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Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

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Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#121

Post by tormeh »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #107
philliphaydon wrote: post #50

Spotify waste so much money on their employees, who effectively do very little. I know a designer who has been there 2 years, basically sits in meetings and gets sent to different countries, and has added nothing to their portfolio. Yet gets reviews and raises and bonuses... Then there's all the parties they host for their employees, etc. It's not a company I would invest in if I had any money to begin with. Also tha…

I've always been very put off by their rah rah support for Agile. In many ways, I think Spotify cargo cults on the Netflix culture document, but they don't actually have a tech culture identity that they've created for themselves, they just make a big fuss about Agile, oppressive open-plan spaces, and fancy parties. I think Spotify is a great example of why job candidates should look before they leap when it comes to…

Apple and Google can market to people who already have accounts and devices from Apple and Google. Spotify is at a significant convenience and huge marketing disadvantage.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#122

Post by tormeh »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #107
philliphaydon wrote: post #50

Spotify waste so much money on their employees, who effectively do very little. I know a designer who has been there 2 years, basically sits in meetings and gets sent to different countries, and has added nothing to their portfolio. Yet gets reviews and raises and bonuses... Then there's all the parties they host for their employees, etc. It's not a company I would invest in if I had any money to begin with. Also tha…

I've always been very put off by their rah rah support for Agile. In many ways, I think Spotify cargo cults on the Netflix culture document, but they don't actually have a tech culture identity that they've created for themselves, they just make a big fuss about Agile, oppressive open-plan spaces, and fancy parties. I think Spotify is a great example of why job candidates should look before they leap when it comes to…

Apple and Google can market to people who already have accounts and devices from Apple and Google. Spotify is at a significant convenience and huge marketing disadvantage.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#124

Post by estreeper »

danieltillett wrote: post #116
x0x0 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All out war for streaming customers with apple and google. Someone is going to collect $10 (plus $1 or $2 increase every couple years) per month for a huge segment of the music listening population for basically the rest of our lives. Spotify want it to be them.

Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all? The labels will do anything to prevent another Apple arising including backing any upstart that wants to challenge the big players. When you are just a middle man it is hard to create a monopoly.

> Is there any reason to think that this market is a winner take all?

I personally doubt it. Exceedingly few markets are winner-take-all. Plus, monthly subscribers are "sticky", so they're not going to leave overnight if one competitor gains a slight edge, and everyone else will have a chance to catch up.

Your point about the labels and streaming services as middle men is a good one too. Labels own all the content, so they have a lot of power to influence the market as well.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#125

Post by smilekzs »

I find this (Apple directly competing with apps on its platform) mentally disturbing as it reminds me of 15 years ago when Internet Explorer 4 was sued ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor.... ) because it supposingly broke antitrust law(s).

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#126

Post by donarb »

smilekzs wrote: post #125

I find this (Apple directly competing with apps on its platform) mentally disturbing as it reminds me of 15 years ago when Internet Explorer 4 was sued ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . ) because it supposingly broke antitrust law(s).

Why disturbing? Apple is not preventing competition, they are encouraging it.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#127

Post by hodgesrm »

ktRolster wrote: post #123

One company I worked for used credit cards to make payroll instead of going for another round of funding. Weirdly, that worked out for them, and they sold with a profit (for everyone that had stock).

Credit cards work if you are evening out cash flow. For example, if you have a good rate of receivable collection but variation in the timing of payment credit cards are way less hassle than other approaches like factoring or doing something like taking venture financing, which tends to come with pretty onerous terms.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#128

Post by ghaff »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #104
jevinskie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this because their product offering is not as good as their competitors? I switched to Spotify over services like streaming radio (Pandora) and cloud music storage (Amazon Music) a couple of years ago. Haven't looked at the competition much since. I heard that Apple Music, the one potential competitor I was considering switching to, was buggy. I've been frustrated with Spotify bugs in the past but have found that…

I discontinued my Spotify service about 18 months ago because I went through the process of deleting my Facebook account, and the backend Spotify account was linked to it. It turned into a pretty unexpected ordeal, I had to call Spotify customer service, they asked me if I could reactivate my Facebook account just for this, have them "fix" it, then deactivate again, etc. At the time Spotify Linux support wasn't very…

You mostly well described it for me. I tried Apple Music for a while but I get Amazon for "free" through Prime. I don't really care about having everything. I have a pretty big music library already and I'll buy anything I really want. (Where I probably differ is that I'd just as soon own music that I particularly like.)

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#129

Post by jeffdavis »

Splines wrote: post #111
jevinskie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this because their product offering is not as good as their competitors? I switched to Spotify over services like streaming radio (Pandora) and cloud music storage (Amazon Music) a couple of years ago. Haven't looked at the competition much since. I heard that Apple Music, the one potential competitor I was considering switching to, was buggy. I've been frustrated with Spotify bugs in the past but have found that…

Both Spotify and Pandora are losing money on a consistent basis. IMO streaming music is a losing business, and the only way a provider is going to stay in the market is because they have other services that complement the music. I love Spotify and am a daily user but honestly it's going to take a lot of work to turn things around for them. Content acquisition costs are killer and are not something that can go away.

I thought the exact same thing about Netflix. What I missed was actually quite obvious: there are already companies making a lot of money in content delivery (e.g. Comcast).

I don't know whether that will carry over to music quite as well though.

Re: Spotify raises $1B in debt with devilish terms to fight Apple Music

#130

Post by x0x0 »

bentlegen wrote: post #119
x0x0 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you miss?

I was an Rdio subscriber from 2010 until it shut down, and I've been a Spotify subscriber since. I can name a few things: 1) Discovery. Rdio would inform me when new albums are out by artists I listen to. Spotify doesn't. Rdio's "Artist Stations" were also much better – not only did they not repeat (like Spotify's do), they also let you choose whether you wanted to hear "more" or "less" of the artist themselves while…

Hmm. I get notifications for certain artists of new song releases; I'm not sure which ones and why though. deepakg suggests you get them if you follow artists, but the spotify client won't load the artists page for me at this time.

I will say, at least for me, Spotify's "Discover Weekly" which is refreshed Sunday nights is amazing. I've saved at least 2 songs from it every week, and most weeks more than 2.

If only they could build an android app that doesn't crash or get flaky all the time...

The social features sound cool.

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