5 ms·

Spotify's layoffs put an end to Every Noise at Once

104 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

happytoexplain 3y ago
This is absolutely tragic. A set of data that large, beautiful, and accessible is very rare. I would go so far as to call it culturally significant. I have to consider canceling my subscription.
dang 3y ago
Related: Creator of everynoise.com laid off from Spotify - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111730 - Jan 2024 (63 comments) Glenn McDonald, founder of Every Noise at Once, gets laid off from Spotify - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650917 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) Everynoise.com May Stop Working - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572857 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) Everynoise.com Is Going Away - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38557103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38557103 - Dec 2023 (1 comment) Everynoise.com may be shutting down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38540333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38540333 - Dec 2023 (3 comments) Every Noise at Once "warning: The exact future of this site is uncertain" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519343 - Dec 2023 (1 comment) Also: Every Noise at Once: ASMR - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33556156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33556156 - Nov 2022 (3 comments) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32190470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32190470 - July 2022 (1 comment) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26668426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26668426 - April 2021 (94 comments) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20585447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20585447 - Aug 2019 (82 comments) Every Noise at Once – an algorithmically-generated scatter-plot of musical genre - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10269685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10269685 - Sept 2015 (23 comments)
captainbland 3y ago
If I'm reading this right: I think building an external service in a personal capacity on top of an internal company API/data that you only have access to because you're an employee, it was always living on borrowed time. Frankly I'm surprised it lived long enough to build a following.
- meibo 3y ago
  He built the site at a company that was acquired by Spotify, and which became their modern recommendation system. There must have been some sort of agreement to keep it going, IMO the real story is about the people that made what makes Spotify good being laid off.
- spamizbad 3y ago
  Companies building a gajillion different niche app/features may have just been a side effect of low interest rates and venture capital money flowing like crazy. In practice a profitable, stable businesses does not have to the capacity to both build and maintain software outside of its core competencies. Part of the reason headcounts exploded is due to companies building more functionality in-house. Features, even after they’re built, aren’t free. It’s not just infrastructure costs it’s mostly labor costs to maintain all that functionality even if it’s to just “keep the lights on”
650 3y ago
Spotify must have so many useless projects and money they couldve saved in other areas, but chose to fire this employee. What a joke.
- alephnan 3y ago
  This is the flip side of “layoffs can’t be based on performance”
  - aitchnyu 3y ago
    Could you explain this "cant"?
    - junto 3y ago
      Companies operating in some countries are required in certain circumstances (forced layoffs), to consider the social aspect of who they make redundant. So people that have children, or are disabled, or older, or anyone who may have difficultly finding a job and losing their job would bring hardship (especially to vulnerable dependents of the employee) are required legally to grade each employee on a social risk scale and make those who are most mobile and independent redundant as a priority. As you might guess, companies therefore try to avoid such programs in favor of voluntary redundancy, in the hope that such employees will take the payout. These kind of programs (when enforced) tend to push out the young, driven, hungry, innovative employees in the company. It means that the voluntary redundancy packages offered by companies need to be attractive, so for the employee it provides them with safeguards that they can feel secure in their jobs and their lives. In the end it’s a balancing act between consideration for the human, versus pure unbridled entrepreneurship.
      - danielscrubs 3y ago
        This is not the case in Spotifys country. It is first in last out. You can get around it by creating a team and letting the whole team go or if they have been given multiple warnings without improvement. What does this “social aspect” idea come from?
geraldwhen 3y ago
Layoffs are so in vogue. What a strange time we live in.
- WXLCKNO 3y ago
  Gotta increase that shareholder value somehow. Oh wait it's already at all time highs? Strange.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Goes to 11..
  - magicmicah85 3y ago
    Spotify hasn’t made a profit in years. At some point, you have to start making the hard decisions and let people go - but not Joe Rogan, they still need to pay him $250 million while letting his content go to other platforms. Spotifys business model makes no sense to me.
    - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
      The Joe Rogan scapegoat is silly. Just a few months ago HN was talking about how much of a business disaster it was. And here Spotify just renewed it.
      - kasey_junk 3y ago
        Is that evidence that it’s a good deal? From the outside Spotify doesn’t seem like a company that makes good financial decisions. The Rogan deal seems central in that. Do they ever publish ad revenue or user stats by content. I’ve not seen it in their filings. And the new deal is on its face worse. They are paying the same for no exclusivity! I’m just not sure how to objectively judge the Rogan deal but it certainly seems very bad to me, an uninterested party.
        bsdpufferfish 3y ago
clueless 3y ago
I know there is an internet archive version of the site, but is there anyway to download a dump of this site (along with all the sample music associated with the genres) for offline usage/access?
CrypticShift 3y ago
The article mentions that the project has over 600K monthly users, which is a significant number for a side project. However, in comparison to Spotify's user base of 1000 times more, it now seems insignificant. This reminds me of how companies like Google only consider services with hundreds of millions users to be successful or important. It appears that Spotify is in a similar position now. My only hope is that the API does not degrade significantly.
- Solvency 3y ago
  I don't believe for a hot second Spotify has 600,000,000 legitimate users.
  - CrypticShift 3y ago
    Well they speak of 236 million subscribers [1]. are they lying ? [1] https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      Well, they'd need to cite something that shows that every Spotify member shares their membership with 1.6 other people. I'm skeptical of that. It's bad enough with Netflix recommendations and profiles - Spotify doesn't support profiles, so you're sharing your music choices with those people? Spotify is also pretty aggressive with account sharing.
      - samsin 3y ago
        More likely free users with their own accounts. Subscribed users are a subset of all users and I wouldn’t be surprised if unsubscribed users were the larger group.
    - ipaddr 3y ago
      I've created 4 free accounts over the years but haven't spent a minute listening. I'm sure it's like facebook, once an account is created it's counted as a unique user forever.
beaugunderson 3y ago
oh man what a loss... I used this all the time to find new music. horrible.
lolive 3y ago
I do not know about EveryNoiseAOnce. But I felt sad when spotifynewmusic.com [a convenient music discovery service, facaded as Spotify playlists] was closed. More than half of my prefered albums were discovered through spotifynewmusic.com, at the time.
leksak 3y ago
Such a shame. I am, or have been, a pretty avid Spotify user. I have some 100s of playlists there as I came into a rhythm of pegging a playlist to a year and a quarter. However, I'm more and more leaving that behind and starting to use NTS Radio. I discover more, and it's so much cheaper.
soheilpro 3y ago
For those interested, I maintain a "Best Of" playlist for each of the 6.3K Spotify genres at https://volt.fm https://volt.fm

