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Spotify files for its IPO

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Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#151

Post by qznc »

bedhead wrote: post #136
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The other week, my kids were watching TV and my wife and I were in the kitchen and one of them yelled out, "Mom, something popped up on Netflix saying the price is going up. What should I do?" My wife and I said the same thing instantly: "Just hit okay." We didn't even know what it went up to...hell I don't even know what it cost before. You and your wife both know (subconsciously at least) that people will switch t…

First of all, the "broke college students" quip is wrong. Generally, Netflix's subscribers are fairly well off (in the US anyway). Second, even if that was the case, I can assure you that said college students would suck it up and pay the extra $5-10/month. This extra cost isn't putting anyone into bankruptcy. Netflix has raised prices several times and subscribers keep increasing. And people are just getting more ad…

> Ballmer saying no one would pay $500 for a phone?

And he is right. A smartphone is more than a phone. How can Netflix be more than a video player? One way seems to be to become a producer.

Back to Spotify: How to be more than a music player?

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#152

Post by warent »

TheHegemon wrote: post #142
rzanella wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify's radio is a 10-song loop, another service w/ better radio and same price would definitely steal some users.

Google Play, for the kind of music I listen to, seems to have the best radio feature.

I've always had great results from Google Play Music. There are a couple things that could be improved, but I'm big user of it.

Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee (but I've been using Play Music since long before my employment)

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#153

Post by vetrom »

_whm1 wrote: post #46

I don't think this is a good long term investment. Disclaimer: I worked for a Spotify competitor in the past, so i have a pretty solid understanding of how the business works. I think it is a bad investment for one simple reason: Spotify purchases its main product (music) from a oligopoly. I'd estimate that 95%+ of the tracks streamed (by total playtime) are from one of the 3 major music labels: Universal, Sony or Wa…

Rdio? Licensing murdered the business, really.

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#154

Post by cracell »

pembrook wrote: post #54
_whm1 wrote: post #46

I don't think this is a good long term investment. Disclaimer: I worked for a Spotify competitor in the past, so i have a pretty solid understanding of how the business works. I think it is a bad investment for one simple reason: Spotify purchases its main product (music) from a oligopoly. I'd estimate that 95%+ of the tracks streamed (by total playtime) are from one of the 3 major music labels: Universal, Sony or Wa…

This is the same problem Netflix & Amazon have been successful in combating. The answer is to become a content owner by competing with the big labels directly. All Spotify needs to push the big labels back on their heels is to sign a few top 40 artists of their own. I might be wrong but I remember reading something like 90%+ of streams on music services are of songs currently on the charts. Capture the popular cultur…

I think the long term answer here is legislature that forces companies to license things for the same rate to anyone and that rate must be publicly published.

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#155

Post by jschwartzi »

remir wrote: post #147
TheHegemon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I payed for Google Music for a bit a while ago and I hated it and switch to Spotify. It's always so interesting how people can have similar experiences but come out with completely different perspectives. For me, the Google Play Radio feature is the most important thing they have. It's like a Pandora that doesn't play you the same three songs over and over. When I would try and use the radio feature on Spotify it w…

Spotify's strength is their recommendation engine, IMO. It's really good.

For me it's the concerts listing, which shows you when an artist is in town and how to buy tickets.

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#156

Post by olejorgenb »

e12e wrote: post #145
Shywim wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the standard behavior on every music player?

Don't know, but not having a useful history of tracks is really annoying. Why I've landed on cloudplayer for Android - it allows you to go back to "that nice track three songs back when I was biking down a hill" (when shuffling a large, partially unknown selection).

The play queue view have a history "tab" though

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#157

Post by guelo »

noxToken wrote: post #132
hobofan wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the same problem Netflix & Amazon have been successful in combating. I would say that the jury is still out on that. Lack of Blockbuster movies has always been one of the weak points of Netflix, and they are still in the process of getting started with producing content there (with "Bright" being one of the first of their movies trying to be a Blockbuster). On the other front, they are highly dependent on e…

If Netflix went to in-house only, then they could significantly (I assume) drop the price. Part of Netflix's big expense is licensing content. If all of the major players are pulling content, then the licensing costs for all of that content disappears as well.

Doubtful since they're pouring every extra dollar they have into making originals.

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#158

Post by nunez »

kingraoul3 wrote: post #100
nunez wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not though because music is a loss leader for amazon, apple and google, but it is spotify’s entire business. The only other major competitors out there are either in major cahoots with the big 3 (tidal, pandora) or gone (soundcloud, grooveshark, rdio). Netflix has this problem too but they “solved” it by making their own content. Amazon are Google are doing the same thing. That’s the direction I see Spoti…

What about iHeart? They do own half the physical radio stations in the country which is still how people find new music, you know.

ClearChannel front; they own all major terrestrial radio in the US

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#159

Post by farnsworth »

on_and_off wrote: post #140
joethebro wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue however that Spotify's song recommendation engine is one of its differentiating factors. I'm always hearing friends rave about how much they love each weeks discovery weekly playlist.

AFAIK all of the major players have this feature and even developed it a while ago : Google Music have been displaying some kind of 'I feel lucky' button for ages (it is not random but based on your listens). They also had artists maps years ago. Deezer has its Flow Apple Music has 'for you' Etc .. There are many variations in how these recommandations are surfaced to the user though. I would be hard pressed to recom…

Spotify has years of my listening data and preferences, other services don't. So if I compare Spotify's recommendations to others, it will always be better, and I'd have to put in a lot of hours into another service for it to catch up.

Re: Spotify files for its IPO

#160

Post by coverband »

Any estimates on the market valuation? Not mentioned anywhere in this article, and the $20B number floating around sounds quite high to me.

For comparison, Vivendi/Universal is at $35B (based on its share price) with 20K+ employees in multiple divisions vs. Spotify in just the music streaming business with 1600 employees.

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