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Why Spotify Will Kill iTunes

11 points by jjhageman 15y ago

wccrawford 15y ago
Hogwash. iTunes isn't just a place to listen to music. It's a place to buy it, retrieve it, find it, and more. It has better selection and is backed by a bigger company, with more weight to throw around when record companies try to get pushy.
shoota 15y ago
If that is the case why hasn't rhapsody which has been around for a long period of time already killed iTunes?
bentruyman 15y ago
Sort of off-topic, but does anyone know why the hype around Spotify is so great? A few years ago, I started using Napster's streaming service. Then moved to Rhapsody for a slightly better interface/collection and mobile offline caching. Then to MOG, and eventually Rdio. Now Spotify comes out, and while I also moved to it, about 30 of my coworkers/friends are now on it using it as their first streaming service. Maybe the invite-only access and alleged legal troubles helped in their favor? I don't get it.
- programminggeek 15y ago
  Spotify has slowly been building buzz in Europe for a long time and they also did a huge PR push all at once. Also, they are artificially limiting supply of invites to make more people sign up for the paid service. Scarcity creates value. People want what they can't have. The other thing is unlike Mog or Rdio, since Spotify came to the US after years of development, it already has loads of polish and solid mobile apps. AKA, their v1 product is actually more of a v2 or v3, so when people use it, it feels more impressive.
programminggeek 15y ago
iTunes isn't going anywhere because it's tied to iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, Mac and it's where you buy Music, Videos, Books, Apps, Audiobooks, Podcasts, and um....yeah. Also, I love music and Spotify is pretty great, but so was Mog, Pandora, Napster, Zune, and many other music services, but none of them have dented iTunes, if anything quite the opposite. Spotify is great relatively cheap way to sample lots of music you may or may not like, but if I want to keep a song or album, I'm going to buy it on iTunes or Amazon MP3 so I have a backup copy of that music "forever". Spotify is likely a bigger competitor to Pandora and traditional radio than it is to buying music in general. People like owning things more than they like renting things. Hoarding is human nature.
- Hyena 15y ago
  That's probably why Spotify looks almost precisely like iTunes and syncs to un-networked mobile devices.
kylec 15y ago
I think his argument is pretty weak. Sure, for tech-savvy people that buy a lot of music, going with the flat pricing of Spotify makes sense, as does the convenience of not having to manage and sync your music files between devices. However, a very large number of people spend less than $10/month on music, or don't have the desire to completely switch over to a new music service. There's also the hesitation to spend the effort switching to the new service that will disappear once you stop paying them whatever they demand. Netflix has recently demonstrated that the pricing for media streaming has the ability to change rapidly and sharply, leaving you no recourse other than to either pay or lose access to the music and your playlists.
joejohnson 15y ago
I don't know if I believe that Spotify will really be able to kill iTunes, but perhaps it will force iTunes to lower their prices or to offer streaming subscriptions?
tzs 15y ago
No Beatles. No Bob Dylan. No Pink Floyd. I'm certainly enjoying Spotify, but it has some big gaps that need to be closed.
- pinko 15y ago
  Wow, really? MOG has Dylan and Floyd (but obviously no Beatles). I assumed their catalogs (and anyone's other than Apple's) would be pretty similar. What explains the very different licensing these different streaming music apps are able to get? Is it just their negotiating (in)ability?
- Hyena 15y ago
  Yeah, this is the only real problem: they lack some artists with extremely valuable back catalogs.
roc 15y ago
iTunes is used, overwhelmingly, to deliver music to mobile devices. And streaming is facing a number of serious barriers for that kind of mobile use: battery drain, network coverage, bandwidth caps and the high price of data plans (with sufficient caps). So, almost regardless of individual quality, streaming services are not replacing iTunes any time soon. Almost certainly not in the US and likely not anywhere else. They definitely have a market, particularly in competing with terrestrial and satellite radio. But streaming is simply not a good fit to do what iTunes is used to do.
- Hyena 15y ago
  Spotify lets you download songs into iPods and phones for offline streaming. This is an obsolete complaint.
  - lurch_mojoff 15y ago
    "Offline streaming", right. You can synch only music you have bought from Spotify. It does not work with the "all you can eat" subscription. So it is very much not an obsolete complaint.
    - Hyena 15y ago
      "Offline streaming" is kind of a kludge term. To me, if I don't own the songs and they're not immediately accessible to my other software, "syncing" seems slightly inaccurate connotatively. So I went with "offline streaming" because it seems to connote what is going on: localizing my stream, very local. I haven't had a problem with the Premium service, so I'm not sure which one you're describing as AYCE.
gallerytungsten 15y ago
The article seemed a bit tedious and overwrought. All that aside, for me it raised the question, "how do the musicians get paid?" As a musician, this is a matter of great interest. The answer: "Spotify shares it 50/50" according to the first article I found that answered the question. Last time I checked, Apple was paying 70%; however, if you're not on a major label, you'll likely get to iTunes through a third party such as CDbaby; they pay 91% of that 70%. Even so, 63.7% is better than 50%. Addendum: as the article I mentioned describes, it may actually be worse than that, because payments aren't on a track basis, but rather more like the airplay payments that BMI and ASCAP pay (in which you only get paid if you have lot of spins). http://gramtone.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/spotify-a-loss-for-musicians/ http://gramtone.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/spotify-a-loss-for-...
- lurch_mojoff 15y ago
  How much do musicians get paid for Spotify streaming? Well, this much: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...
aberkowitz 15y ago
Apple can enter the streaming music market whenever they want to; that's why they bought Lala.

