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Spotify Form F-1

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Re: Spotify Form F-1

#141

Post by gonehome »

Nadya wrote: post #132
p1esk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell audio quality of Spotify vs Tidal in a blind test?

The default quality for the desktop app is in OGG Vorbis at 160kbps and for the mobile app is 96kbps. With a Premium subscription you can change these to 'Extreme' (320kbps). The web player reaches is 128kbps AAC or 256kbps with Premium [0]. Many users might be unaware they can change the quality at all (or they don't use the desktop app but use the web player so can't change the quality at all). I can definitely hea…

In that case given Spotify premium and just setting the config to use 'extreme' there should be no reason to pay for a separate subscription service? (At least for quality reasons).

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#142

Post by nopriorarrests »

s_ngularity wrote: post #110
gautamnarula wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking that Spotify would actually need to go in the Netflix direction and have the music equivalent of "originals" (that is, signing artists and having their own label) because otherwise record companies would try to spin off their own services and take their content with them (which has happened in video streaming), or the moment Spotify gets too profitable they'll see an opportunity to increase content pri…

The difference here is that presumably fewer record companies have the money to fund the development of their own streaming service. The movie industry has much bigger players in the game. Additionally I don't think anybody's cracked the code on how to make reliably well-received music yet. You can't distract the audience with good visuals and special effects if the plot is no good like in a movie.

>The difference here is that presumably fewer record companies have the money to fund the development of their own streaming service.

They don't need it. With Apple Music, Google Play and Spotify majors can afford to destroy Spotify with royalties as they please, and users will just migrate to other platforms and continue to pay.

It's kinda funny once you think about it. Back in early 00's, when Napster appeared, everybody was "dude, record labels are dead, new business models, bla-bla-bla".

And now we are 18 years later, and majors are quite fine. And they did literally nothing for 18 years. No investments, no development, nothing. They just milked different internet services with their royalties.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#143

Post by criddell »

underwater wrote: post #70
criddell wrote: post #67

I wonder if Spotify will become a music label for the same reasons that Netflix has been making their own shows? Spotify could be severely damaged if only a few labels were to pull their content.

Spotify would be severely damaged if any major label pulled their content. That’s very different from Netflix.

I looked - there are three major record labels and six major movie studios in the US.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#144

Post by neom »

jonknee wrote: post #32
Analemma_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think taking either side of this bet would be foolish. You can usually (but not always!) bet on a Day 1 bump for a normal IPO, but there's no historical data for a direct listing of this size, and Spotify might overprice it just because, hey, why not, they get more money and without underwriters the strong incentive to underprice disappears. If you're not working for a huge bank, stay away from this until it stabil…

> Spotify might overprice it just because, hey, why not, they get more money and without underwriters there are no clients to disappoint Spotify isn't pricing it, they aren't even selling shares. The initial pricing will come directly out of the order book whenever it lists. It's really unusual. Read the plan of distribution section: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518...

Morgen Stanley is doing the book collection prior to open, so it's almost underwritten. It will be subscribed, either way.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#145

Post by nindalf »

k4ch0w wrote: post #62

I only left Spotify for Youtube Red/Google Music. It was not an easy decision because they have the best music selection and discover imo. They should acquire pandora and then I think they could dominate this space.

Its interesting that you praise Spotify's selection. I love Spotify, have been a Premium subscriber for 4 years, but there are hundreds of songs that I'd like to listen to but have never been available on Spotify. Meanwhile, they're available on Apple Music.

Also, some of the songs that I've saved over the past few years have been removed from Spotify's library - just yesterday I noticed that The Safety Dance is greyed out in my client. (Others include I Walk the Line, Save Tonight and Ambarsariya)

That said, I'm a Spotify lifer. I can't see myself leaving and as for the selection, I live in eternal hope that they'll improve it with time.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#146

Post by amorphid »

pyronite wrote: post #66
saym wrote: post #18

They've gone from 28 million to 71 million premium subscribers in 3 years with a declining, single digit, churn rate. I'm impressed. I'm a happy Spotify customer, I hope they continue their growth and become a pillar of the music industry.

