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Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

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Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#41

Post by circa »

bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

I could not agree more. I was a big Rdio fan and went to the ways of Apple Music because the family plan is so cheap. Wish they would integrate Last.fm and a web interface though. The 12.5.1 version is a step in the right direction though. Along with iOS 10. Excited to see what Pandora will offer as well.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#42

Post by emilssolmanis »

bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

Same here. Spotify finally pissed me off enough yesterday that I just went and cancelled and I'll see how Play works out. It's just far too buggy and I don't remember a day I haven't had problems with it lately.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#43

Post by k-mcgrady »

bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

Take a look at Apple Music again. They just started doing two personal weekly playlists (like Spotify's Discover Weekly). One is full of tracks you haven't listened to before (it seems pretty good so far) and the other is a weekly 'favourites' mix which seems to be 90% stuff in your library and 10% stuff not in your library but by artists you like (e.g. new releases). It's really good. I was using a mix of Spotify and Apple Music but with iOS 10 I've dropped Spotify as recommendations will improve if I'm using one service and the new weekly playlist seem to be as good as Discover Weekly which was all the was holding me back.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#44

Post by k-mcgrady »

circa wrote: post #38
santialbo wrote: post #11

I hope they add lyrics again. They ended their partnership with musixmatch a few months ago and haven't offered an alternative yet.

they added Lyrics in iOS 10 Apple Music and on the desktop version. I noticed it today and I'm pleasantly surprised by it.

I've been trying to find this (and I've been using iOS 10 since June). Is it possible Apple has made lyrics a US only feature for now (which would be bizarre)?

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#45

Post by k-mcgrady »

helthanatos wrote: post #9

Spotify has achieved what no normal entity could. Go them for having a relatively decent free to play with, I'm assuming, a good pay to play model as well.

Free to play won't be around long imo. Since Spotify first launched for me in 2009 the free offering has got progressively worse. The second the labels can drop freemium they will and I don't think we're too far away from that.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#46

Post by solaxun »

circa wrote: post #41
bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

I could not agree more. I was a big Rdio fan and went to the ways of Apple Music because the family plan is so cheap. Wish they would integrate Last.fm and a web interface though. The 12.5.1 version is a step in the right direction though. Along with iOS 10. Excited to see what Pandora will offer as well.

I know it's easy for me to be an armchair quarterback but I have to say it. Although I am currently and somewhat reluctantly paying for it (for now), Spotify's UI makes me want to strangle someone every time I use it. I can never remember exactly what ridiculous combinatoric puzzle of screens I need to cycle through in order to get where I want to go. It feels like I'm trying to enter a fucking launch code for a nuclear submarine just to play a damn song. God forbid I'm running and hit the wrong screen, then I have to stop, fiddle for 3 minutes, and start again.

Also the stations are incredibly shallow. If you pick a station on Pandora, you will have hundreds of songs that are generally well selected in my experience. If you pick one on Spotify, you get maybe 20-30 songs.

The one major benefit to Spotify is that you can pick any song you want. However, if you pick a genre, you're likely to be inundated with shitty cover bands that you have to painfully sift through in order to find the actual playlist your looking for, because '70's hits' could be anything from Led Zepplin to your next door neighbours cover band.

TLDR - incredibly over complicated UI, shallow stations, too much spam music.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#47

Post by rogerbinns »

emilssolmanis wrote: post #42
bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

Same here. Spotify finally pissed me off enough yesterday that I just went and cancelled and I'll see how Play works out. It's just far too buggy and I don't remember a day I haven't had problems with it lately.

My experience of Google Play Music is that it works well when it works. But something it really likes doing is not playing. Our running joke is that every time a butterfly flaps its wings anywhere in the world, Play stops playing. While hyperbole it does happen a lot, especially if there is less than perfect networking (eg while driving). But it will also stop playing with perfect networking, usually at the end of a song for no good reason.

Spotify is far better at actually playing under the same conditions. If anything it is too eager (there was that time I had to tell it to stop 4 times). However it is a huge pain if you want it to just play music without having to babysit what it plays.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#48

Post by k-mcgrady »

jasode wrote: post #13
exmuslim wrote: post #2

So that's like ~$400M of income per month? Their expenses are mostly royalties and those are probably spare change compared to that income. Not bad!

>So that's like ~$400M of income per month? Friendly fyi... if we're talking about a company's financials instead of a human's salary, the precise term would be "revenue" instead of "income" . Income would be revenue minus costs. Spotify doesn't have any positive income.[1] >Their expenses are mostly royalties and those are probably spare change compared to that income. No, it's not "spare change". In fact, the unfav…

>> "In fact, the unfavorable licensing terms"

According to the source you posted Spotify has been given favourable license terms since it started whereas competitors like rdio have had to pay more and have since went bust.

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#49

Post by nol13 »

emilssolmanis wrote: post #42
bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

Same here. Spotify finally pissed me off enough yesterday that I just went and cancelled and I'll see how Play works out. It's just far too buggy and I don't remember a day I haven't had problems with it lately.

Ya I uninstalled spotify and my idle battery charge time went from 1/2 day to 2 days. (s4 on lolipop) Did not seem to be a "don't fucking turn on or do anything when I'm not using you" setting in the app anywhere. Oh well I did like the service.

Any spotify peeps reading this wtf?

Re: Spotify have reached 40M paying subscribers

#50

Post by eastbayjake »

bearcobra wrote: post #33

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new s…

I've checked out Apple Music but the only draw would be Taylor Swift and immediate access to exclusive releases, like The 1975's new album which was released on Apple Music first then released on Spotify two weeks later.

I really like two things about Spotify:

* Curated Playlists: Their mood/genre playlists have a human touch (and very good taste) and I can also follow playlists created by some of my favorite artists

* Social/Sharing: I like seeing what my friends are listening to in the sidebar and I know enough people on Spotify that I can reliably send Spotify links to my friends and know they'll be able to listen to a song/album. I would reconsider if that network effect shifted and more people were on Apple.

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