Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17% • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#231

Post by alexpotato » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:18 PM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #220

jorlow wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love a tl;dw. How does he predict the fail will materialize?

I didn't watch either, but judging from the comments, it's the usual story: they are completely beholden to record companies, who own rights to nearly all of their catalog. Thus most of their revenue goes straight back out the door as royalties. Moreover, the recording companies can raise the rates pretty much at-will, which apparently they have done upon seeing Spotify starting to make a bit more money. That is why…

I'm surprised Spotify wouldn't take this to the next step and, borrowing a page from the old industrialists, try to vertically integrate and start their own music label and talent scouting arm.

You would think they could pull a "Netflix and House of Cards" to use all of their play data to find exactly which kind of niche singer/songwriter people would want to hear. They could then use their reach + algorithms to float their artists into people's "discover new" playlists.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#232

Post by alexpotato » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:20 PM UTC

osobo wrote: post #203

amatix wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spotify reported that it had 9,400 employees at the end of the third quarter of 2023. It had already cut back employee numbers by 6% in January and by a further 2% in June.

I wonder what they were all doing. Their special apps, like the iWatch, are below par and they are pretty much the last service that doesn't offer HQ audio. AI does most of the editorial playlist generation. What are nearly 10K people doing?

Reminds of the quote attributed to Naval Ravikant (paraphrased):

You have one person running the website. They leave and, of course, you need two people to replace that one person. Then, eventually, one of them leaves, you need two people to replace them etc. This brings you to a scenario where you have 5,000 people maintaining the website and changes take years.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#233

Post by politelemon » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:20 PM UTC

jamespo wrote: post #116

anon23432343 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify itself is not sustainable and going for the podcast crowed... I still think it was not a smart move... Its like that blue haired streamer going from twitch to what ever the msft clone of it was. Yes Spotify is super popular but I hear more and more people moving away from it to for example apple music or other services. They don't focus on the core anymore that much. For example they are super late on the los…

how much difference does lossless make on the typical headphones in use with mobile devices?

You won't get a representative answer here because tech folk can be specific about what and how they listen, so our answers will make it appear like a big deal.

I will venture that most people don't notice or care.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#234

Post by mritchie712 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:21 PM UTC

4death4 wrote: post #224

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what Bard says: "The video starts by talking about how Spotify has become the dominant force in the music industry. In 2018, Spotify had over 200 million users and was paying out over $5 billion in royalties to artists. However, the video also points out that Spotify is not a very profitable company. In fact, Spotify has lost money every year since it was founded in 2006. So, how does Spotify make money? The a…

But where is the prediction on how Spotify will fail?

> the video also points out that Spotify is not a very profitable company. In fact, Spotify has lost money every year since it was founded in 2006.

you can't lose money indefinitely

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#235

Post by avereveard » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:21 PM UTC

hyperbovine wrote: post #220

jorlow wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love a tl;dw. How does he predict the fail will materialize?

I didn't watch either, but judging from the comments, it's the usual story: they are completely beholden to record companies, who own rights to nearly all of their catalog. Thus most of their revenue goes straight back out the door as royalties. Moreover, the recording companies can raise the rates pretty much at-will, which apparently they have done upon seeing Spotify starting to make a bit more money. That is why…

Also why they are pushing so hard for getting people outside their playlist with "jams" "radio" and the automatically enabled "similar content" features, so they can fill play time with low royalty music.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#236

Post by deelowe » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:22 PM UTC

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #199

This isn't about rising costs though, this is about the labels and shareholders being greedy and wanting an even bigger piece of the cake that is already massive. Meanwhile artists are getting paid next to nothing and now even workers are getting the short end of the stick.

I see this response a lot on these threads. Why is it so hard to accept that two digit inflation over the past couple of years and interest rates well above 5% could be a major factor?

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#237

Post by creshal » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:23 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #217

michaelt wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They undoubtedly have a large number of developers working on apps for every platform Yes, if they were at the cutting edge on every platform and constantly adding innovative new features, that could certainly explain 500 of the 9000 employees. But that still leaves 8,500 employees unexplained.

Developing the software is easy part. Handling and negotiating contracts and licensing agreements for all their music and podcasts (and advertisers) all across the globe is probably the hard part. Plus of course all the marketing, support and related tasks.

Still. There's only ~200 countries, and a good chunk of them either isn't worth having any presence in (no need to negotiate licenses for Somalia), or is so small and has similar laws to surrounding countries that they'll be treated as one bloc by the publishers you negotiate with anyway (all the Pacific statelets e.g.).

Between that and the ability to just contract local lawyers, 45 to (realistically closer to) 90 employees per (relevant) country is still a lot.

Also, spotify outsourced 90% of their support to their community (designated "star" members). There's no hotline either, so no call centres to run, or anything else personnel intensive. (And you'd outsource that anyway, realistically.)

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#238

Post by ryanSrich » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:23 PM UTC

chewz wrote: post #151

pembrook wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before trialing the iTunes franken-nightmare that is Apple Music, I would have probably agreed with you. However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Apple/Amazon are clearly stretched too thin, and in a worse strategic position on audio due to the way the licensing…

> However, after that experience, I'm starting to think there's no way in hell a massive multi-product conglomerate like Apple/Amazon is going to overtake a single-product music streamer like Spotify. Amazon Music Unlimited is very neat experience compared to Spotify... Good catalogue (for me), better music quality and it's app is just plain, boring music player not something neurotic like Spotify...

The one thing I could not figure out about Amazon music is that when I would type in an album, and start playing it, the songs would reshuffle based on which songs I would listen to the most. It drove me insane, and caused me to cancel the trial before it was even up. I couldn't figure out how to play an album in the actual order of the album. Dumbest feature I've seen in a product, maybe ever.

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#239

Post by walkingworms » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:23 PM UTC

mahmoudhossam wrote: post #199

This isn't about rising costs though, this is about the labels and shareholders being greedy and wanting an even bigger piece of the cake that is already massive. Meanwhile artists are getting paid next to nothing and now even workers are getting the short end of the stick.

[dead]

Re: Spotify will reduce total headcount by approximately 17%

#240

Post by walkingworms » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 12:24 PM UTC

alexpotato wrote: post #232

osobo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what they were all doing. Their special apps, like the iWatch, are below par and they are pretty much the last service that doesn't offer HQ audio. AI does most of the editorial playlist generation. What are nearly 10K people doing?

Reminds of the quote attributed to Naval Ravikant (paraphrased): You have one person running the website. They leave and, of course, you need two people to replace that one person. Then, eventually, one of them leaves, you need two people to replace them etc. This brings you to a scenario where you have 5,000 people maintaining the website and changes take years.

[dead]