104 points by coloneltcb 3y ago

This is absolutely tragic. A set of data that large, beautiful, and accessible is very rare. I would go so far as to call it culturally significant. I have to consider canceling my subscription.

dang 3y ago

Related: Creator of everynoise.com laid off from Spotify - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39111730 - Jan 2024 (63 comments) Glenn McDonald, founder of Every Noise at Once, gets laid off from Spotify - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650917 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) Everynoise.com May Stop Working - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38572857 - Dec 2023 (2 comments) Everynoise.com Is Going Away - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38557103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38557103 - Dec 2023 (1 comment) Everynoise.com may be shutting down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38540333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38540333 - Dec 2023 (3 comments) Every Noise at Once "warning: The exact future of this site is uncertain" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519343 - Dec 2023 (1 comment) Also: Every Noise at Once: ASMR - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33556156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33556156 - Nov 2022 (3 comments) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32190470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32190470 - July 2022 (1 comment) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26668426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26668426 - April 2021 (94 comments) Every Noise at Once - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20585447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20585447 - Aug 2019 (82 comments) Every Noise at Once – an algorithmically-generated scatter-plot of musical genre - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10269685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10269685 - Sept 2015 (23 comments)

captainbland 3y ago

If I'm reading this right: I think building an external service in a personal capacity on top of an internal company API/data that you only have access to because you're an employee, it was always living on borrowed time. Frankly I'm surprised it lived long enough to build a following.

meibo 3y ago
He built the site at a company that was acquired by Spotify, and which became their modern recommendation system. There must have been some sort of agreement to keep it going, IMO the real story is about the people that made what makes Spotify good being laid off.
spamizbad 3y ago
Companies building a gajillion different niche app/features may have just been a side effect of low interest rates and venture capital money flowing like crazy. In practice a profitable, stable businesses does not have to the capacity to both build and maintain software outside of its core competencies. Part of the reason headcounts exploded is due to companies building more functionality in-house. Features, even after they’re built, aren’t free. It’s not just infrastructure costs it’s mostly labor costs to maintain all that functionality even if it’s to just “keep the lights on”

650 3y ago

Spotify must have so many useless projects and money they couldve saved in other areas, but chose to fire this employee. What a joke.

