5 ms·

Big surprise for me is Amazon music... with 13%! I don't know anyone that uses it. Maybe it's a regional thing?

hwbehrens 5y ago
My wife and I share a single Spotify account, so when she's listening, I switch to the free tier of Amazon Music. I wonder if that counts toward that 13%?
- circa 5y ago
  There is a couples account option and I think its very close to the same price of a single sub. Edit: its called Spotify Duo and its $12.99 vs $9.99 https://www.spotify.com/us/premium/#plans https://www.spotify.com/us/premium/#plans
Apocryphon 5y ago
Does Amazon give out Music accounts as a bonus when users subscribe to some other service, similar to Amazon Prime customers getting streaming? Maybe that can account for incidental and not intentional subscribers.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Yes they do. Prime comes with a limited version that "only" has a couple million songs. At least in some countries. They also have a higher tier called Music Unlimited that's more on-par with the other guys content wise but cheaper if you already sub to Prime. Also have a tier that only works on Echos but gives access to the larger catalog for even less. I switched to just using the included service with Prime. It's good enough for me and I get Prime super cheap as a student.
- fullstop 5y ago
  Some purchases on Amazon come with "3 months of amazon music", which surely adds to their numbers.
YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
Anecdotal but my parents use the one integrated in prime because they mainly listen to old music.
yumraj 5y ago
It's free with Prime and cheaper than other alternates for the paid version if you have Prime. For casual listening it's not bad at all. It also supports so called HD and Ultra HD, which I believe Spotify still doesn't support, while Apple does.
- paxys 5y ago
  It is not free with Prime, just $2 cheaper ($8 vs $10/mo). I think what is driving Amazon Music subscriptions is the proliferation of Echo devices. It is easy to auto-subscribe from the speaker itself (sometimes too easy, to the point of being accidental), e.g. when you ask it to play a song.
  - jasode 5y ago
    >It is not free with Prime, just $2 cheaper There's a free tier Amazon Music of 2 million songs included with Prime membership. That's the free music streaming my friend was using for 5+ years. She then upgraded to Amazon Music Unlimited for extra $80/year. Can't tell if the article's 13% for Amazon Music is counting the free tier users.
    - paxys 5y ago
      In that case every Prime member is a subscriber, and that number should be a lot larger.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        Nah, I'm a Prime subscriber and get the occasional email from Amazon that i have an unused advantage from my subscription and should enable Amazon Music.
  - yumraj 5y ago
    As sibling comment also noted, there is a free tier that we've been using forever. They also have a much cheaper option for students, I think $1/month or something like that. Not sure if every Prime user uses Amazon Music, and how they count their user base.
echelon 5y ago
Long term, Spotify and Netflix are in trouble. Amazon and Apple are in this space, and they can use their trillion dollar market caps to decimate single-revenue stream companies. The Department of Justice should do something about this. Neither Amazon nor Apple should be in these businesses. They do too much and apply price pressure unfairly. If this continues, $1T+ tech will be the entire economy. Netflix, Spotify, and all of the other "little companies" should sue the ever-loving bejesus out of these monsters for anti-competitive practices.
- nostromo 5y ago
  Increased competition is a good thing. I’m glad several companies are in this space. It’s only a problem if a single provider is a monopoly and uses that to squeeze out other companies in order to raise prices. We’re very far off from that because there are so many companies competing and none of them control the market.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > It’s only a problem if a single provider is a monopoly and uses that to squeeze out other companies in order to raise prices. The giants behave different to monopolies in the past. Amazon makes its catalogs available for free, which makes businesses like Netflix and their offerings look expensive. They subsidize the costs using revenues from different business units, which is not only unfair, it's not actually competition. It's not even necessarily about money. Giants care about attracting and keeping people on their platform. Once actual healthy businesses dry up, revenues paid to creatives will go down. They've already begun picking apart other studios and assimilating their businesses, and this will only accelerate. > Increased competition is a good thing. Not when music, movies, and art become just features of the tech giant platforms. It dumbs everything down and ensures the tech giant opinions are the ones that get amplified.
- rzanella 5y ago
  I agree with you, which is why I subscribe to Netflix and Spotify, but man... - Netflix's so-so content while being costlier - And Spotify push to have podcasts instead of decent radio are not helping...
drawkbox 5y ago
Lots of Amazon music, in addition to Prime usage, is probably used with Alexa as well as that is the default music player on Alexa/Echo. Just like Siri/Homepod uses Apple Music and "Hey Google" / Google Home/Helper uses Google Play/Youtube music.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cbhl 5y ago
I'm under the impression that Amazon Music is US-only. It's decent if you're heavily invested in the Amazon Echo / Alexa ecosytem.
pgrote 5y ago
We subscribe simply because it is the only service that works on family plans without any friction on Echo devices. Tried to get Pandora and Spotify to work, but there was always a problem or the skill would fall apart over a period of months.

