4 ms·

They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. They need to have enough money to invest in other initiatives, as the busines

They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. They need to have enough money to invest in other initiatives, as the business they are in is proven to be margin-thin. Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. What's stopping them from bigger cuts? We've seen that big SW products can run on lean teams(whatsapp, post-Musk Twitter) and we know many large tech companies are overloaded with way more workers than they need to run(Google), just because they could overhire when money was free. >Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built What prevents Google from doing the same? They already have a large customer base in Android users.
- csunbird 3y ago
  Google themselves? Given the popularity of the YouTube they should have won a decade ago, but they have not. The inefficiency of Google always amazes me.
  - chewz 3y ago
    > The inefficiency of Google always amazes me. It's the kind of people they attract. IBM types...
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >The inefficiency of Google always amazes me. As long as they have the cheat code for unlimited free money(ads) they can be as inefficient as they want.
  - kevinmchugh 3y ago
    About a decade ago they had Google Music. A friend of mine really liked it. He was supposed to have a for-life price of $7/month (or something) and then they raised prices and failed to grandfather his price in. Being Google, there was no way for him to complain about this to them, so he cancelled and used a product he liked less, out of spite. At some point they launched a duplicative product, YouTube Music, which they later migrated all customers to. So you know, the standard Google experience.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      >He was supposed to have a for-life price of $7/month At this point, consumers should know that "for life price" is a scam to get gullible customers through the door and gain market share or collect user data. Just like with a Ponzi scheme, consumers should realize by now why such pricing is not sustainable long term due to inflation and other costs, and either the business will crash or they'll have to inevitably backtrack on that promise and raise prices to stay afloat. You can't have your cake and eat it too. No excusing Google of this scam, but they only did what every other company with these kind of hollow promises did. I vividly remember Cerberus on Android was selling one time licenses for life, only for them to backtrack on that years later and switch everyone to their subscription instead, publishing a letter along the lines of "sorry, we know it sucks, but the lifetime licenses we sold you are unsustainable financially for us, so we'll switch you to subscription UwU." Same with Google's unlimited Photo storage.
      - kevinmchugh 3y ago
        My recollection is that others retained that price, it was a bug or oversight that caused him specifically to have the price increased. I'm sure when they migrated users to YouTube Music they got rid of the special deal.
        htrp 3y ago
        It's almost always for the lifetime of the product?
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Google Play Music, YouTube Music, YouTube Music Premium, YouTube Red, now YouTube Premium. Who knows what Google’s music play will be next year? Not Google. Media is second only to Messaging for their lack of a consistent long term strategy.
- fooker 3y ago
  For anything other than American and maybe European music, YouTube Music is so much better nowadays wrt availability. YouTube Music has stellar quality of recommendations too. But Google could easily do a Google and sabotage the product at some point.
  - macrolime 3y ago
    YouTube Music still only has a tiny fraction of the music available on YouTube.
    - fooker 3y ago
      Everything in YouTube comes up when searched from YouTube Music.
- nova22033 3y ago
  post-Musk Twitter Spotify is actually trying to make money. If the goal of running Spotify was to get everyone to listen to the CEO's crappy garage band, maybe then it would be a valid comparison.
surgical_fire 3y ago
> Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built I doubt it. Apple is restricted to Apple devices. As for Amazon, the same argument could be made about Prime Video eating Netflix, and that never seemed to happen. On top of that, as far as I know, Spotify is profitable.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Apple Music is not restricted to Apple devices afaik: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    Oh wow, I didn't know that. I still wouldn't use it, but I am surprised that I never knew of this.
- anon23432343 3y ago
  You can listen to apple music even via web interface and it has an android app and works on android tv and android auto. So pretty much everywhere.
  - jamespo 3y ago
    Can't listen natively on my lametric time!
