Spotify reducing employee base by about 6% • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#131

Post by overgard » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

phamilton4 wrote: post #127

I get needing to keep a company lean and that businesses operate to make money... But most of these recent layoffs really make me feel uneasy. Spotify is a little different because AFAIK they are still operating at a negative net income, but still let's take a look at this. They're going to let go 600 people.. that's maybe an annual 90 million in savings (150k salary). The company's revenue is about 9 billion with -3…

Considering how generous the severance is (a good thing), I wonder if it will even save them much money this year (granted, there will probably be some resignations from people that disagree with the direction).

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#132

Post by mh- » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

EastSmith wrote: post #102

Just learned that Spotify made all the private playlist (along the playlist' label) public. Someone posted about it the other thread for the same news. I am shocked.

I don't see them visible on my profile, as of now, but my profile also doesn't seem to be loading reliably.

I can confirm that private playlists are accessible by their link even in an incognito window. That is surprising to me. Has that always been the case?

edit: a quick google suggests that sharing by link is known to allow access to anyone with the link.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#133

Post by jzb » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

mjr00 wrote: post #130

jzb wrote: post #93

I dunno, maybe if Spotify wasn't spending hundreds of million on podcast deals and actually focusing on what its users want, they wouldn't need to lay people off. Any way you slice it, there's no way that the Rogan deal pays for itself. Spotify is stingy AF with the artists that drove people to the service, and then firehoses Rogan with cash and tries to shove podcasts down people's throats. I was a happy Spotify sub…

> I dunno, maybe if Spotify wasn't spending hundreds of million on podcast deals and actually focusing on what its users want, they wouldn't need to lay people off. One of the people specifically called out is Chief Content Officer Dawn Ostroff, who "decided to depart," which is how you phrase C-level firings when they coincide with layoffs. I imagine that the disastrous podcast deals with the royals and Obamas had s…

That's good but hardly good enough. No way they drove those deals without the CEO's buy-in.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#134

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #93

I dunno, maybe if Spotify wasn't spending hundreds of million on podcast deals and actually focusing on what its users want, they wouldn't need to lay people off. Any way you slice it, there's no way that the Rogan deal pays for itself. Spotify is stingy AF with the artists that drove people to the service, and then firehoses Rogan with cash and tries to shove podcasts down people's throats. I was a happy Spotify sub…

Streaming music has always been a very bad business. No matter how much Spotify grows, it will only make 30% gross margins. Almost the definition of a tech company is one that has high fixed costs and low to almost 0 marginal cost and can take advantage of scale. Spotify doesn’t have that.

At least with podcasts, they don’t have to pay a third party for each additional user.

Spotify suffers from the “Dropbox problem”. Streaming music is a feature not a product.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#135

Post by michaelmior » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #78

michaelmior wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dictionary definition of accountable says nothing about consequences. From Merriam-Webster 1) subject to giving an account : answerable 2) capable of being explained : explainable

It sure does imply consequences. Click on that link in "answerable".

The most relevant definition seems to be "1: liable to be called to account : responsible"

I still don't see any implication of consequences.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#136

Post by eloisant » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

phamilton4 wrote: post #127

I get needing to keep a company lean and that businesses operate to make money... But most of these recent layoffs really make me feel uneasy. Spotify is a little different because AFAIK they are still operating at a negative net income, but still let's take a look at this. They're going to let go 600 people.. that's maybe an annual 90 million in savings (150k salary). The company's revenue is about 9 billion with -3…

The saving isn't that obvious because they might need to hire contracters (sometimes even the same worker) to make up for the lost workforce.

Also severance packages are expensive! In addition to all the costs associated with a big layoff plan like this one.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#137

Post by xtracto » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

I am just waiting for the personal I formation train to get to include my listening history and like/dislike behaviour.

There should be an XML/JSON standard to store, download and share that information. I've got a listening history in last.fm, another in spotify, another in Tidal an finally in youtube. I should be able to use them together in any platform. My listening habits is also my personal information.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#138

Post by shantara » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

It feels like a pure bandwagon action, and not one that was well thought out and came from the organization’s needs.

To give one data point, I have a friend who just joined Spotify and had his first working day last week.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#139

Post by xiwenc » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

zajio1am wrote: post #86

fleddr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How can such a simple concept (listen to music) get so many basics so wrong and have such glaring bugs?" Spotify internally has a model where they have a large number of small teams where each is responsible for only a tiny part of the experience. Possibly this leads to a lack of a coherent experience. The other factor may be the constant experimentation. Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what th…

> Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what the point of it all is...I have no idea. I would say that Spotify does not compete with traditional media players, it competes with radio. If i want to listen to my favorite songs, there is no reason to use Spotify for that. But if i want something different-but-similar and i do not really know what, because i am not very interested in music, then discovera…

Spotify should serve both audiences: consistency and discover new ones.

I think Apple Music got it right. I like how you can start a radio of any song. Or just play your own favorites.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#140

Post by nikole9696 » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

disruptiveink wrote: post #94

jerpint wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most frustrating for me is the way the “offline” feature works. On my android, even though I had downloaded songs/podcasts/etc. I had to dig in settings and set it explicitly to offline mode to enable offline playback. Another grievance: I love music and podcasts and use Spotify for both. It would be great to have a podcast tab and a music tab. Instead, if you switch from one to the other, you’ll have to dig out…

Don't forget the part that you now have to "love" a song or an album in order to download it because there's no "Add to Library" anymore, completely ruining the concept of "likes". How would I know if I like something or not if I have to say I "love" it in order to download it so I can listen to it later? Do I really "love" every single song of an album or was I just forced to say so in order to download the whole al…

"Browse the albums of a particular artist and play it – this is becoming harder and harder"

So much agreement here - of the most annoying things to me is that I can't just click on an artist and have an easy way to list every song by that artist.