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Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

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Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#151

Post by [deleted] »

Thaxll wrote: post #121
jklinger410 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just made this choice, let me add some insight. - My friends use Spotify - Larger library - Well made playlists - Social feed In the end, they are very similar products. I feel that Spotify has a huge head start on Google here, and it shows. The more mature product is Spotify. I think Google can't really compete in terms of curation and popularity. Really, the edge cases of "music that is not on Spotif…

Larger library? They all use the same base library afaik.

[deleted]

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#152

Post by Stanleyc23 »

wj wrote: post #77
synaesthesisx wrote: post #27

I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely. Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could p…

I agree they should sign exclusive deals with artists which would give them leverage in their negotiations with the record labels with an eye on the long-term hope of breaking that reliance on them. They won't be able to get into concert tickets at the present time in any significant way due to the exclusive agreements between Ticketmaster and venues. Though maybe the could start with some smaller acts and venues and…

IMO signing exclusive artists seems like a strategic red herring because such deals would not be done in a vacuum. I think the transition period in building up substantial leverage with exclusive artists means theres quite a bit of time for the record labels to retaliate.

My pie in the sky recommendation would be to figure out a way to offer a record label's services for free without exclusivity. Then existing labels will have nowhere to turn.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#153

Post by kgwgk »

unethical_ban wrote: post #90
komali2 wrote: post #47

I'm not quite clear on why people are choosing spotify over google play music - to me the google option is superior in UI and offerings (including ad-free youtube). Am I missing something? Is it just one runs better on iPhones or is more hip (like why people choose snapchat over instagram or something)?

Spotify was first for on-demand streaming in the modern era, even before Google or Apple Music. Its radio/recommendations are better than Pandora, and I haven't tried others. I think Spotify's UI is fantastic, and its multi-device awareness is functional and intuitive. To your point, Google does have ad-free Youtube, but the ads don't bother me enough/I don't watch enough Youtube for it to impact me like it does with…

> Spotify was first for on-demand streaming in the modern era

I guess that’s true if you define the “modern era” as “starting with Spotify”.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#154

Post by lallysingh »

Asdfbla wrote: post #132
synaesthesisx wrote: post #27

I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely. Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could p…

Didn't record labels complain some time ago that Spotify had supposedly commissioned music for its instrumental playlists (presumably to save money on royalties)? There's probably a danger that large record labels will threaten to revoke their licensing agreements if they think that Spotify may start competing with them on that front. Not sure if that will be a problem, though, I'm not familiar with the whole streami…

It really depends on how much market share Spotify gets for being people's primary access to music. Wal Mart has (I think?) decent influence on the music industry over what CDs it will and won't sell.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#155

Post by letslightafire »

skinnymuch wrote: post #145
jklinger410 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just made this choice, let me add some insight. - My friends use Spotify - Larger library - Well made playlists - Social feed In the end, they are very similar products. I feel that Spotify has a huge head start on Google here, and it shows. The more mature product is Spotify. I think Google can't really compete in terms of curation and popularity. Really, the edge cases of "music that is not on Spotif…

Can you give an example of the larger library? Yeah I like the social feed. Wish you could get to it on mobile though.

GPM has a lack of some international artists.

This Taiwanese artist is on Spotify but not Google Play Music.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2JBUyLiFvpFPWdZGqIGYLD?si=uq...

https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/sr/crowd+lu

Nothing except youtube, but that's just cheating.

Same with this one.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0tNjyz75Px29Yuf1sjs25G

https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/sr/cosmos+people

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#156

Post by dizzy3gg »

wj wrote: post #77
synaesthesisx wrote: post #27

I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely. Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could p…

I agree they should sign exclusive deals with artists which would give them leverage in their negotiations with the record labels with an eye on the long-term hope of breaking that reliance on them. They won't be able to get into concert tickets at the present time in any significant way due to the exclusive agreements between Ticketmaster and venues. Though maybe the could start with some smaller acts and venues and…

https://tickets.amazon.co.uk/sd

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#157

Post by ericwood »

astura wrote: post #143
ericwood wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at Blue Apron...sending people boxes of perishables is actually a very tough problem to solve and there was extensive tech powering the warehouse side of things. We had a fairly large engineering team working on these problems. At the end of the day who really cares what is and isn't a "tech company"? Every company has a tech aspect to it these days.

How's that different from, say, the logistics of grocery stores? Yet Wegmans isn't considered a "tech company."

Most grocery stores use off-the-shelf tech for this sort of thing; our business model made a lot of that not feasible and there was a decision made early on to build it ourselves, if anything because the tech we developed could have its own value down the line.

If Wegman's was writing software like this (maybe they do! I have no idea) then I'd happily consider them a tech company.

But like I said, it's a silly thing to argue about anyways.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#158

Post by whatok »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #105
whatok wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is listening to all of this self-published music to get training data for Discover Weekly?

You algorithmically seed new music to those with an interest in the genre and keep the songs with higher replays around for more recommendations. With perfect knowledge of who is listening to what and their overall tastes you can cut out all the inefficiency of the current gatekeepers (labels, billboard, and corp. radio) who act as self imposed kingmakers for a few anointed acts. The cream will rise to the top natura…

This sounds terrible from a user perspective and arguably promotes certain types of music while penalizing others. As a user, if I hear more than a few songs that are terrible that were forced upon me by some algorithm, I am not going to listen to that playlist/use that service anymore. If users are the only way you are generating training data (for this supposed only self-published music world), you are going to end up with the music version of clickbait to get users' attention before they hit skip. I really cannot emphasize how bad optimizing for this would be for music.

Whatever your opinion on "current gatekeepers", some of them do provide valuable filtering services that I struggle to see how an algorithm could accurately replicate without compromising what makes music magical.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#159

Post by jedberg »

chimeracoder wrote: post #60
jedberg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I thought too, but someone from the investment banking industry corrected me the last time I said that, and pointed out that "banks never lose money", and that the company does eventually have to repay them.

Underwriters aren't gatekeepers by definition, because there's nothing preventing companies from foregoing underwriters. But almost every single company that goes public chooses to[0], because they gain significant value from the process. There are a few exceptions - Google is the most famous one. But they're rare, and even Google ran into trouble with theirs - they literally had to cut the size of the amount they ra…

> because there's nothing preventing companies from foregoing underwriters.

Isn't that like saying "there is nothing that prevents you from using highways"? Like sure, you don't have to use an underwriter, but, as you pointed out with the Google example, it won't go well for you if you leave them out.

Re: Spotify opens on NYSE, valuing company at almost $30B

#160

Post by Skunkleton »

isostatic wrote: post #120
paulie_a wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People tend to overestimate the size of the music and movie industries, apple and google could buy them outright with change from their couch cushions.

What that says about Spotify's valuation is another thing

This is something that has been bothering me. Doesn't it seem like stock prices are getting out of whack?
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