My wife and I share a single Spotify account, so when she's listening, I switch to the free tier of Amazon Music. I wonder if that counts toward that 13%?

circa 5y ago
There is a couples account option and I think its very close to the same price of a single sub. Edit: its called Spotify Duo and its $12.99 vs $9.99 https://www.spotify.com/us/premium/#plans https://www.spotify.com/us/premium/#plans

Apocryphon 5y ago

Does Amazon give out Music accounts as a bonus when users subscribe to some other service, similar to Amazon Prime customers getting streaming? Maybe that can account for incidental and not intentional subscribers.

salamandersauce 5y ago
Yes they do. Prime comes with a limited version that "only" has a couple million songs. At least in some countries. They also have a higher tier called Music Unlimited that's more on-par with the other guys content wise but cheaper if you already sub to Prime. Also have a tier that only works on Echos but gives access to the larger catalog for even less. I switched to just using the included service with Prime. It's good enough for me and I get Prime super cheap as a student.
fullstop 5y ago
Some purchases on Amazon come with "3 months of amazon music", which surely adds to their numbers.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago

Anecdotal but my parents use the one integrated in prime because they mainly listen to old music.

yumraj 5y ago

It's free with Prime and cheaper than other alternates for the paid version if you have Prime. For casual listening it's not bad at all. It also supports so called HD and Ultra HD, which I believe Spotify still doesn't support, while Apple does.

paxys 5y ago
It is not free with Prime, just $2 cheaper ($8 vs $10/mo). I think what is driving Amazon Music subscriptions is the proliferation of Echo devices. It is easy to auto-subscribe from the speaker itself (sometimes too easy, to the point of being accidental), e.g. when you ask it to play a song.
- jasode 5y ago
  >It is not free with Prime, just $2 cheaper There's a free tier Amazon Music of 2 million songs included with Prime membership. That's the free music streaming my friend was using for 5+ years. She then upgraded to Amazon Music Unlimited for extra $80/year. Can't tell if the article's 13% for Amazon Music is counting the free tier users.
  - paxys 5y ago
    In that case every Prime member is a subscriber, and that number should be a lot larger.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      Nah, I'm a Prime subscriber and get the occasional email from Amazon that i have an unused advantage from my subscription and should enable Amazon Music.
- yumraj 5y ago
  As sibling comment also noted, there is a free tier that we've been using forever. They also have a much cheaper option for students, I think $1/month or something like that. Not sure if every Prime user uses Amazon Music, and how they count their user base.

echelon 5y ago

Long term, Spotify and Netflix are in trouble. Amazon and Apple are in this space, and they can use their trillion dollar market caps to decimate single-revenue stream companies. The Department of Justice should do something about this. Neither Amazon nor Apple should be in these businesses. They do too much and apply price pressure unfairly. If this continues, $1T+ tech will be the entire economy. Netflix, Spotify, and all of the other "little companies" should sue the ever-loving bejesus out of these monsters for anti-competitive practices.

nostromo 5y ago
Increased competition is a good thing. I’m glad several companies are in this space. It’s only a problem if a single provider is a monopoly and uses that to squeeze out other companies in order to raise prices. We’re very far off from that because there are so many companies competing and none of them control the market.
- echelon 5y ago
  > It’s only a problem if a single provider is a monopoly and uses that to squeeze out other companies in order to raise prices. The giants behave different to monopolies in the past. Amazon makes its catalogs available for free, which makes businesses like Netflix and their offerings look expensive. They subsidize the costs using revenues from different business units, which is not only unfair, it's not actually competition. It's not even necessarily about money. Giants care about attracting and keeping people on their platform. Once actual healthy businesses dry up, revenues paid to creatives will go down. They've already begun picking apart other studios and assimilating their businesses, and this will only accelerate. > Increased competition is a good thing. Not when music, movies, and art become just features of the tech giant platforms. It dumbs everything down and ensures the tech giant opinions are the ones that get amplified.
rzanella 5y ago
I agree with you, which is why I subscribe to Netflix and Spotify, but man... - Netflix's so-so content while being costlier - And Spotify push to have podcasts instead of decent radio are not helping...

drawkbox 5y ago

Lots of Amazon music, in addition to Prime usage, is probably used with Alexa as well as that is the default music player on Alexa/Echo. Just like Siri/Homepod uses Apple Music and "Hey Google" / Google Home/Helper uses Google Play/Youtube music.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cbhl 5y ago

I'm under the impression that Amazon Music is US-only. It's decent if you're heavily invested in the Amazon Echo / Alexa ecosytem.

pgrote 5y ago

We subscribe simply because it is the only service that works on family plans without any friction on Echo devices. Tried to get Pandora and Spotify to work, but there was always a problem or the skill would fall apart over a period of months.