The clock is ticking for Spotify • Hacker News Board

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#11

Post by binarymax » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

madebysquares wrote: post #8

sydd wrote: post #4

I think Spotify will die in 5-10 years, but not because of royalty fee woes. We will not go back to the "buy a song for $1" model of the early 2000s. But it will die because of the moonopolistic and anti-competitive practices of the popular OSes: Apple preinstalls Apple Music, Google Play music, and Microsoft Groove (all 3 clones of Spotify). This agressive, monopolistic behaviour will kill Spotify, just like MS riva…

This is becoming my biggest annoyance with streaming services. The integration with your OS(iOS or android) makes it a much more attractive option when using those devices. My second biggest annoyance is the increasing trend of "artist exclusives" if you pay a monthly fee and your favorite artist are giving exclusives to the other services I'm less inclined to continue using that service(Spotify) because I don't get…

I completely agree with the OS integration annoyance. I use Spotify but it doesn't connect to Siri and the UX is abysmal on CarPlay.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#12

Post by laurentdc » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

Somewhat unrelated but.. is the music industry expecting that we go back to buying CDs (or $0.99 tracks) if streaming services die out?

Because I'm pretty sure I won't. I can't see myself going back to physical media or DRM-laden files any soon.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#13

Post by patrick_haply » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

iamben wrote: post #3

I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify? I'm sure it won't be deliberate, just a combination of stubbornness, greed and living in the past. Spotify and music is like a library and books. It's fantastic and accessible for listening and discovery. I'm hard pushed to find a friend that didn't use napster or limewire that's moved to Spotify - it's just easy, there and the…

What I often find is that artists will have have everything on Spotify except their latest album, at least for a few months. Fair enough, they want people to buy their albums; it's just one area where I find Spotify consistently incomplete.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#14

Post by bogomipz » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:32 PM UTC

Its worth noting that Universal, BMG, Warner Bros and EMI are all investors Spotify. It's kind of an odd situation in that respect, the labels don't need Spotify to go public but their other investors do.

The big 4 record labels are the recipients of the $5 billion that the company has paid out in royalties to date. They've surely recouped any initial investment they put in by now. So they kind of have a vested interest at the moment anyway for keeping things just as they are.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#15

Post by bogomipz » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:35 PM UTC

iamben wrote: post #3

I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify? I'm sure it won't be deliberate, just a combination of stubbornness, greed and living in the past. Spotify and music is like a library and books. It's fantastic and accessible for listening and discovery. I'm hard pushed to find a friend that didn't use napster or limewire that's moved to Spotify - it's just easy, there and the…

>"I can't be the only one that has almost zero faith the music industry won't ruin Spotify?"

But will it be the music industry ruining Spotify if that happens or will it simply be a failure of the business model? You could certainly argue the latter.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#16

Post by RamenJunkie_ » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:35 PM UTC

danr4 wrote: post #6

One strategy that makes sense to me is going for the Netflix model - become a "record label" themselves, sign some quality artists, help create quality music, win some grammy's and then you rid yourself of those pesky licensing issues. Only problem is that they need to do it before they burn all their cash, which won't be easy.

The problem with this model, especially in music, is that music is way more reusable than a TV show.

So in the end, if everyone follows this trend, you'll have to subscribe to 3-4 different services at $10/month to get a complete library, and each will be trapped into different apps, so you could end up no being able to play songs together.

Unlike Netflix/Amazon/Hulu, where you could easily subscribe to or drop one month to month to watch different shows.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#17

Post by LoSboccacc » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:36 PM UTC

superplussed wrote: post #10

Don't the music labels own a big percentage of Spotify? Hasn't that been the whole argument that the labels are unfairly taking money out of the hands of the artists by owning a piece of the distribution? It seems to be that they have a vested interested in working with Spotify to ensure its long term health.

Labels already owns most artist past present and future works, distribution channels doesn't really matter at this point.

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#18

Post by Scown » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:37 PM UTC

danr4 wrote: post #6

One strategy that makes sense to me is going for the Netflix model - become a "record label" themselves, sign some quality artists, help create quality music, win some grammy's and then you rid yourself of those pesky licensing issues. Only problem is that they need to do it before they burn all their cash, which won't be easy.

They do this, albeit on a smaller scale, with the Spotify Sessions stuff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify_Sessions)

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#19

Post by glitcher » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:37 PM UTC

sydd wrote: post #4

I think Spotify will die in 5-10 years, but not because of royalty fee woes. We will not go back to the "buy a song for $1" model of the early 2000s. But it will die because of the moonopolistic and anti-competitive practices of the popular OSes: Apple preinstalls Apple Music, Google Play music, and Microsoft Groove (all 3 clones of Spotify). This agressive, monopolistic behaviour will kill Spotify, just like MS riva…

> (all 3 clones of Spotify)

When Spotify first came out, my first thought when I saw the UI was this was an iTunes clone :) Of course it was much more than just that...

Re: The clock is ticking for Spotify

#20

Post by bogomipz » Sun, Feb 12, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

danr4 wrote: post #6

One strategy that makes sense to me is going for the Netflix model - become a "record label" themselves, sign some quality artists, help create quality music, win some grammy's and then you rid yourself of those pesky licensing issues. Only problem is that they need to do it before they burn all their cash, which won't be easy.

>"One strategy that makes sense to me is going for the Netflix model - become a "record label" themselves, sign some quality artists, help create quality music, win some grammy's and then you rid yourself of those pesky licensing issues."

I think if you were at the mercy of the traditional record industry for licensing and you went an signed an artist to your label whose contract was up with say Warner Bros Records you could expect some pretty unfavorable terms in licensing content from Warner Brothers in the future. This is just one example but its a slippery slope.

It would certainly be much better for artists to get paid directly from the streaming provider, no doubt about that. But I think if you are out promoting that business model you are going to find it harder to license content from people business model if based on the "old way" of doing things. I think would have to forgo licensing from them almost entirely and carry only original content. This is more or less the model that is/was Tidal. I don't think has worked out too well for them.

In this regard there has been some criticisms against most of the current streaming providers as simply "propping up" the oligarchy of the big 4 record labels.