- Mindwipe 3y ago
  Spotify had one profitable quarter by fluke. It's not profitable.
ardit33 3y ago
17% is a huge cut. More than that and you end up damaging operations. Look what is happening to X / Twitter. PS. Spotify had already two layoffs, once 6% in Jan 2023 and 2% in June. This combined seems like a 25% ish cut.
- rapsey 3y ago
  It's seeing more use than ever with a fraction of the staff?
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Unless they can somehow turn "use" into money, more use does nothing to help X as a company. And the prior method of turning use into money, advertisements, has been dropping like a rock due to the inability of the company to keep ads away from toxic content no advertiser would ever want their ads near. Can't cut costs to profitability if you are cutting revenue faster than costs.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - carb 3y ago
    - Features have to keep being deprecated because once they degrade it's too hard to fix. - Use is only up when measuring metrics like "we hit our peak user-seconds" which only measures short term usage spikes and not longer time-scale sustaining metrics. - Lack of diversity of users, instability of ads performance, and a CEO making antisemitic and anti-Palestinian claims has led to advertisers pausing Twitter ads at a high rate. Valuation has dropped to $10s of Billions instead of $44B. - Small bugs never get fixed (on Firefox mobile if I accidentally hit the "Views" button on a tweet, the pop-up modal is inescapable and breaks my back button and tab state, so I have to open Twitter in a new tab.
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    but is it growing? they have the privilege of maintaining an amazing product
konschubert 3y ago
Why do they need to invest? They can also just keep being the most complete music streaming service. That is a low margin business, but it’s a business, and you probably don’t need a lot of people to run it.
- i386 3y ago
  Using Apple Music on a few Google devices now.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  their moat is exploiting the copyright system with monopolistic contracts with record labels
  - konschubert 3y ago
    Monopolistic how?
  - piva00 3y ago
    Explain. Because as far as I'm aware all of the record labels have deals with all music distributors (it doesn't make sense not to, they are in the business of showcasing their copyrighted properties), you can even distribute instantly to all streaming services through labels and distributors. I don't think you know what you're talking about...
pembrook 3y ago
Before trialing the iTunes franken-nightmare that is Apple Music, I would have probably agreed with you. However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Apple/Amazon are clearly stretched too thin, and in a worse strategic position on audio due to the way the licensing agreements shook out. In music, everybody basically has access to the same catalog on every platform. And given that songs are 4 minutes long (vs 4 hours binging TV shows), you spend wayyy more time interacting with the software in audio vs. video. So in audio, it's purely just deciding which UI/features you like best. Spotify seems to be trying its best to screw up the UI, but no way it ever gets as bad as Apple Music given that's their only meal ticket.
- thewildginger 3y ago
  This is an anecdote, and maybe it's just coincidental timing, but these kinds of operational choices do not work well in a company focused on a single product across multiple devices. Losing so many workers so quickly means a loss in productivity on the issues the platform has, and Spotify has many. Since November there has been an issue on PS5 where any podcast over an hour will not play on PlayStation(so, basically all podcasts). People have figured out the issue, and Spotify has not moved on it. When you offer a single service and the benefit is being device agnostic, "cutting costs" by wasting time hiring people you probably didn't need to hire only to fire them a year or two later means an amplified disruption that will lose customers. But hey, board members who jerk each other off once a month in a conference call who are already rich made a little more money by hiring a bunch of people only to fire them later and at a huge operational waste. This is how our world works and it's bs.
- chewz 3y ago
  > However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Amazon Music Unlimited is very neat experience compared to Spotify... Good catalogue (for me), better music quality and it's app is just plain, boring music player not something neurotic like Spotify...
s3p 3y ago
Moat??? Spotify has the largest userbase period. Paying or non paying. Apple and Google haven’t been able to take their market share.
- acdha 3y ago
  How much profit does Apple make versus Spotify per user? Android has had a larger user base but that hasn’t made it more profitable.
dboreham 3y ago
Perhaps this cut is a precursor to being acquired by someone like Apple?

