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Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

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Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#101

Post by spankalee »

chrisper wrote: post #49
Mahn wrote: post #22

I've been considering subscribing to a music service lately, but there are so many nowadays that I have honestly no idea how to decide. For those of you with experience in this area, what criteria would you recommend? what should I look for, other than the music itself?

If you have iOS, then wait 7 more days until Apple Music is coming out. My Spotify premium thing expired after 1 year now, so I have tried out all music services out there this month. My conclusion is that if Apple Music does not provide the integration I am seeking for (since I have an iPhone), I will just go back to Spotify. I am currently on the Google Play Music trial. It is pretty good, but I do not like the "An…

What "integration" are you seeking?

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#102

Post by on_and_off »

Someone1234 wrote: post #48

This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I hate ads. What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is: - Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be further improved. - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. - Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then start a YouTube vi…

>You keep "simplifying" away functionality.

Could you explain what you have lost exactly ?

>The offline playback stuff continues to be pretty clunky to set up.

What is your issue with it ? In my experience, it works fairly well.

I am genuinely curious

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#103

Post by lintroller »

ericdykstra wrote: post #92

I will never pay for one of these music streaming services. You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's musi…

By this same thought process, you shouldn't purchase music via iTunes because Apple takes their chunk first, then the music label gets their share. The artist is again left with "only pennies". Perhaps you are more upset with music labels and their part in the process rather than companies like Spotify and Google Play Music who are simply trying to meet the demands of the modern consumer.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#104

Post by sinatra »

infinitone wrote: post #58

Is there a full in depth comparison between all these streaming services? I use Spotify, but I'd like to know if I should switch- the main feature I'm looking for is better recommendations/discovery. Also it'd be nice to see actual # of songs each of these services actually have.

They all have almost same (number of) songs.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#105

Post by spankalee »

andmarios wrote: post #94
spankalee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a very active dogfood group internally. It's likely, even with a lot of internal users, that none of us have hit the text selection problem, or haven't reported it (or there's some technical or prioritization reason for it). I'll look into it and report it to the group though!

Please do, thank you very much! This is an issue only on the radio page currently. With spotify you can't select text anywhere. It was one of the most serious shortcomings for me because when I listen to a song and want to learn more about it, the web-browser way is “select -> right click -> search with google”. :)

After a quick look the only place I couldn't select text was on the radio station cards, after you choose an activity (probably because the whole card is a link).

Are there others?

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#106

Post by Someone1234 »

ericdykstra wrote: post #92

I will never pay for one of these music streaming services. You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's musi…

Artists don't make a whole lot when you "buy" music either, be it on CD or digitally. From what I understand the only time they make significant revenue is when they go on tour, or sell non-music merchandise (e.g. t-shirts). Since then the label takes a much lower cut.

Somewhat ironically unaffiliated or indie musicians make a higher percentage of music sales than some big names. However, because the total "pot" is small they still can struggle to get by.

I guess my point is: The entire topic is muddy, and not as black & white as you're implying.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#107

Post by spankalee »

infinitone wrote: post #58

Is there a full in depth comparison between all these streaming services? I use Spotify, but I'd like to know if I should switch- the main feature I'm looking for is better recommendations/discovery. Also it'd be nice to see actual # of songs each of these services actually have.

To me the killer feature combination of Play Music is the unlimited streaming + the music locker.

If something's not available for streaming, or in the store, you can upload it yourself.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#108

Post by philtar »

on_and_off wrote: post #102
Someone1234 wrote: post #48

This is a nice additional option, but I won't be cancelling my subscription. I hate ads. What I want to see from Google Play Music (aside from a name change) is: - Keep improving music discoverability. It has become better, but could be further improved. - Family plan. I want to pay $15/month and give it to my wife and kid. - Fix the strange YouTube bug, where if I hit pause on Play Music, and then start a YouTube vi…

>You keep "simplifying" away functionality. Could you explain what you have lost exactly ? >The offline playback stuff continues to be pretty clunky to set up. What is your issue with it ? In my experience, it works fairly well. I am genuinely curious

I pinned some albums to download them to my device. I paused that for a bit.

....

I don't how to make it start downloading them again.

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#109

Post by nosuchthing »

ericdykstra wrote: post #92

I will never pay for one of these music streaming services. You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's musi…

The problem with streaming services like Spoitify, Google Play Music, or Apple Music is it's basically the modern version of top 40s (maybe now it's top 40,000's..).

When I listen to the radio, I want to discover new music. Last.FM was amazing for this but there was a mass exodus shortly after CBS acquired it and the site has lain dormant and the search engine seems to have gotten worse.

http://bandcamp.com/ is pretty reasonable for music sales, 15% fee.

http://bandcamp.com/pricing

Re: Google Play Music – free, ad-supported radio

#110

Post by massysett »

ericdykstra wrote: post #92

I will never pay for one of these music streaming services. You would think in a time when basic necessities are extremely cheap for a significant portion of the world population, people would be more willing to spend money on art. But instead, the vast majority would rather get something for free than pay for it. And the people who pay the $10/month for the convenience of Spotify or Google Play Music or Apple's musi…

If artists are not getting sufficient pay from streaming services, then artists need to stop selling their music on said services. It's not the consumer's job to guilt trip himself into not buying music from services where the performer is willingly posting his music.
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