Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012 • Hacker News Board

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#21

Post by brianwhitman » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:03 PM UTC

I disagree with this -- i was a very heavy Napster user in 99 and am a very heavy Spotify user (and, NB, they are a customer) today. Obviously it's a fun angle for a SXSW talk, but:

- The "depth of catalog" is actually incorrect -- Spotify has far far more songs than Napster did (you can see in that screenshot even, most logins/servers hit less than 1m songs totally available, and of course those are just total indexed, in reality almost 50% of downloads would not be available.) Yes, you could find niche stuff on Napster-- as a musician in 1999 I would make sure all my stuff was available, pre-release, demos, etc. But we have Soundcloud for that now, so...

- The discovery on Napster was non-existent. You could browse through a users' collection, the same way you can browse through playlists today. But the only entry into anything was a search box that only looked at ID3v1 data and filenames. There's been amazing leaps and bounds in discovery since then, and it's very clear by the #s that it's what people wanted -- a guided (radio, playlist) experience over a wild west single song retrieval thing.

- Napster was stupid bad at search. There obviously was no catalog resolution and the quality of the results was abysmal. I am pretty sure it was a substring match, for one, and then there was the bad metadata, fake songs, later on a huge spam / "SEO" problem.

- Not going to get into speed, because it wasn't Napster's fault, but even back then it was far easier to get music elsewhere other than Napster if possible. Ratio FTP sites, hotline, and of course bubblecruft startups building customer bases by selling new CDs for $4. It was very clear at the time even that the distributed nature of Napster was a liability, not a promise, as all the single-server solutions were far more convenient and reliable. But this was not their fault and of course their success inspired everything after it.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#22

Post by maukdaddy » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:09 PM UTC

brianwhitman wrote: post #21

I disagree with this -- i was a very heavy Napster user in 99 and am a very heavy Spotify user (and, NB, they are a customer) today. Obviously it's a fun angle for a SXSW talk, but: - The "depth of catalog" is actually incorrect -- Spotify has far far more songs than Napster did (you can see in that screenshot even, most logins/servers hit less than 1m songs totally available, and of course those are just total index…

Oh wow hotline, that brings back some memories.

On a university network Napster was quite fast. I could routinely saturate my (for that time speedy) 10mbit connection, especially to other clients on Internet2.

One other point to your argument is social. The ability to see what friends are listening to and create sharable playlists is obviously something that Napster did not provide.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#23

Post by nhangen » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:11 PM UTC

The fatal flaw of Spotify, Rdio, and even Last.fm is that finding good music is just too much work. Too much social and too many clicks.

I wish Pandora could buy one of these services and combine their discovery engine with the catalogues of the subscription services.

Until then, I think I'll just keep buying music.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#24

Post by Reebz » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:19 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #23

The fatal flaw of Spotify, Rdio, and even Last.fm is that finding good music is just too much work. Too much social and too many clicks. I wish Pandora could buy one of these services and combine their discovery engine with the catalogues of the subscription services. Until then, I think I'll just keep buying music.

I can't agree more.

I love Pandora for the guidance.

WAH is available on Spotify, which is good (I used them before Spotify), but it's very niche indie discovery.

I can't select a Temptations song and expect to be then offered up a Clarence Carter or Tower of Power hit.

Only Pandora has those "skillz".

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#25

Post by psychotik » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #23

The fatal flaw of Spotify, Rdio, and even Last.fm is that finding good music is just too much work. Too much social and too many clicks. I wish Pandora could buy one of these services and combine their discovery engine with the catalogues of the subscription services. Until then, I think I'll just keep buying music.

Hey, if you like discovery try Audiogalaxy Mixes - we just launched it a week or so ago [1]. We think it's better than Pandora (much larger catalog, smarter algos, more input types) - tell me if it's not. It's free on the web (no ads) with a free trial on mobile, after which we charge a small fee to cover licensing costs. If you email viraj@audiogalaxy.com with your account I'll comp you a free month. I'd love to know what you think.

Here's a Mix I've made, for example: http://www.audiogalaxy.com/mix/87-Guitar%20Gods/?

[1]http://www.geekwire.com/2012/audiogalaxy-music-service-rebor...

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#26

Post by bitterfounder0 » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

e03179 wrote: post #16

bitterfounder0 wrote: post #15

My college used DC++ to internally share music, movies, tv shows, and porn. You could browse someones entire media collection. It gave you an overall sense for their taste in music and was a great way to find new bands. Reading about Napster reminded me how much I miss this feature. The article glosses over how slow Napster '99 was. I remember waiting a couple hours to download an album. Fast downloads are more impor…

RE: slow downloads thru Napster Of course, high speed internet is much more prevalent now in 2012 than it was in '99. Downloading an album in '99 sometimes meant you were downloading from PC's with only a 56k modem for connectivity.

Good point. It's not fair to associate Napster with slow download speeds. I would have loved to see how Napster evolved with broadband. Tragic they were shutdown.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#27

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:42 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #2

But the "evil" aspect of Napster wasn't that it was P2P: it was that it didn't return any money to the creators. No, it's because it forfeited the control the labels had over the music. They've showed again and again that they don't mind losing money to maintain that control.

But they have already lost that power and are never going to get it back again.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#28

Post by ecocentrik » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:46 PM UTC

I like Spotify and find it infinitely more useful for music discovery than Napster ever was. Sure it would be nice if they had a more comprehensive catalog but finding complete high quality recordings on Napster was always impossible. I dug around for weeks trying to complete an album at a decent bitrate. By comparison Spotify has figured out how to serve complete high quality music legally at a very reasonable price.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#29

Post by andybak » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:47 PM UTC

psychotik wrote: post #25

nhangen wrote: post #23

The fatal flaw of Spotify, Rdio, and even Last.fm is that finding good music is just too much work. Too much social and too many clicks. I wish Pandora could buy one of these services and combine their discovery engine with the catalogues of the subscription services. Until then, I think I'll just keep buying music.

Hey, if you like discovery try Audiogalaxy Mixes - we just launched it a week or so ago [1]. We think it's better than Pandora (much larger catalog, smarter algos, more input types) - tell me if it's not. It's free on the web (no ads) with a free trial on mobile, after which we charge a small fee to cover licensing costs. If you email viraj@audiogalaxy.com with your account I'll comp you a free month. I'd love to kno…

Ahhhh. Audiogalaxy. That brings back memories.

It was amazing back in it's (less legitimate) days. It took over from Napster but improved on it in many ways.

Re: Sad but true: Napster '99 still smokes Spotify 2012

#30

Post by psychotik » Sat, Mar 17, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #2

But the "evil" aspect of Napster wasn't that it was P2P: it was that it didn't return any money to the creators. No, it's because it forfeited the control the labels had over the music. They've showed again and again that they don't mind losing money to maintain that control.

P2P is just technology. Making it work so that the right people are compensated is hard. My startup is trying - http://www.gigaom.com/2012/03/05/audiogalaxy-personalized-p2.... This just launched a week or so ago - give it a shot!