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Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

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Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#101
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left Spotify for their policies (pro-Rogan, shit pay to artists), and landed on Tidal. it's not perfect, but it absolutely fits the niche that Spotify did and feels way less stupid.

Is Tidal still prioritizing US hiphop? I really liked it (about 5 years ago) but left because they pushed e.g. Beyonce to me on every visit on every possible surface despite me having a completely different taste in music.

mm, maybe. I got a lot more Kanye than I wanted (>0) early on, but I was able to just ban that artist. for other stuff, it does seem to favor US hip-hop on my account, but I don't listen to a lot of hip-hop and it's mostly US-based, so YMMV. I would say that if you're making playlists of non-US and it's pushing US suggestions, that's kind of a problem, yes.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#102
post #70

Spotify, get your shit together. You’ve wasted a fortune in podcasting and now you’ve destroyed your app UX. Nobody wants this crap. Everybody just wants better music discovery and instant access to their favorites.

Come over to Pandora - the water is warm and your favorite songs are a flowing.

Pandora's discovery algorithm is still top notch. But the rest is just awful: navigating to albums/artists, finding which words are clickable and not clickable, not being able to like or downvote some random sources (if it's a radio you can't like, or can - I can't remember and used to always get confused).

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#103
post #33

Just day before I saw Spotify had the same ADHD inducing reels/tiktok style music discovery thing on it. What is it with all these companies using the same UX patterns EVERYWHERE. As one commentor rightly said, Discover Weekly is the only thing keeping me on this platform, they even removed family mixes, my brothers and uncles are on my family plan, and even though we didn't keep in touch a lot that used to be a talk…

I heard about this change from so many sources. Where can I see it (which section)? I quit Spotify months ago but curious to see this pattern.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#104
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet now they've removed playlist radios in favor of the "enhance" feature. Someone is asleep at the wheel.

"Radios" in Spotify are a shadow of their former self anyway. They used to be a theoretically infinite list of songs that you could up and down vote, which would then influence the next songs to be added. Now it's just a playlist of stuff Spotify deems similar and you essentially just have to deal with it. Discovery via their radio used to be great. Whenever I tried it more recently it was kind of awful. I've switche…

> All the other alternatives lack some of the more obscure artists I listen to regularly.

Even YouTube?

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#105
post #96

They ruined it! Pre-acquisition Heardle played the song from the beginning immediately after you finished guessing. Post-acquisition, you had to open the song in Spotify which introduced a lag of several seconds. The immediate visceral reward of playing the game disappeared.

I will never understand why most of Big Tech acquisitions end up with a shutdown. (same for Google, FB, etc, apart from a few outliers) Like: They could just buy a controlling stake, let it run by the original team and just add some cross promo to their main product.

It's an open secret; this is how VCs never lose:

When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones.

This is a way to keep the machine going at the expense of the investors in the public company (they are holding the bag now anyway), and this way you always have a positive track record as a fund.

Sometimes, when influence is not enough, purchases can involve kickbacks to members of the board to make sure they are convinced that it's the right choice to do.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#106
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently subscribed to YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music, and for the first time in my life a system is recommending music that I actually like on a regular basis. I've discovered entirely new artists and even genres. Can't recommend it enough.

We pay for Premium as well and I started using music because "Hey it's included." It quickly became my main platform mostly because it stays out of the way and plays music.

For now. :(

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/23/podcasts-are-coming-to-you...

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#108
post #105
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why most of Big Tech acquisitions end up with a shutdown. (same for Google, FB, etc, apart from a few outliers) Like: They could just buy a controlling stake, let it run by the original team and just add some cross promo to their main product.

It's an open secret; this is how VCs never lose: When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones. This is a way to keep the machine going at the expense of the investors in the public company (they are holding the bag now anyway), and this way you always have a positive track record as a fund. S…

> When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones.

Why would a fund have any influence on a public company that it does not own shares of?

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#109
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open secret; this is how VCs never lose: When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones. This is a way to keep the machine going at the expense of the investors in the public company (they are holding the bag now anyway), and this way you always have a positive track record as a fund. S…

> When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones. Why would a fund have any influence on a public company that it does not own shares of?

The actual influence that a fund has on a company is not necessarily tied to its shareholding, and this is a major glitch:

1) Some individuals may retain significant amount of voting rights, that is not proportional to their shareholding interest.

    Of course they shouldn't be accused of breach of their fiduciary duties, nor get a claim of waste of corporate assets.
2) Institutional fund holders may not vote in favour of their shareholder's interest

    The people casting the votes during corporate actions are not necessarily the ones who hold the shares.
3) Close relationships

    When you are board member in company A, and your friend is in company B. You can help him with A, and he is going to help you with B.
4) Corruption

    Sometimes founders don't get the exit that they expected, and such arrangements are a good way to get extra money.

    Board members may consider themselves underpaid as well.
5) Pressure

    We won't give you debt financing if you don't use part of that money to purchase our other company on the other side.

    I may sue you for sexual harassment if you don't convince the board to attribute me additional RSUs.
Probably many other ways.

This is why some acquisitions are total non-sense or over-priced, the same way that some employees are simply overpaid for no reasons other than being close to the board.

You see the same mechanisms with governments purchasing useless businesses.

A less extreme example than an acquisition that still gives you an idea of misalignment of interests between shareholders and board members, you can see in a video here:

https://www.quimbee.com/cases/espinoza-v-zuckerberg (the video is actually cool and easy to understand)

"We now grant RSUs to new directors who aren't Facebook investors or employees" ...

Just one example among many.

I like this topic, because it pushes you to do better due diligence on public companies, as some companies are really wasting company money, that it could feel intentional.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#110
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an open secret; this is how VCs never lose: When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones. This is a way to keep the machine going at the expense of the investors in the public company (they are holding the bag now anyway), and this way you always have a positive track record as a fund. S…

> When a large fund has exited a successful public company, they will use their influence on the public company to convince the successful entity to purchase the failed ones. Why would a fund have any influence on a public company that it does not own shares of?

Ostensibly, the size of these social circles is fairly small.
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