11 points by jjhageman 15y ago

Hogwash. iTunes isn't just a place to listen to music. It's a place to buy it, retrieve it, find it, and more. It has better selection and is backed by a bigger company, with more weight to throw around when record companies try to get pushy.

shoota 15y ago

If that is the case why hasn't rhapsody which has been around for a long period of time already killed iTunes?

bentruyman 15y ago

Sort of off-topic, but does anyone know why the hype around Spotify is so great? A few years ago, I started using Napster's streaming service. Then moved to Rhapsody for a slightly better interface/collection and mobile offline caching. Then to MOG, and eventually Rdio. Now Spotify comes out, and while I also moved to it, about 30 of my coworkers/friends are now on it using it as their first streaming service. Maybe the invite-only access and alleged legal troubles helped in their favor? I don't get it.

programminggeek 15y ago
Spotify has slowly been building buzz in Europe for a long time and they also did a huge PR push all at once. Also, they are artificially limiting supply of invites to make more people sign up for the paid service. Scarcity creates value. People want what they can't have. The other thing is unlike Mog or Rdio, since Spotify came to the US after years of development, it already has loads of polish and solid mobile apps. AKA, their v1 product is actually more of a v2 or v3, so when people use it, it feels more impressive.

programminggeek 15y ago

iTunes isn't going anywhere because it's tied to iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, iPad, Mac and it's where you buy Music, Videos, Books, Apps, Audiobooks, Podcasts, and um....yeah. Also, I love music and Spotify is pretty great, but so was Mog, Pandora, Napster, Zune, and many other music services, but none of them have dented iTunes, if anything quite the opposite. Spotify is great relatively cheap way to sample lots of music you may or may not like, but if I want to keep a song or album, I'm going to buy it on iTunes or Amazon MP3 so I have a backup copy of that music "forever". Spotify is likely a bigger competitor to Pandora and traditional radio than it is to buying music in general. People like owning things more than they like renting things. Hoarding is human nature.

Hyena 15y ago
That's probably why Spotify looks almost precisely like iTunes and syncs to un-networked mobile devices.

kylec 15y ago

I think his argument is pretty weak. Sure, for tech-savvy people that buy a lot of music, going with the flat pricing of Spotify makes sense, as does the convenience of not having to manage and sync your music files between devices. However, a very large number of people spend less than $10/month on music, or don't have the desire to completely switch over to a new music service. There's also the hesitation to spend the effort switching to the new service that will disappear once you stop paying them whatever they demand. Netflix has recently demonstrated that the pricing for media streaming has the ability to change rapidly and sharply, leaving you no recourse other than to either pay or lose access to the music and your playlists.

joejohnson 15y ago

I don't know if I believe that Spotify will really be able to kill iTunes, but perhaps it will force iTunes to lower their prices or to offer streaming subscriptions?

tzs 15y ago

No Beatles. No Bob Dylan. No Pink Floyd. I'm certainly enjoying Spotify, but it has some big gaps that need to be closed.

pinko 15y ago
Wow, really? MOG has Dylan and Floyd (but obviously no Beatles). I assumed their catalogs (and anyone's other than Apple's) would be pretty similar. What explains the very different licensing these different streaming music apps are able to get? Is it just their negotiating (in)ability?
Hyena 15y ago
Yeah, this is the only real problem: they lack some artists with extremely valuable back catalogs.

roc 15y ago

iTunes is used, overwhelmingly, to deliver music to mobile devices. And streaming is facing a number of serious barriers for that kind of mobile use: battery drain, network coverage, bandwidth caps and the high price of data plans (with sufficient caps). So, almost regardless of individual quality, streaming services are not replacing iTunes any time soon. Almost certainly not in the US and likely not anywhere else. They definitely have a market, particularly in competing with terrestrial and satellite radio. But streaming is simply not a good fit to do what iTunes is used to do.

Hyena 15y ago
Spotify lets you download songs into iPods and phones for offline streaming. This is an obsolete complaint.
- lurch_mojoff 15y ago
  "Offline streaming", right. You can synch only music you have bought from Spotify. It does not work with the "all you can eat" subscription. So it is very much not an obsolete complaint.
  - Hyena 15y ago
    "Offline streaming" is kind of a kludge term. To me, if I don't own the songs and they're not immediately accessible to my other software, "syncing" seems slightly inaccurate connotatively. So I went with "offline streaming" because it seems to connote what is going on: localizing my stream, very local. I haven't had a problem with the Premium service, so I'm not sure which one you're describing as AYCE.

gallerytungsten 15y ago

The article seemed a bit tedious and overwrought. All that aside, for me it raised the question, "how do the musicians get paid?" As a musician, this is a matter of great interest. The answer: "Spotify shares it 50/50" according to the first article I found that answered the question. Last time I checked, Apple was paying 70%; however, if you're not on a major label, you'll likely get to iTunes through a third party such as CDbaby; they pay 91% of that 70%. Even so, 63.7% is better than 50%. Addendum: as the article I mentioned describes, it may actually be worse than that, because payments aren't on a track basis, but rather more like the airplay payments that BMI and ASCAP pay (in which you only get paid if you have lot of spins). http://gramtone.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/spotify-a-loss-for-musicians/ http://gramtone.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/spotify-a-loss-for-...

lurch_mojoff 15y ago
How much do musicians get paid for Spotify streaming? Well, this much: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...

aberkowitz 15y ago

Apple can enter the streaming music market whenever they want to; that's why they bought Lala.