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Could be. When Spotify was young they were extremely developer and ecosystem friendly. It gets progressively worse and worse over time. The biggest change I p

Could be. When Spotify was young they were extremely developer and ecosystem friendly. It gets progressively worse and worse over time. The biggest change I personally suffered from is when they pulled out of their integration with Djay, a DJ app. This integration was amazing for bedroom DJs like myself, being able to use Spotify to organize DJ music and DJ directly from it. Then they sunset the entire integration. Now Djay and even bigger apps like Pioneer Rekordbox integrate with Tidal... Do the labels prefer Tidal over Spotify for some reason? Or did Spotify decide to get out of this game for reasons of their own?

super256 4y ago
> Do the labels prefer Tidal over Spotify for some reason? Or did Spotify decide to get out of this game for reasons of their own? Me, being a naive speculator: Maybe it has something to do with the time. The original contracts between spotify + labels were probably written 15 years ago. Over time they might have changed numbers like how big spotify's cut is, but never revised the rest of the blueprint contracts. So, my bet is laziness / not caring enough.
- 0x457 4y ago
  I used to work in music and had to deal with requirements forced on us by labels and such. Those contracts aren't "written 15 years ago and barely revisited" music industry lawyers wouldn't leave a stone unturned of turning it will benefit their client. Labels do prefer Tidal because it's a service made by the music industry. However, Spotify is lacking features it used to have because they are product driven and such integrations are not on product people's radar (like you said - lazy and don't care).
humanistbot 4y ago
> Do the labels prefer Tidal over Spotify for some reason? Or did Spotify decide to get out of this game for reasons of their own? Yes, labels and artists get a bigger cut of the subscription cost from Tidal. And before the buy-out by Square last year, Tidal's parent company was majority-owned by Jay-Z and had lots of buy-in from music industry insiders.
SleekoNiko 4y ago
> When Spotify was young they were extremely developer and ecosystem friendly. It gets progressively worse and worse over time. This is somewhat tangential, but I feel like this happens often, as internal power and culture shifts away from being developer-driven to consumer- or manager-driven. This doesn't happen for every company, thankfully.
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  > This doesn't happen for every company, thankfully. It happened to Twitter didn't it?
- elefanten 4y ago
  Seems quite related to the standard 'company lifecycle' And, to your point, not every company follows one. But most do.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    What big company didn't end up manager driven after a couple of decades? Even Google ultimately went down that path.
- conductr 4y ago
  The average user at scale is nothing like the average early adopter user. Developers tend to be early adopters of tech products.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  A lot of music streaming providers get to pay less for radio plays than for user-directed plays, which in turn drives a lot of that behavior.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
Tidal was basically a music streaming platform made by the music industry itself to have some leverage in negotiations with Spotify / Alphabet / Apple / Amazon. It's since evolved into something else, but it's not surprising that Tidal can get some unique deals due to its close industry ties.
- lmm 4y ago
  Back when I worked at a competitor that got pushed aside by Spotify, the internal narrative was that the labels would always give a good deal to a young company, then turn the screws on them while giving good deals to a younger competitor, so that they could keep everyone small and preserve the idea that there was an alternative to piracy without risking any real changes to their business.
jdrbc 4y ago
I think the integration was initially scrapped due to problems with licensing (streams <30s don't result in a payout, and after that 100% payout; so it's either unfair or expensive under the current model). Good question about why they're leaving the space to their competitors.

super256 4y ago

> Do the labels prefer Tidal over Spotify for some reason? Or did Spotify decide to get out of this game for reasons of their own? Me, being a naive speculator: Maybe it has something to do with the time. The original contracts between spotify + labels were probably written 15 years ago. Over time they might have changed numbers like how big spotify's cut is, but never revised the rest of the blueprint contracts. So, my bet is laziness / not caring enough.

0x457 4y ago
I used to work in music and had to deal with requirements forced on us by labels and such. Those contracts aren't "written 15 years ago and barely revisited" music industry lawyers wouldn't leave a stone unturned of turning it will benefit their client. Labels do prefer Tidal because it's a service made by the music industry. However, Spotify is lacking features it used to have because they are product driven and such integrations are not on product people's radar (like you said - lazy and don't care).

humanistbot 4y ago

> Do the labels prefer Tidal over Spotify for some reason? Or did Spotify decide to get out of this game for reasons of their own? Yes, labels and artists get a bigger cut of the subscription cost from Tidal. And before the buy-out by Square last year, Tidal's parent company was majority-owned by Jay-Z and had lots of buy-in from music industry insiders.

SleekoNiko 4y ago

> When Spotify was young they were extremely developer and ecosystem friendly. It gets progressively worse and worse over time. This is somewhat tangential, but I feel like this happens often, as internal power and culture shifts away from being developer-driven to consumer- or manager-driven. This doesn't happen for every company, thankfully.

rjzzleep 4y ago
> This doesn't happen for every company, thankfully. It happened to Twitter didn't it?
elefanten 4y ago
Seems quite related to the standard 'company lifecycle' And, to your point, not every company follows one. But most do.
- Jensson 4y ago
  What big company didn't end up manager driven after a couple of decades? Even Google ultimately went down that path.
conductr 4y ago
The average user at scale is nothing like the average early adopter user. Developers tend to be early adopters of tech products.
Godel_unicode 4y ago
A lot of music streaming providers get to pay less for radio plays than for user-directed plays, which in turn drives a lot of that behavior.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago

Tidal was basically a music streaming platform made by the music industry itself to have some leverage in negotiations with Spotify / Alphabet / Apple / Amazon. It's since evolved into something else, but it's not surprising that Tidal can get some unique deals due to its close industry ties.

lmm 4y ago
Back when I worked at a competitor that got pushed aside by Spotify, the internal narrative was that the labels would always give a good deal to a young company, then turn the screws on them while giving good deals to a younger competitor, so that they could keep everyone small and preserve the idea that there was an alternative to piracy without risking any real changes to their business.

jdrbc 4y ago

I think the integration was initially scrapped due to problems with licensing (streams <30s don't result in a payout, and after that 100% payout; so it's either unfair or expensive under the current model). Good question about why they're leaving the space to their competitors.