution would be interesting to see. Anecdotally in my mid 20 central European bubble, ~95% of my peers use Spotify, with the rest using Google Play Music (including me). I don't know a single person using Apple Music, and I wasn't even aware that it existed as a paid service (though I think I've heard of it a few years ago).

jonknee 8y ago
> I'm pretty surprised of the high number of Apple Music subscribers. As hinted at the end of the article, geographic, but also age distribution would be interesting to see. Just shows the power of controlling the platform.
cam3ham 8y ago
This. Spotify should be worried about the growth of Apple music - which is only available on iPhone's but already have 50% of the subscribers? Then you account for the other big platform which is Google Music... I don't see a play for spotify here.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Spotify should be worried about the growth of Apple music - which is only available on iPhone's Say what now? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  Apple Music is on Android. I heard it isn’t a great experience but it’s been there for a while.
acomjean 8y ago
> and I wasn't even aware that it existed as a paid service If you have an iPhone and tried to use the music app to play your songs, you should be well aware that apple music exists. One of the more blatant up sells on ios. I use iTunes-match and the built in music on ios ("upload" and stream all your music) and eventually figured out you can tone down the apple music reminders by turning of settings->music->show_apple_music

ChildOfChaos 8y ago

I use Apple music, simply because my devices are apple and it links with them kinda okay. There is no difference between these services really, they are all trying to have various playlists, recommendation engines etc and all are absolutely awful. As an avid music listener, what I want is more control over my music, not for someone else to do that for me. I want to be able to like the songs by my favourite artist, so when i browse for them, I see all my favourite songs, not those selected by someone else or an algorithm (ps this is fine for a new artist, in which case it would be nice to see other peoples likes so i can listen to a few to decide if i like the artist) I want a service and an app that gives me more control over the music that I like. I want to have a giant playlist of all the songs that I have liked and be able to then mix this in with a "currently listening" playlist, so I have my own personal radio station of tracks (personal radio station features on these services do not work this way and suck) I'd like perhaps to be able to weight (rate) artists as well as my favourite songs and have different options to shuffle be presented such as: My current listening (Simple playlist top 10-20 tracks that are big for me at the moment) Current listening + Classics (A mixture of what I am currently listening to from the current listening playlist and all the tracks that I have previously liked maybe with a 60/40 mix) Artist mix - Playing my favourite songs from my favourite artists with weighted Priority based on what I have rated the artist. Artist select - Where I can select multiple artists that I am in the mood to listen too and it shuffles through my favourite songs by them. Playlist select - Option to select multiple playlists that music will be shuffled from, with presets and ability to select priority of the playlists. Whats new - With notification, when a previously higher rated artist or favourite releases new content.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

wufufufu 8y ago

If Apple Music had as many curated playlists as Spotify, I'd be in. And almost solely for the Siri integration.

rwc 8y ago
Don't know how the two compare, but my experience is there are countless seemingly impossible to discover curated playlists in Apple Music. This helps: http://mixing.io/ http://mixing.io/
- mi100hael 8y ago
  Thanks for the link. Discoverability has been my biggest complaint with Apple Music so far.
djrogers 8y ago
AM has a ton of curated playlists - and not just customer-created/shared ones, they have full-time staff that does this stuff. In fact, that was the biggest strength of Beats when Apple acquired it - I was a Beats customer at the time, and the curated playlists were widely regarded as their best feature.

farnulfo 8y ago

Still no lyrics ! :-(

tnolet 8y ago

Spotify conquered the living room. I recently canceled my Netflix subscription. I was an early and long time Soundcloud paid user. Also canceled that this year. Somehow Spotify keeps me hooked. The Discover Weekly is great. Listening to some Paul Simon on the Bose Bluetooth speaker thing as I type this.

wmblaettler 8y ago

FTA: Spotify operating at a $460m loss up from $220m a year ago...

greggarious 8y ago

I tried Spotify once but it was too complex for my tastes... I liked Pandora's simplicity of training a station and being able to be hands off.

