791–800 of 1001 posts
So... Bodybuilders do this thing called "bulking and cutting." The best way to add muscle fast is to overeat. Work out lots. Sleep lots. Eat lots. You get fat, but you also get muscular because food is never a limiting factor. Then, they lose the extra fat with a crash diet. Google, FB and such are such money machines that they never have to cut. They can just bulk. The others... they want some of that rapid growth p…
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This is completely backwards. They didn't hire "for the sake of hiring" -- they hired specifically to build up their podcasting and audiobook efforts, which were totally new products within the app. Which they thought were essential to staying competitive -- e.g. what if people start moving over to Amazon instead with its Music+Wondery+Audible, or other competitors? Now it's turned out those bets haven't been as succ…
I recently left Spotify for Apple Music, in large part because of this new development path. I don't want podcasts, audiobooks, etc mixed in with my music. I prefer separate apps. I think what bothered me more was the focus on branching into these new paths without any innovation in the music department--I'm sure there was innovation that wasn't visible to me. I'm tired of the same black and green color scheme. I don…
Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…
As far as I can tell, its biggest beneficiaries are the 3 record labels who can use Spotify being one of its customers to be able to negotiate better terms with Apple/Alphabet/Amazon.
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I think parent might be overemphasizing strategic in that quote. >> This is not a step back; it’s a strategic reorientation. We’re still committed to investing and making bold bets, but now, with a more focused approach, ensuring Spotify’s continued profitability and ability to innovate. "Strategic" could be replaced with "efficient". They were previously optimized for growth -- now, they're optimizing for growth:kro…
When a company is publicly traded, mass firing announcements are no longer buried, it's red meat for shareholders.
"We optimized for one thing. Things changed. No we're optimizing for a different thing."
Doesn't need to be more obfuscated than that.
Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…
Spotify Connect is a real game changer. I tap a song on the web player and it streams it on our living room amp, which supports it natively. No apps involved whatsoever.
That sounds like a minor quality of life feature, hardly a "game changer". Do you think this is impossible for other companies to replicate?
Post-pandemic, the trend of Corporations raking in higher and higher profits, while needing fewer and fewer staff scares me. The most obvious and likely outcome is it drastically separates the ultra wealthy from middle class. With rise of AI and automation, that trend will likely accelerate. The top 10% hold more than 50% of wealth. It's likely in a few decades, the top 1% will hold more than 50% of the wealth. They…
Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…
Spotify Connect is a real game changer. I tap a song on the web player and it streams it on our living room amp, which supports it natively. No apps involved whatsoever.
Anytime I see layoffs like this, All I hear is "We hired for the sake of hiring when money was cheap and we wanted to signal 'growth', But now reality has set in and we need our employees to serve a purpose beyond simply headcount". In my opinion they did these employees a disservice by hiring them in the first place. We need our companies to act more responsibly regardless of the price of capital. Innovate sure, but…
This is completely backwards. They didn't hire "for the sake of hiring" -- they hired specifically to build up their podcasting and audiobook efforts, which were totally new products within the app. Which they thought were essential to staying competitive -- e.g. what if people start moving over to Amazon instead with its Music+Wondery+Audible, or other competitors? Now it's turned out those bets haven't been as succ…
How many employees does it take to take an app that already works great on playing audio files and do a bit of UI redesign and change those audio files from music to podcasts and books? It's not like they're building this thing from the ground up.
The podcast app I use was built by one person, granted over a few years, and it works way better as a podcast app than spotify does. They are going to layoff 1,500 people. I assume those aren't all engineers but I think a team of 10, (including devops and QA) could build each of these features in the timeframe they did plus the additional business side of the ventures (negotiating contracts, acquiring rights, etc.).
What were the other 1450 people doing?
Spotify is a completely mistery to me. I'm asking: What does Spotify really have ? They don't own the music. They don't own podcasts (OK, they may have some exclusives like Rogan). All they have is a license, a bit of software, and lots of users. How will they ever turn a profit? What's the end game here? I just switched my whole family from Spotify to Deezer and it was literally a matter of minutes. There are even s…
And, strangely enough, once a sales channel is big enough it can begin taking a bigger slice of profits and telling suppliers what they should be doing (a la Walmart).
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Yeah, where I live (NL), it's required to be something like "group people into roles, then let people go in reverse order of seniority (i.e. LIFO) within those roles."
This is refreshingly pragmatic. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from that part of the world.