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>They need a bigger cut. 17% will not have a big enough impact to its bottom line. What's stopping them from bigger cuts? We've seen that big SW products can run on lean teams(whatsapp, post-Musk Twitter) and we know many large tech companies are overloaded with way more workers than they need to run(Google), just because they could overhire when money was free. >Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built What prevents Google from doing the same? They already have a large customer base in Android users.

csunbird 3y ago
Google themselves? Given the popularity of the YouTube they should have won a decade ago, but they have not. The inefficiency of Google always amazes me.
- chewz 3y ago
  > The inefficiency of Google always amazes me. It's the kind of people they attract. IBM types...
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >The inefficiency of Google always amazes me. As long as they have the cheat code for unlimited free money(ads) they can be as inefficient as they want.
- kevinmchugh 3y ago
  About a decade ago they had Google Music. A friend of mine really liked it. He was supposed to have a for-life price of $7/month (or something) and then they raised prices and failed to grandfather his price in. Being Google, there was no way for him to complain about this to them, so he cancelled and used a product he liked less, out of spite. At some point they launched a duplicative product, YouTube Music, which they later migrated all customers to. So you know, the standard Google experience.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >He was supposed to have a for-life price of $7/month At this point, consumers should know that "for life price" is a scam to get gullible customers through the door and gain market share or collect user data. Just like with a Ponzi scheme, consumers should realize by now why such pricing is not sustainable long term due to inflation and other costs, and either the business will crash or they'll have to inevitably backtrack on that promise and raise prices to stay afloat. You can't have your cake and eat it too. No excusing Google of this scam, but they only did what every other company with these kind of hollow promises did. I vividly remember Cerberus on Android was selling one time licenses for life, only for them to backtrack on that years later and switch everyone to their subscription instead, publishing a letter along the lines of "sorry, we know it sucks, but the lifetime licenses we sold you are unsustainable financially for us, so we'll switch you to subscription UwU." Same with Google's unlimited Photo storage.
    - kevinmchugh 3y ago
      My recollection is that others retained that price, it was a bug or oversight that caused him specifically to have the price increased. I'm sure when they migrated users to YouTube Music they got rid of the special deal.
      - htrp 3y ago
        It's almost always for the lifetime of the product?
wlesieutre 3y ago
Google Play Music, YouTube Music, YouTube Music Premium, YouTube Red, now YouTube Premium. Who knows what Google’s music play will be next year? Not Google. Media is second only to Messaging for their lack of a consistent long term strategy.
fooker 3y ago
For anything other than American and maybe European music, YouTube Music is so much better nowadays wrt availability. YouTube Music has stellar quality of recommendations too. But Google could easily do a Google and sabotage the product at some point.
- macrolime 3y ago
  YouTube Music still only has a tiny fraction of the music available on YouTube.
  - fooker 3y ago
    Everything in YouTube comes up when searched from YouTube Music.
nova22033 3y ago
post-Musk Twitter Spotify is actually trying to make money. If the goal of running Spotify was to get everyone to listen to the CEO's crappy garage band, maybe then it would be a valid comparison.

surgical_fire 3y ago

> Apple and Amazon will eventually eat Spotify given enough time, if they don't find a moat to be built I doubt it. Apple is restricted to Apple devices. As for Amazon, the same argument could be made about Prime Video eating Netflix, and that never seemed to happen. On top of that, as far as I know, Spotify is profitable.

vlovich123 3y ago
Apple Music is not restricted to Apple devices afaik: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music&pli=1 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  Oh wow, I didn't know that. I still wouldn't use it, but I am surprised that I never knew of this.
anon23432343 3y ago
You can listen to apple music even via web interface and it has an android app and works on android tv and android auto. So pretty much everywhere.
- jamespo 3y ago
  Can't listen natively on my lametric time!
Mindwipe 3y ago
Spotify had one profitable quarter by fluke. It's not profitable.