crazygringo 8y ago
Spotify has a "radio" functionality that is very similar to Pandora's... but vastly more flexible, and with a seemingly far greater selection of tracks to draw from.
- bhj 8y ago
  Yes, being able to create a station based on an artist, album or song is great for discovery. The stations are somewhat finite and pre-generated, I think (a few times I've seen it outright fail/come up empty with newer niche artists, like it hadn't gotten around to processing them yet) but what it does uncover has been good.
- djrogers 8y ago
  When I was a Spotify customer, every 'radio' station I started eventually wound up playing crass, offensive, and angry shout-rap, filled with words your drunk uncle never even heard in the Navy. It was very disturbing, and highlighted one of their biggest flaws - no way to specifiy 'clean' music only. Say what you will about artistic integrity etc, but if you're listening to music with a 5 year old in the house and someone starts dropping n-bombs, c-bombs, m-f etc and you have no way to prevent that, it's a problem.
  - crazygringo 8y ago
    Wow, that is pretty shocking they don't have an option to disable that. And looking at the forums, it's been requested for years. Crazy.

simonbarker87 8y ago

Spotify are about to loose me as a customer after the better part of a decade as a paying premium subscriber for one reason: putting videos in the form of mini documentaries and puff pieces in curated playlists and not adding a way to auto skip them. I have had Spotify in the background of pretty much all aspects of my life for years but these videos discussing the inspiration of a song through to an artist designing his own sneakers breaks my concentration and is driving me mad. Spotify don’t care, an option to block these videos has been asked for, a “Community Idea” for the feature to block them has over 2,000 votes (the threshold for Spotify paying attention is 100) so I am off to Deezer. Spotify was in the category of non negotiable and alongside heating and internet as a household bill so I’m pretty bummed they now want to be YouTube but in portrait only.

patrickbolle 8y ago
Putting some Spotify addresses in your /etc/hosts file will block those - I haven't seen one of those videos on my desktop ever.
ksec 8y ago
>putting videos in the form of mini documentaries and puff pieces in curated playlists and not adding a way to auto skip them. That sounds super annoying. I haven't had any of those? Are they region specific?
- ggg9990 8y ago
  Everything in Spotify is extremely region specific. I’ve flown from the US to Asia and lost the ability to play some songs.
  - eli 8y ago
    Surely the labels are to blame for that and Spotify is just the messenger.
    - ggg9990 8y ago

jordansmithnz 8y ago

If there are any Apple Music engineers reading this: My wife and I changed our Apple ID country/region a few weeks ago. Without warning, we both lost our entire Apple Music library. I’m a little surprised that a service with 40M subscribers doesn’t seem to consider that users might do this.

coldtea 8y ago
Well, your Apple ID is the key to your music library. How else would they tie it? Anything else used as the key would still cause you to lose your library if you changed it. Besides, was it really lost? You can switch your old ID to a new ID and keep your library. Was it lost or merely waiting for you to link it to the new ID? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389
- joshstrange 8y ago
  They changed the country/region of an existing Apple ID, they didn't change their Apple ID.
thesauri 8y ago
Interesting. When I changed my Apple ID region I couldn't do it without canceling my subscription first. Just canceling wasn't enough though, as my current subscription period wouldn't end until later. I had to contact customer support to have them terminate my subscription prematurely to switch regions immediately. After switching regions I also switched back to Spotify and I haven't bothered using it since. I just went back to check in the Apple Music after reading this—surprise surprise, all my playlists and songs are gone too.
- jordansmithnz 8y ago
  Yeah, we had to wait until our Apple Music subscription expired too. In general the country switching experience seems pretty sub par: if you had just purchased a year long app subscription (I believe some apps can offer that), your options for changing country would either be to forfeit your purchase by calling up to terminate the subscription, or wait an entire year for it to expire...

