Amazon Prime Music • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#131

Post by dublinben » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

icefox wrote: post #110

L_Rahman wrote: post #13

1. Given my listening habits, the library feels limited. Tried searches for the three albums I listened to the most this month ( http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts ): Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso Chet Faker - Built on Glass Tycho - Awake None are available for streaming. For a standalone service, this would be damning. As one of the perks offered with Prime this has the potential to become a compelling part of t…

> one of the perks offered with Prime Just remember that the price of prime is going up $40 a year and part of that new $40/year you are paying is for this. As with many of the perks that Prime gets you it feels like it isn't very good, but it feels "free" so it is hard to complain much. My fear would be that there are a lot of people that will be okay with Amazon Prime services that are not very good just because th…

I've already resolved to cancel my Prime subscription, and this reveal just confirms my decision. I was happy with getting free 2-day shipping for $40 (or even $80) a year. I'm not happy paying $100 for a less robust "2-day shipping" service, a crappy VOD service, and a music streaming service with none of the music I listen to.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#132

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:24 PM UTC

visarga wrote: post #88

baddox wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't really "own" my music in a legal sense, although I do own some licenses to music as well as some plastic discs and flash chips that store digital copies of music. I do have the same intuition that you do that subscription music services are unsatisfying, but I think the line is starting to blur. I use iTunes almost exclusively as my music library, through iTunes Match and my own iTunes purchases. Other…

I pay deezer 6$/month and can download the tracks on my flash drive or stream. The library is large enough that I never missed a song.

Never heard about Deezer before. Sounds like a good deal, but apparently it's not available in the United States, and I really don't feel like fiddling with proxies in order to bypass that.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#133

Post by jamiesonbecker » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:29 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #123

gamegoblin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just discovered that as well. And it just so happens that 3 of the songs by the artist I wanted were all non-prime. Very lame.

Dead on arrival? How? Why is there the expectation that every song in an album would be free under Prime? "This free music is lame because it's not the music I wanted for free?" Do you tell stores their free samples suck because you wanted a free sample of a different product?

Right! It's a FREE!! music sampling service that costs $100/year where you can hear a few selected songs in their entirety, but only through a spammy web app. AWESOME!

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#134

Post by joshstrange » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:34 PM UTC

This is another case (IMHO) of Amazon being a "Jack of all trades, King of none". Prime delivery is awesome, they are king in that arena but video/music is seriously lacking in the UI/UX department.

They have decent content for free on Instant Video but it doesn't keep track of what you have watched and navigating is a massive PITA. Their music selection is sparse and that's me being kind... I paused my Spotify to check out their OS X app and couldn't believe how terrible it is. Search is confusing and navigating my library is not intuitive at all.

I will keep an eye on it but they should not have released it in this state.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#135

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:43 PM UTC

millstone wrote: post #36

Prime subscriber here. Cool beans. I found some of my favorites. But I also found a lot of spammy crap. I searched for Smashing Pumpkins, and it's pages of "1979 [A Tribute to the Smashing Pumpkins]" or "Disarm [In The Style Of The Smashing Pumpkins]". It takes some work to figure out, no, they don't actually have them. I'm reminded of Steve Jobs's line with the introduction of the iTMS: "This number [of songs] could…

Same reason I prefer iBooks over Kindle: the store is sensibly curated, not polluted with vague resemblances, knock-offs, and (worst) proliferation of really bad OCR conversions.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#136

Post by samolang » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:45 PM UTC

jimmyhmiller wrote: post #108

samolang wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Amazon and Google let you import your existing libraries and stream them.

I'm a prime member, have been for a while. I just tried to import my library, it said I had 250 songs I could import for free. It then asked me if I'd like to pay $25 to upgrade so I can import any number of songs. I was able to upload all my songs to google for free.

Dang. Didn't realize that Amazon charged you past a certain number of songs. I have my whole library uploaded to Google as well. I usually use spotify, but it comes in handy sometimes (like when I want to listen to the Beatles).

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#137

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:47 PM UTC

Lennu wrote: post #20

At first I thought it is free music without ads: "Unlimited, ad-free streaming. Free with Amazon Prime." I noticed "Listen free for 30 days", so there is some kind of trick here. I logged into the system and on the next screen they were asking for my credit card information which is needed to start a 30 day free trial on Amazon Prime (after it is $100/year). Prime is some kind of premium service for Amazon services.…

"Free with purchase" is common marketing terminology.

You didn't expect a ginormous retailer would just give away millions of products for absolutely free (ad-free, no subscription, no cost whatsoever), did you?

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#138

Post by bredman » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:48 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #111

This has the same problems that I have with Prime Video: 1) The interface is rather horrid when compared to services in the same category, like Netflix. Others have already expounded on this though, so I won't waste the bytes. 2) I hate, hate, HATE being told I have access to all these movies/songs, only to find that the content I searched for isn't available to stream unless I pay extra money on top of the service I…

Interesting, I've have had the exact opposite experience for #2. If there's a movie, or TV show that I want to watch I'd rather pay $5 to watch it than just be told it's not available. This has had such a strong effect on me that if there's something in particular I want to watch I go to Amazon before Netflix simply because I know I will more likely have an option to watch what I want (even if it costs money). Personally I feel like Netflix has back themselves into a corner by only having one all-inclusive price level.

That said the part about Amazon that infuriates me is when they have the movies available but not for rent and only offer the pay $15 to own option. Also the Netflix discovery/browse is experience is light years better than Amazon's.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#139

Post by onyxraven » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:53 PM UTC

willu wrote: post #112

L_Rahman wrote: post #13

1. Given my listening habits, the library feels limited. Tried searches for the three albums I listened to the most this month ( http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts ): Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso Chet Faker - Built on Glass Tycho - Awake None are available for streaming. For a standalone service, this would be damning. As one of the perks offered with Prime this has the potential to become a compelling part of t…

FWIW, they do have Tycho... http://www.amazon.com/Awake-Tycho/dp/B00FSU5OFS/

And Chet Faker: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-textures-Chet-Faker/dp/B009WJ...

I think the trick is: search as normal for music, then click the 'Prime Eligible' checkbox. It didn't show up otherwise.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#140

Post by ctdonath » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:54 PM UTC

rtanaka wrote: post #7

Just in time to go along with their phone that's coming out.

What kind of monthly mobile data usage will this application entail? iTunes is geared toward the model of "download, then listen on the go" with the option of cellular streaming. Amazon Music seems the reverse, geared toward cellular streaming, with some caching. The service certainly provides the phone with the feature of free mobile music, but at the cost ($?) of significantly increased consumption of one's data plan.