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Spotify moves lyrics behind a paywall
- mock-possum 2y agoThere are literally only three things I want from Spotify: music search, music playback, and music library organization (aka playlists) Everything else just gets in the way of that.
- aksss 2y agoWhat, you don't like the full screen modal ads in the app for new and irrelevant music? The pointless stock video loops? Value, baby!
- nkozyra 2y agoOr an AI voice telling you that you're resuming a playlist? I still can't figure out how/why they gave that a green light.
- RankingMember 2y ago> why they gave that a green light After they came out with the Car Thing[1], I realized there may be a loose cannon over there at Spotify, and not in a fun, creative way, but in a "greenlights harebrained nonsense" way, like Netflix's "Qwikster" near-debacle. 1 https://carthing.spotify.com/ https://carthing.spotify.com/
- troupo 2y agoDisclaimer: I work at Spotify CarThing made sense for the US market at the time (a huge owership of old cars with barely a radio), but along the way other things interfered (I don't know how much of this is public, but time, money, licensing, regulations etc. pick any combination of those). The result was much less than it could've been, sadly. It was a quaint little device.
- aksss 2y agoSpotify on CarPlay is great, the only thing that perpetually pisses me off (maybe an apple thing?) is that lists of items (playlists, podcasts, etc) are truncated in carplay, presumably as a safety thing? I then have to pick up my phone while driving, get into the spotify app on phone to find the playlist I want, which is obviously far more dangerous to do while driving than if the full list of items was just displayed in CarPlay.
- troupo 2y agoIt could also be due to UI itself. Carplay is a weird thing with restrictions on how you build it, what elements are allowed, where and how they can be placed etc. And that intersects/conflicts with the design and the need to show information and so on :)
- barbazoo 2y agoyesterday it got me through that rabbit hole of link to some ... I don't even know what it was really, some kind of focus group maybe? Like, wtf just play the music.
- barbazoo 2y agoIt just seems too hard to resist the kind of money that forces you into the feature death spiral that Spotify has entered, that Dropbox is deep, deeeep into and that thousands of others have descended in. What do these companies have in common? Venture capital? Genuine question.
- seoulmetro 2y agoTech companies have in common that their stock to quality value is indeterminate and sales are sporadic compared to output.
- RankingMember 2y agoThe podcast integration is remarkably bad.
- hightrix 2y agoI spent a year subscribing to each streaming platform, Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal, and a few others, in search of an adequate replacement for Google Play Music. For me, Apple Music is simply the best. No clutter, no ads, no podcasts being forced in your face. It has the best recommendations I've seen, much better than Spotify.
- antifa 2y agoSearch is barely usable, extremely basic things like play next song button plays next song don't work.
- bjw4 2y agoParental controls too. My kids wandered into some explicit user generated content, but any controls are now only available to the most expensive family plan. Deleted the account and moved to Apple Music which offers parental controls in iOS settings as part of the normal plan.
- __s 2y ago?? apple gave computers to schools because children are the easiest targets for eventual customers, even from an evil corporation mindset you shouldn't be creating a barrier to children's access
- Capricorn2481 2y agoI have no idea what you're arguing
- __s 2y agoAgreeing with person I responded to, showing surprise that a product would decide to put parental controls behind paywall
- raverbashing 2y agoBut the normal Apple Music plan is paid no?
- antifa 2y agoI wish I could hide specific album art/ artist avatars. Doesn't matter why, some are just off putting/gross/ugly. Also block specific artists. They have bad music. Don't recommend them, don't show up in searches, skip them in playlists.
- jszymborski 2y agoI have no love for Spotify or their business model (I am a "buy CDs/MP3s" kinda person), but frankly I think paywalling lyrics, parent controls, offline downloads, audio quality, etc... makes a lot of sense, and I think it's a lot more sustainable (and personally ethical) than advertising. I much prefer companies have a degraded free tier than try to squeeze dollars out of a free tier by disregarding user privacy and selling to data brokers. That said, I'm sure Spotify is going to do both.