ardit33 3y ago

17% is a huge cut. More than that and you end up damaging operations. Look what is happening to X / Twitter. PS. Spotify had already two layoffs, once 6% in Jan 2023 and 2% in June. This combined seems like a 25% ish cut.

rapsey 3y ago
It's seeing more use than ever with a fraction of the staff?
- epistasis 3y ago
  Unless they can somehow turn "use" into money, more use does nothing to help X as a company. And the prior method of turning use into money, advertisements, has been dropping like a rock due to the inability of the company to keep ads away from toxic content no advertiser would ever want their ads near. Can't cut costs to profitability if you are cutting revenue faster than costs.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- carb 3y ago
  - Features have to keep being deprecated because once they degrade it's too hard to fix. - Use is only up when measuring metrics like "we hit our peak user-seconds" which only measures short term usage spikes and not longer time-scale sustaining metrics. - Lack of diversity of users, instability of ads performance, and a CEO making antisemitic and anti-Palestinian claims has led to advertisers pausing Twitter ads at a high rate. Valuation has dropped to $10s of Billions instead of $44B. - Small bugs never get fixed (on Firefox mobile if I accidentally hit the "Views" button on a tweet, the pop-up modal is inescapable and breaks my back button and tab state, so I have to open Twitter in a new tab.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  but is it growing? they have the privilege of maintaining an amazing product

konschubert 3y ago

Why do they need to invest? They can also just keep being the most complete music streaming service. That is a low margin business, but it’s a business, and you probably don’t need a lot of people to run it.

i386 3y ago
Using Apple Music on a few Google devices now.
hackernewds 3y ago
their moat is exploiting the copyright system with monopolistic contracts with record labels
- konschubert 3y ago
  Monopolistic how?
- piva00 3y ago
  Explain. Because as far as I'm aware all of the record labels have deals with all music distributors (it doesn't make sense not to, they are in the business of showcasing their copyrighted properties), you can even distribute instantly to all streaming services through labels and distributors. I don't think you know what you're talking about...

pembrook 3y ago

Before trialing the iTunes franken-nightmare that is Apple Music, I would have probably agreed with you. However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Apple/Amazon are clearly stretched too thin, and in a worse strategic position on audio due to the way the licensing agreements shook out. In music, everybody basically has access to the same catalog on every platform. And given that songs are 4 minutes long (vs 4 hours binging TV shows), you spend wayyy more time interacting with the software in audio vs. video. So in audio, it's purely just deciding which UI/features you like best. Spotify seems to be trying its best to screw up the UI, but no way it ever gets as bad as Apple Music given that's their only meal ticket.

thewildginger 3y ago
This is an anecdote, and maybe it's just coincidental timing, but these kinds of operational choices do not work well in a company focused on a single product across multiple devices. Losing so many workers so quickly means a loss in productivity on the issues the platform has, and Spotify has many. Since November there has been an issue on PS5 where any podcast over an hour will not play on PlayStation(so, basically all podcasts). People have figured out the issue, and Spotify has not moved on it. When you offer a single service and the benefit is being device agnostic, "cutting costs" by wasting time hiring people you probably didn't need to hire only to fire them a year or two later means an amplified disruption that will lose customers. But hey, board members who jerk each other off once a month in a conference call who are already rich made a little more money by hiring a bunch of people only to fire them later and at a huge operational waste. This is how our world works and it's bs.
chewz 3y ago
> However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Amazon Music Unlimited is very neat experience compared to Spotify... Good catalogue (for me), better music quality and it's app is just plain, boring music player not something neurotic like Spotify...

s3p 3y ago

Moat??? Spotify has the largest userbase period. Paying or non paying. Apple and Google haven’t been able to take their market share.

acdha 3y ago
How much profit does Apple make versus Spotify per user? Android has had a larger user base but that hasn’t made it more profitable.

dboreham 3y ago

Perhaps this cut is a precursor to being acquired by someone like Apple?