dja-io 8y ago

I love Apple Music - the ability to control my music through Siri, add songs to playlists via Siri, and I really have no problem finding what I'm looking for in the catalog or via curated playlists. Also, my stations have become pretty customized at this point, so I hardly ever have to hunt for music to listen to.

desireco42 8y ago

Spotify is great, I couldn't care less about Apple Music, but you know what is really awesome and I didn't see anyone mentioning it... YOUTUBE ! Get on Premium so you don't have to listen to ads, and it is just amazing. I paid initially so my kids would not be exposed to commercials, but I really love it and most of the time it is the most convenient because it is always there. I marked few playlist I like for commute and roadtrips to be downloaded, so it works offline.

genericid 8y ago
> Get on Premium so you don't have to listen to ads That's an ad blocker I haven't heard of yet.

earenndil 8y ago

I'm surprised apple music is that big! Most of my peers have iphones, yet 95% of them use spotify.

nacho2sweet 8y ago

All apple music did was ruin the interface for my own mp3's on my iPhone and push me to Spotify completely. Apple thought pop-stars and EDM chart toppers and anyone associated with BEATS has good taste and to promote the playlists. It is top40 shlock.

dudus 8y ago
I wonder if this is not an oversight and rights for purchased music are only for the country where they were bought. I'm not sure, but this might be working as intended, and if so I doubt this is Apple's fault.
djrogers 8y ago
> Apple thought pop-stars and EDM chart toppers and anyone associated with BEATS has good taste and to promote the playlists. It is top40 shlock. Apple music has over 45 million tracks, so if what you meant to say was top40Million, then yeah - you're close. If however you really think Apple Music only has top 40 type music in it, you're waaaay off base. They even have curated playlists for super-esoteric genres, and do a great job keeping those playlists updated. Yes, if you only looked at a couple of "A-List" playlists, then you'd see top 40 type stuff - but that's the point of those playlists.

whitepoplar 8y ago

The one thing that frustrates me with both Apple Music and Spotify is the lack of information density; it's really hard to use for people with large libraries or who depend on extended album metadata. It's particularly problematic for classical music.

eddieh 8y ago

The only thing keeping me with Spotify is last.fm integration.

eddyg 8y ago
Eavescrob[1] does a great job for me... as long as the tracks you want scrobbled are in your library... [1] http://wil.dog/eavescrob/ http://wil.dog/eavescrob/

electriclove 8y ago

Are there any numbers for Google Play Music subscribers? I've been a user of that for several years and I'm curious to see how they compare.

ibdf 8y ago

I've been using spotify for a few years now. I don't mind paying for premium given the amount of music available. Anything to skip ads. However I agree with other comments here, Spotify simply does not listen to their customers. Their community ideas are worthless as nothing there ever comes to fruition, and yet we know they are working on their Apps as they continue to receive UI updates.

habosa 8y ago

I kind of think this is more impressive for Apple Music. Spotify had a massive head start on streaming music, they basically invented the model that everyone uses now. If I worked at Apple and knew that I had half the subs of Spotify I'd be very pleased with myself.

tobyhinloopen 8y ago

Last time I tried Apple Music I found it terrible... it messed with my existing iTunes library and the damage could only be undone with restoring an old backup that was done by copying my drive. Never again I trust Apple Music application as long as it is the same app also managing my "offline" music AND my iPhone sync. Like, wtf? 3 completely different things in a single app? Why?

nerdponx 8y ago
it messed with my existing iTunes library and the damage could only be undone with restoring an old backup that was done by copying my drive This is classic Apple, going back to the original iPod days. It's one thing to promote "convention over configuration", but Apple's destructive "my way or the highway" approach to user interface design has never made sense to me. At least with their proprietary connectors, they're usually pushing some kind of improvement over the status quo.
nfriedly 8y ago
Hah, that reminds me of the first time I got an iPod - I let it spend a couple of hours loading songs from my computer, and then a day or two later I tried to add a single song from my dad's computer. When I hit "sync", it first deleted everything on the iPod, and then added the one new song >_<
eridius 8y ago
There was a bug that affected a tiny number of iTunes users where iCloud Music Library screwed up their iTunes library. This was all over the media briefly, and about a week later Apple put out a fix.

