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Spotify is a company that feels like they want to be a "big tech company" when in reality they do not need to. All they need to do is provide a great service wi

Spotify is a company that feels like they want to be a "big tech company" when in reality they do not need to. All they need to do is provide a great service with as much music as possible.

throwaway3699 6y ago
They clearly value the free+recommendations+ads stack to drive their business more than adding basic features.
horseRad 6y ago
I for one love discover weekly and hope they will continue working on improving it. I consider it a core feature :)
- staticelf 6y ago
  Sure, that is a great feature but that doesn't really need that much data besides listen data that they need to save anyway (I am assuming).
- Hacman123 6y ago
  Agree 100%. I always find great songs there. A cool feature to discover new music. But I guess we are not that sophisticated. Predicting which songs I'm gonna like is probably noit that difficult.
onion2k 6y ago
All they need to do is provide a great service with as much music as possible. I wonder if adding 'as much music as possible' would drive any growth without the AI music discovery stuff. There has to be a diminishing return to adding new songs - if Spotify adds an artist that only a few thousand people have heard of then that's only going attract a few thousand new customers at most. No one else is going to listen to that artist unless Spotify recommends the songs to people who might like them.
danielscrubs 6y ago
Wouldn’t surprise me if they shuffle more data than Twitter. Is it because it’s not a Silicon Valley darling that it gets all the snide remarks?
bjohnson225 6y ago
I'm not sure I get the point in relation to the article. They have a huge amount of data, so they need to handle it in a "big tech" way & it's not like they're doing this stuff just because they can. The Spotify end of year wrap is amazing marketing for them that people absolutely love and share widely.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
That's true – it's kind of like how Google keep pretending to be a big tech company when all they really need to do it provide a great service with as many search results as possible.
sbarre 6y ago
At some point they need to try to differentiate themselves from Amazon or Apple, who could easily out-spend them on licensing music catalogues. I think Spotify's "moat" is largely the analysis they've done on all the listening data they have, and their ability to provide that to the music industry as a product. They share rudimentary summaries with customers via stuff like Wrapped but I have to imagine they have much more detailed and robust data products for the industry... If they're just a giant Dropbox for MP3s with a music player sitting on top, they don't really stand a chance...
RHSman2 6y ago
They don’t add music. Artists do. And they get paid fuck all by Spotify.

Spotify is a company that feels like they want to be a "big tech company" when in reality they do not need to. All they need to do is provide a great service with as much music as possible.

throwaway3699 6y ago

They clearly value the free+recommendations+ads stack to drive their business more than adding basic features.

horseRad 6y ago

I for one love discover weekly and hope they will continue working on improving it. I consider it a core feature :)

staticelf 6y ago
Sure, that is a great feature but that doesn't really need that much data besides listen data that they need to save anyway (I am assuming).
Hacman123 6y ago
Agree 100%. I always find great songs there. A cool feature to discover new music. But I guess we are not that sophisticated. Predicting which songs I'm gonna like is probably noit that difficult.

onion2k 6y ago

All they need to do is provide a great service with as much music as possible. I wonder if adding 'as much music as possible' would drive any growth without the AI music discovery stuff. There has to be a diminishing return to adding new songs - if Spotify adds an artist that only a few thousand people have heard of then that's only going attract a few thousand new customers at most. No one else is going to listen to that artist unless Spotify recommends the songs to people who might like them.

danielscrubs 6y ago

Wouldn’t surprise me if they shuffle more data than Twitter. Is it because it’s not a Silicon Valley darling that it gets all the snide remarks?

bjohnson225 6y ago

I'm not sure I get the point in relation to the article. They have a huge amount of data, so they need to handle it in a "big tech" way & it's not like they're doing this stuff just because they can. The Spotify end of year wrap is amazing marketing for them that people absolutely love and share widely.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

That's true – it's kind of like how Google keep pretending to be a big tech company when all they really need to do it provide a great service with as many search results as possible.

sbarre 6y ago

At some point they need to try to differentiate themselves from Amazon or Apple, who could easily out-spend them on licensing music catalogues. I think Spotify's "moat" is largely the analysis they've done on all the listening data they have, and their ability to provide that to the music industry as a product. They share rudimentary summaries with customers via stuff like Wrapped but I have to imagine they have much more detailed and robust data products for the industry... If they're just a giant Dropbox for MP3s with a music player sitting on top, they don't really stand a chance...

RHSman2 6y ago

They don’t add music. Artists do. And they get paid fuck all by Spotify.