Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Prime Music

amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 171 posts

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#161

Post by cwyers »

talmand wrote: post #160
cwyers wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I have exceedingly different definitions of "free." It's not even ad-sponsored free like basic Spotify is, it's a full-on paid product that comes bundled with other paid products. So the price of Amazon Prime (which just went up) reflects this half-baked music streaming service. I'm paying for this, as is everyone else posting complaints about it (because only paid Prime members can access it).

Good point, I should change the question to why is there an expectation that every song be accessible to Prime members without an extra charge? I just don't understand the negativity towards this service because it isn't exactly what some people want. I see it as a bonus to a service I already gladly pay for. If it doesn't have every song that I would want, so what? I have access to more stuff then I did before at th…

Well, I would guess:

1) Because it's like Spotify, but worse. It's not even like Amazon Prime Instant, which offers different content from Netflix, so the two can function like compliments. It's simply just a worse version of Spotify.

2) I don't have the numbers on this, but I suspect that a large portion of Amazon's Prime subscribers have a subscription to Spotify, or Google All-Access, or Beats, or something in that market segment. (And I'm guessing that probability goes up among HN commenters.) If you do, you gain nothing and lose quite a bit from switching outright to Amazon's service, so you can't swap your current streaming service for this. There's no value-add for you.

3) This is the first major feature for Prime that Amazon has rolled out since the price hike a few months ago. So nobody is viewing this as free, or close to. Everyone is looking at this as "what they're spending the price hike on." And it's so far behind the competition.

4) The really limited selection combined with the really terrible discoverability means that everyone trying it out for the first time is going to have a much easier time finding music Prime doesn't have streaming fee than they are finding music it does have streaming free. It's almost like a service designed with the intention of making you discover its pain points as quickly as possible.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#162

Post by justincormack »

kolev wrote: post #154
justincormack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure. The consumers of it are generally wealthier so it has always been a "premium" market, even if smaller. The fact that much of it is out of copyright doesnt mean you dont have to pay performance rights...

Makes sense. I also find myself primarily listening to classical music, and, as a side note, I hate that apps like Shazam, Google, and SoundHound can't recognize most of it.

The search is also terrible, eg Spotify does not understand the semantics of composer vs performance, so although it has a lot it is very hard to find.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#163

Post by digitalsushi »

digitalsushi wrote: post #106

I am a USA prime account holder with an account that was renewed in January of this year (2014). I was curious why the amazon prime music page indicated I needed to upgrade my account, so, I clicked 'upgrade for 99 dollars'. It went ahead and renewed my prime account with today's date, and sent me a new welcome email. It's completely unclear if it has consumed my previous subscription with over half a year left. So b…

My edit expired - Here is the deal. A person can share Amazon Prime with other people - family, friends, etc - but the primary benefits such as this music are available to only the primary email address holder. So when I said 'upgrade account', even though the Verify Prime indicated Active, it was not active for music. The upgrade button instantly charges 99 dollars.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#164

Post by scottm01 »

Amazon's cloud player was the first music locker I tried (I believe in the US it predated Spotify along with google music and certainly icloud/itunes integration). I keep forgetting to cancel my prime account, so I thought I'd check this out.

Beyond the comments above about UX and library content, I was surprised to find I no longer have access to my uploaded songs unless I upgrade to something called "Cloud Player Premium". No thanks.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#165

Post by ConceptJunkie »

cwyers wrote: post #122
SilkRoadie wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is no better than their Amazon Instant Video. Their video offering is pretty terrible. Takes ages to move between menus. You cannot just continue from where you were previously. It doesn't skip the credits and offer the next episode. The whole thing is painful to use compared to Netflix. Another example. Yesterday I was looking for a TV show I was watching. I went into "Your TV Shows" and it wasn't there. It had b…

Amazon's UX on Prime Instant on the PC is so terrible, their discoverability on ANY platform is awful, and they have restricted HD streaming of Prime content (i.e., stuff you don't have to buy) to non-PC platforms only. And I've had far more problems with buffering on Prime Instant on Xbox 360 than I have ever had with Netflix, despite watching roughly five times as much content on Netflix. It's ridiculous. Their mus…

We access Amazon Prime Video through the Roku, and I can't believe it's any better than on the PC because it's awful.

While I like their site for shopping, etc., their content delivery UIs leave much to be desired.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#166

Post by ternaryoperator »

kolev wrote: post #154
justincormack wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure. The consumers of it are generally wealthier so it has always been a "premium" market, even if smaller. The fact that much of it is out of copyright doesnt mean you dont have to pay performance rights...

Makes sense. I also find myself primarily listening to classical music, and, as a side note, I hate that apps like Shazam, Google, and SoundHound can't recognize most of it.

It's not just those services and apps, it's pretty much anything that has to do with music.

Try rippig classical CDs and you quickly discover how bad the online music registries are at identifying albums, how bad ripping software is at sorting out composer from artist, etc.

In nearly all aspects of software dealing with music, classical is the odd man out. It's a constant frustration.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#167

Post by nickfox »

After reading about this on Hacker News, I went straight there to find my current favorite song, Happy, by Pharrell Williams. It wasn't there so I bought it for a $1.29. I wasn't happy. Then, I listened to the song a few times and I was happy again.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#168

Post by WCityMike »

dublinben wrote: post #131
icefox wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Pardon me, but could you expand on "a less robust '2-day shipping' service"? I'm not aware of what you're talking about and would like to know, as I'm currently a Prime customer as well.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#169

Post by dublinben »

WCityMike wrote: post #168
dublinben wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pardon me, but could you expand on "a less robust '2-day shipping' service"? I'm not aware of what you're talking about and would like to know, as I'm currently a Prime customer as well.

They've removed a number of items from Prime, and now left them in a strange limbo of "Add-on items" which can only ship with $25+ orders.

I've also had a significant portion of my orders take well over two business days to arrive, even with Prime shipping.

Re: Amazon Prime Music

#170

Post by MikeTV »

I want to like this... with Amazon video, I can read reviews, see related items, and play the video on the same page. With Amazon music I can read reviews and find related items, but to play it I must first 1) add it to my library, 2) navigate to the cloud player 3) search for the album in my library, 4) click play.

After finding an album using Amazon reviews and related items, this is faster: 1) Search GrooveShark/YouTube from the Chrome URL bar, 2) click play.

Post reply on HN