141–150 of 479 posts
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> Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels For now. They have a large enough reach to essentially "become" a major record label, all they need is to start signing artists to contracts.
They can't pay them as well.
I'm not quite clear on why people are choosing spotify over google play music - to me the google option is superior in UI and offerings (including ad-free youtube). Am I missing something? Is it just one runs better on iPhones or is more hip (like why people choose snapchat over instagram or something)?
Some people on HN like areas especially might care about diversifying who they give their money and/or attention to. Spotify has an advantage there too.
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Are blue apron and stitch fix tech companies? I thought they were just sending out boxes of stuff to subscribers, with a website/app for taking orders?
I used to work at Blue Apron...sending people boxes of perishables is actually a very tough problem to solve and there was extensive tech powering the warehouse side of things. We had a fairly large engineering team working on these problems. At the end of the day who really cares what is and isn't a "tech company"? Every company has a tech aspect to it these days.
I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely. Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could p…
Spotify has many "session" recordings from a variety of artists, they also have live albums from concerts that aren't available anywhere else on the internet. Trust me, I've been scouring every dark corner of the net for a recording of Run The Jewels Sxsw 2015 concert to no avail.
Leaving legality aside, I was always really impressed with the level of curation people put into that particular private tracker. You could find every vinyl and CD release of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue in just about every file format you could hope for.
I hope eventually streaming services become so low-friction and commonly used that enforcing copyright takedowns on sites like what.cd will become a thing of the past and we can benefit from their value as a deep archive of esoterica.
I'm not quite clear on why people are choosing spotify over google play music - to me the google option is superior in UI and offerings (including ad-free youtube). Am I missing something? Is it just one runs better on iPhones or is more hip (like why people choose snapchat over instagram or something)?
As someone who just made this choice, let me add some insight. - My friends use Spotify - Larger library - Well made playlists - Social feed In the end, they are very similar products. I feel that Spotify has a huge head start on Google here, and it shows. The more mature product is Spotify. I think Google can't really compete in terms of curation and popularity. Really, the edge cases of "music that is not on Spotif…
Yeah I like the social feed. Wish you could get to it on mobile though.
I just don't see how this can be a successful company long term. If the labels see any profit they will demand more fees at the next deal negotiation. To become music's Netflix they would have to produce their own music which people want to listen to, which is a lot easier said then done. The easiest route is probably to become Tidal and give the company away to a few big artists in exchange for exclusives.
They could look at purchasing Bandcamp, which has done a great job of promoting and selling independent music.
I don't have any reason to trust that a VC-fueled monster like Spotify understands this. If Spotify bought Bandcamp, I would remove my music from it.
VC-fueled behemoths like to make people dependent on them. I can't trust my business to a company that gets most of its money from outside investors instead of the people who use the service. Their incentives are fundamentally misaligned with my interests.
I do love Spotify as a product, however I don't think it will scale the same way Netflix does. Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels, and as their books become more transparent the record labels will squeeze every dollar they can for licensing. That is, unless they find a way to upend the record industry entirely. Spotify has a unique position with their amazing discovery/recommendations engine- they could p…
Didn't record labels complain some time ago that Spotify had supposedly commissioned music for its instrumental playlists (presumably to save money on royalties)? There's probably a danger that large record labels will threaten to revoke their licensing agreements if they think that Spotify may start competing with them on that front. Not sure if that will be a problem, though, I'm not familiar with the whole streami…
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> Spotify is at the mercy of major record labels For now. They have a large enough reach to essentially "become" a major record label, all they need is to start signing artists to contracts.
Spotify + extreme bias towards X # of artists due to rights ownership = potentially crap experience for listeners.
I was thinking that if Spotify kept the same experience for listeners that they had now in order to grow their subscription base, and just reported higher earnings for the artists they had signed versus ones signed to a 'different' label, that over time as contracts came up for renewal people would move over to Spotify.
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People tend to overestimate the size of the music and movie industries, apple and google could buy them outright with change from their couch cushions.
Apple and Google could, but I doubt Spotify has a few billions around to make any acquisition.