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Who Killed Spotify?
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that ad-supported music service Spotify is bringing strict limits to its service, allowing users ten hours listening time per month and a lifetime total of five plays per track. Rory Cellan-Jones discusses how much their hand was forced by the labels, and how much it was down to their own desire to move more than the current 15% of users to their paid subscriptions. The overwhelming reaction from users seems to be straightforward disappointment at the loss of a service which managed to bridge the commercial radio business model and modern listening habits. As the first response to the announcement said: 'So long Spotify. It was nice knowing you. Guess I'll go back to pirating music again then.'"
Limits to its free service, not to Spotify in general. I've been a paying subscriber for a while and it's fine.
Must admit though that I cancelled my subscription last week. Wasn't anything wrong with the service, which is a good one, was simply that I found I wasn't using it nearly as much as I thought I might.
Cheers,
Ian
Daniel Ek, is that you?
Bow before me, for I am root.
Guess I'll go back to pirating music again then
I know this attitude well. Being Canadian, it's even worse here.
I try to buy media, and would love to be able to legitimately buy various movies and TV shows online, but thanks to the CBC/CRTC, they can't be made available here thanks to some very backwards and broken laws.
So you browse say, netflix or itunes (ugh.. but meh). Find something you want. Money (figuratively) sitting in my pocket, theirs for the taking .. NOPE! DON'T WANT IT! But please stop pirating because it's costing us money! Oh, here is a show made in the 80's with a 1 and a half star rating who's title contains one word from your query.. THAT we can give you! *froths at mouth*
That is just ridicilous. In Norwegian money, one month of spotify membership costs less than a beer bought at a pub*: and the amount of music you have available is excellent. If they really want the radio model with advertisements and a fixed playlist - listen to a goddamn radio station. Spotify is something completely different - you have full controll over what you are listening to.
*That is for the least expensive option, where you do not have the option to use it on mobile devices. For double this, or about one and a half beer you get the added possibility of installing the spotify application on mobile devices; including offline storage to not tax your wireless data plan.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
It was never really free, insofar as it was supported by ads. I'd be interested to know what it is that makes ad-supported Spotify unsustainable, while ad-supported commercial radio continues to be profitable.
If feels to me (I say "feels" because I have no figures) as if the licensing terms for Internet streaming must be unreasonably high in comparison to radio broadcasting.
Or, Spotify hasn't convinced enough advertisers that it's a worthwhile channel.
As a Canadian I can understand this argument.
I try very hard to pay for all my media.... but man is it hard. Thanks to some very broken laws and the CBC/CRTC, most content can't be offered in Canada for online download. So you find something you want... money sitting in your pocket (figuratively), theirs for the taking... but nope, they can't take it... but they can sell you something made in the 80's with a 1 star rating! Oh but please stop pirating because it's costing us revenue!
So your choice is basically:
- go to the store.. buy the DVD (assuming they even have it in stock and not in blueray).. go home.. rip it onto your computer (which is where you wanted it to begin with)
- download it and be watching in ~half hour
Relying on people to choose the morally correct option over the sane and easier one is a really bad business model!
It's like wallet with your voting?
I really love Spotify, especially the social aspects. Playlists URIs, collaborative playlists etc. are really great.
But as a paying subscriber I really hate it everytime a song gets disabled from my playlists because of the label's greed. I've been paying more to the music industry the past year compared to the last ten years, but it's still not enough.
.: Max Romantschuk
Give us a product we're willing to pay for, and package it in forms that we want, and we'll probably pay for it.
Otherwise: Fuck you. You can't stop the signal, no matter how hard you try. We'll all go back to sharing mix tapes if that's what it takes, or recording off the radio. You will NEVER be able to close the analog gap. You will NEVER be able to create any form of DRM that can't be cracked in a matter of hours or days. You will NEVER be able to stop the sale of used media. You will NEVER be able to prevent people from loaning and borrowing CDs from friends. Give it up. Change, or die.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
That said, based on Spotify's revenues which they have publicly stated along with subscriber numbers, it looks like they made about 50p in advertising per "free" user over the whole of 2009. While some argue they're paying for their experience with ads, 50p per annum for unlimited streaming music cannot look like a good business proposition to the music industry, and it's hard to say they're being unreasonably greedy by refusing to drop their royalty demands down to that level.
The Romans killed Jesus...
Somewhat true, but it would be more accurate to say that the Roman Empire killed Jesus. (For bonus points, the government of one outpost of the Roman Empure killed Jesus)
...but the Jews condemned him.
Wrong. A few Jews in small region condemned him, perhaps even limited to one very small sect of them. All Jews didn't condemn Jesus (he was Jewish, as were many of his followers, he was basically advocating Judaism 2.0 at the time, this was changed after his death to a "revolution" by catering to the Greeks), probably most Jews of the time never even heard of him, or didn't really care one bit what he was saying since he was just one "messiah" among many at the time.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
They started it in the form of radio, which was seen as essentially advertising, and then became payola (pay to play). They were paying stations to play things they wanted us to buy!
Free music has become a lifestyle, and they started it. I'm just playing along. What's the difference between turning on the radio and hearing a song, and having it on my hard drive on-demand? Nothing I say.
50p per year for unlimited streaming is about the maximum that I'd be willing to pay.
Then you are either phenomenally cheap or your have no interest in streaming music. Neither of which apply to most of the people in this discussion.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Like Spotify, Rdio has a pricing model where they charge more if the endpoint is a phone. This makes no sense to me whatsoever and reminds me of the bad old days when cable tv companies wanted you to buy a separate subscription for each television set.
I'm hugely glad to see someone else pointing this out; we know it doesn't cost them anything continuous, and we're rightly irritated when they try to keep charging us. At best, it's greedy; at worst, they're treating their customers (us) like morons who can't count.