- troupo 2y ago> but frankly I think paywalling lyrics, parent controls, offline downloads, audio quality, etc... makes a lot of sense, and I think it's a lot more sustainable (and personally ethical) than advertising. Disclaimer: I work at Spotify We'd love to give all of that to you for free, or nearly for free. Almost everything you mention or want has a price tag attached to it by rights holders: Spotify has to pay for almost everything. Also, in a different comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40241883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40241883
- jszymborski 2y agoJust to be clear, I take no issue with charging for these features. My qualms with Spotify have more to do with (1) advertising/user data as a major revenue stream and (2) I much rather "own" than "rent" my music.
- troupo 2y agoYeah, I have the same reservations as you
- Krasnol 2y agoI hate how it gets normal to join some service just to see it becoming worse and worse, or just more expensive. How is this model still something CEOs go for? Is it because there are enough people stupid enough to keep on paying to make up for those who are leaving? I wonder if there is a science of that sweet spot where it's still worth to lose people and keep on making more profits from quarter to quarter. This is a pest. I am one of those who recently turned pirate again for my favorite shows because of this behavior, and I'm teaching all my less IT capable friends how to do it too.
- arccy 2y agoif you paid for it, it didn't really change...
- Krasnol 2y agoCould you elaborate on this? I don't understand.
- refulgentis 2y ago(not the poster, just someone earnest explicating at length) There's an odd dissonant quality to reading a broad-based lament* about "joining a service" and it "getting worse", in response to Spotify putting lyrics behind a paywall. I get it, I subscribe to the lament. It's just hard to imagine complaining about it in the context of using something in trial mode, for free, and the change being song lyrics are paywalled. * Again, I lament this as well, but the language is sort of over-the-top and obviously unethical in a way that makes it seems more like its mocking people who lament this. "I hate" "becoming worse and worse" "How is this model still something CEOs go for?" "there are enough people stupid enough to keep on paying" "worth to lose people and keep on making more profits from quarter to quarter." "This is a pest." "I turned pirate again" "I'm teaching all my friends how to do it too."
- Krasnol 2y agoThe language is the result of an utter frustration and sheer anger with the whole business model. Why can't we have nice things anymore? It worked so well, but it seems like they can't squeeze enough out of us customers, and it has to be more and more every year. I went from pirate to paid because it was all there and I wanted to be able to give to the authors and artists without having to put discs on my shelf. Now I somehow not only don't care anymore, I feel like I just want to do the opposite thing. I'm on bandcamp now for music, but I just don't care about movies/TV shows. Honestly, at this point I feel insulted by this model. I'd be ashamed to admit that I pay for x-services to watch my TV shows. > It's just hard to imagine complaining about it in the context of using something in trial mode, for free, and the change being song lyrics aren't accessible. Don't those "free" users still have to endure advertisements? It isn't free then. It is stealing their attention as a price now they're just getting less for the "same" (is it the same? didn't the amount of ads rise?) price.
- 999900000999 2y agoYouTube music comes with ad free YouTube. I'm amazed Spotify is still around. You have Apple baking a music subscription into the OS.
- relyks 2y agoSpotify still has the best discovery features
- tethys 2y ago> Instead, the company told TechCrunch simply that Spotify’s features can vary over time, between markets and across devices. I hate it. I recently tried to find out how to sort my liked songs by genre. Turns it, this feature has been released over 3 years ago [0], but hasn't made it to Europe yet. [0] https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-25/how-to-sort-your-favorite-songs-with-spotifys-new-genre-and-mood-filters/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-25/how-to-sort-your-fav...
- probably_jesus 2y ago[dead]
- neves 2y agoLyrics is a great feature. Other day a friend played the guitar and we followed lyrics in Spotify. Nice karaoke night
- solarkraft 2y agoI have no problem with this change itself - the free version of Spotify is barely more than a trial anyway. They probably pay substantial licensing fees, so I totally get it. But the way they generally behave towards their (paying) users irks me so much - not even a hint of respect. This general attitude (leading to progressive worsening of the product) eventually made me jump ship to Tidal, which also has its annoyances, but is at least consistent with them and doesn't randomly shuffle shit around every week.
- Simulacra 2y agoGood thing you can just Google them...