I was a Spotify lifer until I butted up against their 10,000 song limit. [1] Now, I'm using Google Play Music. There's no doubt in my mind that everything else outside of this limit is better on Spotify. Please, Spotify, fix this! Let me help inflate your valuation! 1. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Library-Song-Limit...

I left Pandora for a similar reason. They had (still have?) a 100 station limit. It was lame. I am also a Google Play Music user.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#147

Post by squeaky-clean »

chrisseaton wrote: post #133
pyronite wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Spotify lifer until I butted up against their 10,000 song limit. [1] Now, I'm using Google Play Music. There's no doubt in my mind that everything else outside of this limit is better on Spotify. Please, Spotify, fix this! Let me help inflate your valuation! 1. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Library-Song-Limit...

I don't understand - I thought you could stream any audio from their collection that you wanted on Spotify? Do you have to add audio to your library first? Otherwise why does it matter what is in your library and what isn't if you can stream anything?

It allows you to quickly look through music you like, rather than having to manually search for the artist/album/song every single time.

It's still streamed (unless you save it for Offline, which it supports) but it's waaay better for organization. Have you ever forgetten the name of an artist or forgot an artist exists until you scroll past them in your music library?

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#148

Post by jjgod »

dopeboy wrote: post #96

Spotify is the reason why I don't pirate music anymore. I say this as someone who used to be involved in the scene (low level FXP couriering in the late 90s and early 00s) and has gigs of release from the RNS, EGO, etc days. It's much faster and convenient to use Spotify. I also think they cracked music discovery. Their discovery weekly playlist is stellar. My only wish is they'd get off Electron (EDIT Chromium - tha…

Technically Spotify doesn't use Electron, they use a customized version of CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework):

    $ ls -lh /Applications/Spotify.app/Contents/Frameworks/
    total 0
    drwxr-xr-x  5 jjgod  staff   160B Nov  7  2016 Chromium Embedded Framework.framework
    drwxr-xr-x  3 jjgod  staff    96B Nov  7  2016 Spotify Helper EH.app
    drwxr-xr-x  3 jjgod  staff    96B Nov  7  2016 Spotify Helper.app

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#149

Post by twostorytower »

extr wrote: post #59
steve-benjamins wrote: post #4

I really hope Spotify succeeds. I've mentioned this before on Hacker News, but as an artist, the algorithmic playlists are amazing. On a good week I get ~4,000 new listeners. It's incredible. Discovery Weekly drives the most but Release Radar and Radio also send a good chunk. Apple Music on the hand hasn't even verified my artist profile— which I need in order to view analytics. So I don't even know if people listen…

I've said it before, but Spotify is the single most valuable subscription service I pay for. Video streaming is convenient, but some of the music I've come across on Spotify has literally changed my life and that would never have happened if I was still forced to torrent everything. It's just so easy, it's everything they said the steaming model would be.

Wrote a "persuasive speech" in college a decade ago about how to solve the problem the music industry was facing (piracy). I proposed an all you can listen subscription service, at a price point of say $10. Saying the record labels would work together to make this happen. My professor nearly laughed me out of the room when I proposed my thesis for the speech. I presented the speech anyways and got an A.

Today, Spotify is thriving as a company and the major record labels have their hands in it. Sure, they have some work to do to figure out how to become profitable and sustainable, but they've come a long way.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#150

Post by singingboyo »

shostack wrote: post #46
kaftoy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't want to change this discussion into a "which is the best music streaming service" debate, but I am really curious, why haven't your considered Google Play Music? Interface? Songs count? Price? I am subbed to GPM for a few years now. I did it first because Spotify was and still isn't available in my country, but I don't think I would switch if they become available tomorrow.

I used to use GPM and am now a Spotify customer. For starters, I was annoyed that Google removed some of its playlist interface around the activity-based radios. You'd click an activity and there would be several stations/playlists for different styles of music that were great for that general activity. Loved it. Now I can't find it anywhere. Second is the interface in general. Spotify realizes that especially on mob…

The album art bit I'll generally agree with, but for the activity bit... not to sound too harsh, but did you even try to find it after they did a minor redesign a while back?

Menu ("..." on left in web) > Browse stations > Activities

It's right there!

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