remir 8y ago

I guess Spotify (or Deezer) is the better option since they aren't trying to lock you in their ecosystem and they're available on every platforms, including Linux. Also, I think they nailed the UI, Spotify Connect is great (also works with chromecast audio!) and Discover weekly is amazing.

mekkkkkk 8y ago
What blows my mind is that you cannot connect to a Chromecast from the desktop client. Apparently there is no official desktop SDK for Google Cast (outside of Chrome). So perhaps that is what really blows my mind. Errhm.
- yojex 8y ago
  You can actually get the desktop client connected to your Chromecast in a roundabout way. What I do is connect to my Chromecast from the Spotify app on my iPhone, and then the option will appear in the desktop client to connect. I have no idea why you have to channel through the phone first, but it works perfectly from desktop to Chromecast once it's connected.

AcerbicZero 8y ago

I've been using Google Play Music for years now, although it wasn't my only music app until the Songza acquisition in ~2014, its now become the only thing I listen to, except for the occasional XM radio in the car when I'm bored. The YouTube Red thing seemed useless at first, but I've found myself consuming more YouTube content these days, and while I wouldn't pay for it on its own, as an add on feature its pretty useful. At this point there is no way I'd go back to listening to music with ads in it, and unless google ruins it, I don't see any reason to even try to switch.

sandyarmstrong 8y ago
I'm confused by your last sentence. What music service can you pay for that has ads in it? Whether you pay for Spotify or Apple Music, there are no ads in your music.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  Spotify had that giant Drake "promotion" a few weeks ago, which a rational person would think is an ad.
  - wilsonnb2 8y ago
    I use Spotify on multiple devices every day and didn't notice anything about Drake recently, so it must not have been that effective a promotion.
    - ClassyJacket 8y ago
      It was obnoxious and took over the whole discovery section.
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  This is wrong. There are ads in Spotify premium, in the UI. There was a gigantic obnoxious one a few weeks ago for an artist starting with D and ending with E.

notadoc 8y ago

Spotify is a vastly superior service in my opinion.

alkonaut 8y ago

Granted I’m from Sweden where Apple probably never even properly tried marketing to displace Spotify, but I was still surprised to learn Apple even had a streaming music service. I had heard the name Apple Music but just assumed it was a new name for buying songs on iTunes. Why is their service having such a low profile? Is it for example that it isn’t yet launched in all countries?

alienreborn 8y ago
No, It seems like Apple Music's initial focus is mostly on US customer base although its available in nearly double the number of countries(113) than Spotify(59). It recently crossed Spotify in no. of paying customers in US. https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/06/apple-music-more-us-subscribers-than-spotify/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/07/06/apple-music-more-us-subs...

fencepost 8y ago

I'm only a very casual free user of Spotify, but the thing that has stuck with me is that if I start it off playing from an album and just let it continue on from there eventually it almost always ends up in very strange places with me looking up and saying "What the H am I listening to?" I'm also surprised that out of > 100 comments there's barely a mention of Pandora - has it truly fallen so low?

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
Pandora has never been good if you listen to things that aren't so popular. I tried it years ago, and eventually got frustrated at their sheer lack of variety. It also wasn't available for some folks I knew. I considered re-checking them to see if there was improvement. But alas, I had switched countries and it simply wasn't available. Pandora was never a robust enough service, so it is unsurprising that no one mentions it.

quxbar 8y ago

Since there's so much Spotify hate in here, I'd just like to say, the service is so good it has changed my life. Specifically, my music library has grown in a thousand new directions because I find it so incredibly easy to discover new music. I think I would have stagnated long ago if it wasn't for Spotify's features. I'm 6 years into my subscription and it just keeps offering me more and more value. Maybe Apple Music is equally good? I haven't felt any need to switch.