Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introducing Vdio

blog.rdio.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 107 posts

Re: Introducing Vdio

#91

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

ricardobeat wrote: post #39
onemorepassword wrote: post #36

"only available [...] in the US and UK" Can anybody think of any geo-tarded service that successfully rolled out in other countries later? Because as some not in the "chosen countries" I always feel that those services either a) never arrive, b) get beaten to the punch by local competitors or c) have to spend a shitload of money to conquer that market, sometimes by buying the aforementioned competitors. Also, unless…

Netflix, Amazon, iTunes match, Rdio all took a while to come to Brazil and are doing great. Still waiting for Amazon Instant.

> ... all took a while to come to Brazil and are doing great

With the exception of iTunes, they still have big holes on the content available even after launching.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#92

Post by ruswick »

I'm not really sure what this service is. Their explanation was pretty ambiguous, and they never clarified whether this was a subscription service, an a la carte rental service, or just a social layer on top of other content providers. The first two are relatively unremarkable; this is a crowded market and they are several years behind. Social viewing is only attractive is there is something to view, and, at least initially, their library is almost certainly going to be inferior to those of Amazon, Netflix and Apple.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#93

Post by neura »

ricardobeat wrote: post #38
deltaqueue wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's a perfect model, but the alternative is having to pay $100/month for a cable subscription to watch garbage you don't want to see, or $10+ to see it in a dirty movie theater, or $15 to "buy" a movie that was $15 in the 90's for a physical DVD. Even if there are 5 Netflixes competing against each other I would rather pay 5 x $7.99 a month to watch content I actually find relevant than pay for junk I…

> Even if there are 5 Netflixes competing against each other [producing their own content] I would rather pay 5 x $7.99 a month You've just described cable. If those subscriptions start to come in packages we're back to square one.

The original point was that a "netflix" provides better content than cable to start with.

The argument against it was that the company providing the content would be exclusively providing that content.

The rebuttal is that it would be better to pay 5 companies that all produce exclusive content than to pay for cable, which "provides" mostly stuff you don't want to see (and frequently don't have the option to not watch, if you're viewing any of their content, ie: commercials).

Re: Introducing Vdio

#94

Post by NamTaf »

dubcanada wrote: post #52
onemorepassword wrote: post #36

"only available [...] in the US and UK" Can anybody think of any geo-tarded service that successfully rolled out in other countries later? Because as some not in the "chosen countries" I always feel that those services either a) never arrive, b) get beaten to the punch by local competitors or c) have to spend a shitload of money to conquer that market, sometimes by buying the aforementioned competitors. Also, unless…

Strip is rolling out to other countries. TBH there is no reason for a company to not roll out so long as it is financially worth it.

I notice that there's quite a few things Amazon still doesn't let you buy if you're in Australia. Many physical products, it seems.

I can only guess this is because of distribution rights for certain products in this country. For example, my partner tries to buy nail polish but often she can't. It wouldn't surprise me if a certain distributor has that product stitched up via a distribution contract for all of Australia, therefore allowing them to monopolise price.

Really, if you're not in the US it's often a completely different world for all kinds of e-commerce - anything from physical goods e.g.: off Amazon not being available for arbitrary reasons (even when others are), to media such as Pandora which has only relatively very recently become available here again after being withdrawn for literally years.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#95

Post by cheapsteak »

te_chris wrote: post #83
dublinben wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The profit margins are too slim. Their revenue barely covers the operating costs and onerous licensing fees.

When their licensing fees are barely paying the people who produce the content then I don't think onerous is the right way to describe it. Spotify produce far too much consumer surplus and in return underpay artists and themselves. I'm guessing the backers think this is OK, but inorder for low cost low margin to work you need massive scale which may work for spotify, but is not really sustainable and ends up being an…

I've never bought a single song on iTunes, but I went out of my way to pay Spotify $5 a month.

Before that I relied on grooveshark, last.fm, youtube, and, a long time ago kazaa and napster. I can't be the only one. There are just too many 'free' alternatives.

When the 'barely paid' content producers would have gotten zilch if it weren't for Spotify, I wouldn't say that they're being shat on.

On another note, few would bemoan the plight of ISPs being paid less per bits transferred than they were a decade ago, why should we consider it a bad thing that per unit prices of content have dropped? Are the top artists of today any poorer than their counterparts from the 80s? Would the smaller artist even exist if it weren't for the proliferation of these cheap and convenient content delivery services?

Re: Introducing Vdio

#96

Post by elithrar »

grimgrin wrote: post #75
bennesvig wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried both and have stuck with Rdio. The social aspect is superior. I love being able to see playlists and recommendations from random people beyond my Facebook friends. Spotify's desktop app is definitely faster, though I find Rdio to be better designed.

But there is a BIG difference here if we're talking about the free services of both. Spotify is always free, and rdio is only free for 6 months. Yes it's probably a good thing to pay for a service that you like (I do), but some people don't, and that's going to be where they prefer Spotify. http://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/faq/#!/article/How-... http://help.rdio.com/customer/portal/articles/187730-rdio-fo...

> Yes it's probably a good thing to pay for a service that you like (I do)...

It's also good to pay for a service that you want to stick around.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#97

Post by taneliv »

balanceiskey15 wrote: post #40
onemorepassword wrote: post #36

"only available [...] in the US and UK" Can anybody think of any geo-tarded service that successfully rolled out in other countries later? Because as some not in the "chosen countries" I always feel that those services either a) never arrive, b) get beaten to the punch by local competitors or c) have to spend a shitload of money to conquer that market, sometimes by buying the aforementioned competitors. Also, unless…

Spotify comes to mind. Facebook started out even more locally restricted.

Spotify is originally Swedish, and for a long time wasn't available in the US, only in select European markets.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#98

Post by nakedrobot2 »

The MPAAfia can't complain about piracy in "all those stupid little countries out there" (i.e. everyone but US, Canada, UK) until they can actually make these paid services available to everyone.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#99

Post by tvaughan »

For those of you with a US or UK credit card who are located outside the US or UK, contact me and I'll set you up with an account on a spare Linode I have in the US or UK so you can use that as a SOCKS5 proxy (via SSH). I'll let you kick the tires for a bit and after that it's $20/yr. otbdto [at] gmail. Please include your SSH public key.

Re: Introducing Vdio

#100

Post by aggronn »

philwelch wrote: post #86
ThomPete wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty hard to beat Spotify unless you have some specific taste in music they dont cover well. But overall I have a hard time seing a better service than theirs. It just works, is fast and has a large db of content.

When you don't pay for it, Spotify interrupts your music with shitty commercials for country music, while Rdio just cuts you off after awhile. Hence, Rdio was the one I ended up using long enough to decide to subscribe.

Grooveshark doesn't do any audio ads and never cuts you off.
Post reply on HN