alephnan 3y ago
This is the flip side of “layoffs can’t be based on performance”
- aitchnyu 3y ago
  Could you explain this "cant"?
  - junto 3y ago
    Companies operating in some countries are required in certain circumstances (forced layoffs), to consider the social aspect of who they make redundant. So people that have children, or are disabled, or older, or anyone who may have difficultly finding a job and losing their job would bring hardship (especially to vulnerable dependents of the employee) are required legally to grade each employee on a social risk scale and make those who are most mobile and independent redundant as a priority. As you might guess, companies therefore try to avoid such programs in favor of voluntary redundancy, in the hope that such employees will take the payout. These kind of programs (when enforced) tend to push out the young, driven, hungry, innovative employees in the company. It means that the voluntary redundancy packages offered by companies need to be attractive, so for the employee it provides them with safeguards that they can feel secure in their jobs and their lives. In the end it’s a balancing act between consideration for the human, versus pure unbridled entrepreneurship.
    - danielscrubs 3y ago
      This is not the case in Spotifys country. It is first in last out. You can get around it by creating a team and letting the whole team go or if they have been given multiple warnings without improvement. What does this “social aspect” idea come from?

geraldwhen 3y ago

Layoffs are so in vogue. What a strange time we live in.

WXLCKNO 3y ago
Gotta increase that shareholder value somehow. Oh wait it's already at all time highs? Strange.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Goes to 11..
- magicmicah85 3y ago
  Spotify hasn’t made a profit in years. At some point, you have to start making the hard decisions and let people go - but not Joe Rogan, they still need to pay him $250 million while letting his content go to other platforms. Spotifys business model makes no sense to me.
  - bsdpufferfish 3y ago
    The Joe Rogan scapegoat is silly. Just a few months ago HN was talking about how much of a business disaster it was. And here Spotify just renewed it.
    - kasey_junk 3y ago
      Is that evidence that it’s a good deal? From the outside Spotify doesn’t seem like a company that makes good financial decisions. The Rogan deal seems central in that. Do they ever publish ad revenue or user stats by content. I’ve not seen it in their filings. And the new deal is on its face worse. They are paying the same for no exclusivity! I’m just not sure how to objectively judge the Rogan deal but it certainly seems very bad to me, an uninterested party.
      - bsdpufferfish 3y ago

clueless 3y ago

I know there is an internet archive version of the site, but is there anyway to download a dump of this site (along with all the sample music associated with the genres) for offline usage/access?

CrypticShift 3y ago

The article mentions that the project has over 600K monthly users, which is a significant number for a side project. However, in comparison to Spotify's user base of 1000 times more, it now seems insignificant. This reminds me of how companies like Google only consider services with hundreds of millions users to be successful or important. It appears that Spotify is in a similar position now. My only hope is that the API does not degrade significantly.

Solvency 3y ago
I don't believe for a hot second Spotify has 600,000,000 legitimate users.
- CrypticShift 3y ago
  Well they speak of 236 million subscribers [1]. are they lying ? [1] https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/company-info/
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Well, they'd need to cite something that shows that every Spotify member shares their membership with 1.6 other people. I'm skeptical of that. It's bad enough with Netflix recommendations and profiles - Spotify doesn't support profiles, so you're sharing your music choices with those people? Spotify is also pretty aggressive with account sharing.
    - samsin 3y ago
      More likely free users with their own accounts. Subscribed users are a subset of all users and I wouldn’t be surprised if unsubscribed users were the larger group.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    I've created 4 free accounts over the years but haven't spent a minute listening. I'm sure it's like facebook, once an account is created it's counted as a unique user forever.

beaugunderson 3y ago

oh man what a loss... I used this all the time to find new music. horrible.

lolive 3y ago

I do not know about EveryNoiseAOnce. But I felt sad when spotifynewmusic.com [a convenient music discovery service, facaded as Spotify playlists] was closed. More than half of my prefered albums were discovered through spotifynewmusic.com, at the time.

leksak 3y ago

Such a shame. I am, or have been, a pretty avid Spotify user. I have some 100s of playlists there as I came into a rhythm of pegging a playlist to a year and a quarter. However, I'm more and more leaving that behind and starting to use NTS Radio. I discover more, and it's so much cheaper.

soheilpro 3y ago

For those interested, I maintain a "Best Of" playlist for each of the 6.3K Spotify genres at https://volt.fm https://volt.fm