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The Great Spotify Mystery

theregister.co.uk

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Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#21

Post by jerf »

Sometimes I think that the only way there will be a music industry is for the current one to go ahead and totally collapse, and then for the doomsday scenario to actually occur: For some reasonably value of "good music", there really isn't any more, for some large number of people's definitions of "good music". Only then would there be some real pressure to figure out how to make some money model work in the face of "free". The industry makes noises about how necessary they are, but "we" as a whole clearly don't believe them, and the only way they can prove they are right is to stop.

Of course, the music industry is stuck, in that it's very easy to make and distribute music. It's a common hobby, and has been for decades, and just gets cheaper and cheaper.

Maybe the movie industry could pull this off; while movies will continue to get easier and easier, I doubt a "summer blockbuster" will ever get as easy as music is now, if for no other reason than the fact that a five minute song is adequate but a "full" movie is an hour and a half, and each minute is intrinsically harder.

What if there isn't actually any way to monetize these industries? Should anything be done about that? What should, and what could, be done? I don't think going all draconian on copyright is worth it for society (the value of the movie industry is not infinite and it's distinctly less than free speech and freedom in general, no matter how they feel), but are there any other options? Because let's get real, we're not going to donate or micropay our way to "Star Trek" or "Terminator 4".

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#22

Post by katamole »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #3

You get interrupted every fifteen minutes or so by an advert - surely they make money from that? The article completely misses this...

They are having lots of trouble selling ad space in various territories. Though I agree that the article should have mentioned it.

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#23

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tvon wrote: post #20

"Acquiring it may not be pleasant: doing so may help support a neo-Nazi with a grudge." What? Is there some news story this is referencing that I missed?

Took me a couple of reads to understand that too, I thought they were talking about the Music companies buying into Spotify.

It actually means that downloaders getting music illegally from The Pirate Bay, may be (via ad revenue) lining the pockets of a backer who has links to far-right groups in Sweden:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/26/pirate_bay_neo_nazi/

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#24

Post by daleharvey »

spotify not being able to monetize is a joke, they are in the position to completely dominate the market, and launched from day one (I believe, if not at least very early) with media subscriptions.

media subscriptions can make a lot of money, spotify are the first with an application that could pretty much kill physical media sales, if you replace all that market, thats a hefty bunch of cash.

micropayments, people still want to own their music, have it backed up, play it on their mp3 player, I believe this is in the works, if it happens, then they have all of itunes money.

advertising / merchandising / ticket sales, if you become the home of music to most people, then you pocket pretty well here.

They still have a bit to go, I am hoping they come up with a better way of transitioning free customers to subscribers than bombarding them with ads, but from what ive seen that looks like the strategy, people dont need a lot of convincing to upgrade their accounts because the service is so good.

their mechanisms for finding music, the artists radios suck, however they have a fundamental change in the way people can find new music because... sharing playlists actually works, drownedinsound / pitchfork / my friends with good taste can all make playlists and share them with me, thats a million times better than some dodgy collaborative filtering.

Their social aspects are pretty non existant, but thats very easily added, they are new and they have done the hard ground work and passed with flying colours.

They dont have all the music in the world, but they have a lot and its only going to grow, any limitations on artists are purely down to it being new and needing some more traction for labels to understand they dont hae a choice.

The music industry has been faltering time after time to try and keep people paying for music, spotify from what Ive seen has the chance to completely own the new music buying market.

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#25

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Call me cynical but isn't the music industry famous for business ventures that don't make any money. They just ensure they get their cut in advance, and cook the books if necessary to make sure there's nothing left for the artists to get a percentage of.

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#27

Post by ralphc »

daleharvey wrote: post #24

spotify not being able to monetize is a joke, they are in the position to completely dominate the market, and launched from day one (I believe, if not at least very early) with media subscriptions. media subscriptions can make a lot of money, spotify are the first with an application that could pretty much kill physical media sales, if you replace all that market, thats a hefty bunch of cash. micropayments, people st…

I don't think they should plan on too many premium subscriptions in the U.S., Napster does this now, and they even recently went to $5 a month, and you don't hear too much about them. I think anything "youth-oriented" (music, Facebook) will need to live or die on ads because the kids don't have credit cards and don't want to ask their parents to pay for this, especially if the parents know they can "get it for free".

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#28

Post by daveying99 »

So, maybe the free UK version of Spotify provides no reason to upgrade. But I can tell you that the Swedish version is getting on a lot of people's nerves. And many of those people are seriously thinking to upgrade.

- First, there are plenty of commercial ads, the stuff that used to run on the radios years ago. Cheesy.

- Second, they fill up ad inventory with non-profits ads. So for example the ad about safe sex that goes something like: "everyone loves music, especially in the bedroom".

- Then they have ads from artists promoting their albums and telling you that if you upgrade, you get the single 1 week early.

- Also, you have ads urging people to call in and leave a fans voice mail.

- And finally Spotify plays the voice messages from people to tell you how much they like it and how much they love the premium version.

In summary, Spotify is clearly playing a carrots & stick game to get people to subscribe - the carrot being the social networking features they want to launch, the ability to create playlists, etc.

And I can clearly imagine how the company is bringing the stick strategy to the UK soon.

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#29

Post by daleharvey »

ralphc wrote: post #27
daleharvey wrote: post #24

spotify not being able to monetize is a joke, they are in the position to completely dominate the market, and launched from day one (I believe, if not at least very early) with media subscriptions. media subscriptions can make a lot of money, spotify are the first with an application that could pretty much kill physical media sales, if you replace all that market, thats a hefty bunch of cash. micropayments, people st…

I don't think they should plan on too many premium subscriptions in the U.S., Napster does this now, and they even recently went to $5 a month, and you don't hear too much about them. I think anything "youth-oriented" (music, Facebook) will need to live or die on ads because the kids don't have credit cards and don't want to ask their parents to pay for this, especially if the parents know they can "get it for free".

I dont think media subscriptions are a dead end, people pay £50 a month to watch some tv, I would be very surprised if people wouldnt shell out £10 a month to listen to whatever music they wanted.

Its just a problem that hasnt been solved well yet.

Re: The Great Spotify Mystery

#30

Post by dxjones »

ErrantX wrote: post #12
dxjones wrote: post #6

How can a person in Canada "simulate" an IP address seeming to originate in the UK to get access to Spotify? It currently rejects visitors from Canada.

(Hey, guys. Downvoting a genuine question is a bit cruel!) They can use a proxy or similar so "traffic" goes through a server in the UK first.

Thanks for the save! I hate to see my karma erode.
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