Will you stop using Spotify now? Vote

[Axo1989]

Imagine for a moment that you are a massive streaming company. And you are paying their internet access fees, data centre costs and keeping multiple copies of your service live, catalogued and backed up. Imagine having to deal with the complaints from people streaming on phones while on trains and in built up, mobile congested areas.

Then, you do the testing and you find that nobody can tell the difference anyway without taking time to learn, or hunt down rare examples where the difference may be audible in some circumstances. Sure,0.01% of the market may claim to hear it but you can prove otherwise and know you can even do it in court if needed.

In a competitive market you can leave the lunatic audiophiles to your opposition to fund, and put your money where it counts. Spotify has a bigger advertising budget, more features, is in more products, and because of its market position doesn’t have to pay as much per stream in royalties.

This thread is about streaming, after all.

I’m not so sure, makes more sense to implement graceful fallback to lower data rates when the receiving device is in a poor or congested network area. It’s audio, but video streaming services usually manage this I think.

 

[Galliardist]

I’m not so sure, makes more sense to implement graceful fallback to lower data rates when the receiving device is in a poor or congested network area. It’s audio, but video streaming services usually manage this I think.

But I suspect more people would complain about losing their lossless purity, than not having it in the first place. It's audio.

 

[Pearljam5000]

 

[DanielT]

There is no point in continuing this dialog. You will be on my ignore list for a while

I usually give thumbs up to those who write in threads I created. It's nice to be encouraged but I can't put thumbs up on on yours silly so easy offended drama queen acting behavior on your part.

As Rednaxela said in #470:
"That's the third time in under 70 contributions @recycle."

On the contrary if it becomes one:

... instead.

 

[threni]

That’s the third time in under 70 contributions @recycle.

View attachment 294880

Did you know there are ways to have a very happy and worthwhile forum life here without ever using the ignore list at all?

Not sure I agree - all forums are improved by the addition of an ignore list, and this one is certainly no exception!

 

[Rednaxela]

Well I'm living proof, so.

Do you perhaps disagree with something I didn't write?

 

[Philbo King]

I think Spotify will go down in flames as the audio version of Watergate within a few years, once the labels finish burning through the gigantic amounts of money/stocks Spotify advanced them. They literally have no sustainable business model.

 

[DanielT]

Not sure I agree - all forums are improved by the addition of an ignore list, and this one is certainly no exception!

Generally, maybe. But to place someone on a ignore list is nothing I've needed on this or other forums per se. It just breathes negativity about the whole thing, I think.By the way, do you mean to put Rednaxela on your ignore list? If so why? Very strange if that is the case.

In any case, forum etiquette and the relationship between those who write might suit a new thread on this section of the forum:

Forum Suggestions and Announcements

Love to have views from membership on what we should do different or what you like already

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Galliardist]

I think Spotify will go down in flames as the audio version of Watergate within a few years, once they finish burning through the gigantic amounts of money the labels advanced them. They literally have no sustainable business model.

So I watched the video. Interesting. I'm not sure how much I could comment on it here because the end is both political and promoting the video maker's own project (he says it's not for profit though).

You have misunderstood the video though. Spotify are advancing money to the labels, not the other way round. The connections of the majors to the players in this game (whether Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, Google/YouTube where links have been reported) is a key part of this.

He is wrong about Apple though. They are using streaming at a loss to support their hardware business, it is a feature of phones and it is now a feature of their new headset venture. And they make so much money that they can continue the game for a long time. Amazon seem to be doing the same thing. Music is why the people I know talk to Alexa.
So those players at least have an interest in the current model, and if they shared the market share of Spotify and Tidal between them over the long term then maybe fees to musicians might start to recover.

However, Meta will buy Spotify if it reaches the stage of collapsing, I predict - very cautiously - if they want to be seriously in the VR game - do they - they will need a bigger streaming backbone, and they buy things. Free Spotify is paid by ads, and Meta understand that concept.

I actually see video streaming going the same way. Sure, Netflix is there now, the film studios' streaming services, but over time and maybe quite quickly, the services not owned by the big hardware and other service providers will find themselves in the same boat. Apple and Amazon will have more to spend on streaming stuff than any single maker, even Disney, in the long run. In fact the music companies have made a better choice in a way by letting other people chew through money trying to make streaming profitable.

I'm going to make another very odd prediction. I suspect that copyright management is about to start playing into this. It is going to make sense, if you make so little out of your old titles, just to wave goodbye to them. This may hit older jazz and classical musicians very hard, but beyond that who makes a living from 1950s or even 1960s recordings any more, with very few exceptions? Or even the majority of newer ones? Those titles make money for nobody, so why not just cast them adrift: they chew up space everywhere for little good. The streaming services themselves compete on the "number of songs" they have, but that is surely a negative: so use another selling point like your interface or the number of products you work with.

For the majors and probably other labels, this also starts to make sense as they still need to track everything and everyone, keep old master tapes, and so on. Sooner or later this turns into a loss per recording for older and esoteric material. Waive copyright, dump the stuff on YouTube and walk away, leave Google to not be able to find any royalty earners that may have a remaining claim. Eventually, though, Google will have the same idea. They can't preserve everything for ever. So we will be left to libraries, archives and small online communities to actually save a selection of what gets dumped. Consider how much of what was released on 78s is preserved now...

 

[recycle]

Spotify will shout down only when we decide that it won't be convenient anymore. At the moment, criticism aside, it appears to be a business in very good shape. I don't use that platform because of the lossy compression, but as far as I can see it's an issue that many don't care about

 

[voodooless]

Spotify will shout down only when we decide that it won't be convenient anymore. At the moment, criticism aside, it appears to be a business in very good shape.

That remains to be seen… I think they never made a profit, and it made a loss of € 430 million in 2022.

 

[Pearljam5000]

If they add lossless they will crush Tidal and Qobuz and will gain millions of subscribers
So I really don't understand why they don't do it.

 

[threni]

By the way, do you mean to put Rednaxela on your ignore list? If so why? Very strange if that is the case.

No!

 

[voodooless]

If they add lossless they will crush Tidal and Qobuz and will gain millions of subscribers
So I really don't understand why they don't do it.

Not at the prices that they want to offer it at, though. Clearly they have a problem with providing lossless services at a competitive price.

The other big two really don’t need to make a profit. They offer it as part of a larger service offering, which makes it easier to lower the prices. They also profit from having a large infrastructure already.

Tidal seems to make a small profit, which is commendable in this business. I don’t know about the others, they are quite insignificant in western markets.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Not at the prices that they want to offer it at, though. Clearly they have a problem with providing lossless services at a competitive price.

The other big two really don’t need to make a profit. They offer it as part of a larger service offering, which makes it easier to lower the prices. They also profit from having a large infrastructure already.

Tidal seems to make a small profit, which is commendable in this business. I don’t know about the others, they are quite insignificant in western markets.

Deezer added lossless and the price stayed the same
Spotify is much bigger so I'm sure they can do it too

 

[Emlin]

Deezer added lossless and the price stayed the same
Spotify is much bigger so I'm sure they can do it too

I seldom see Deezer mentioned here. Is there a reason for that?

 

[voodooless]

Deezer added lossless and the price stayed the same
Spotify is much bigger so I'm sure they can do it too

You’d think so:

- they have plenty of customers, so economy of scale should work well
- they pay the artists one of the smallest amounts per song, so you’d think plenty should stay behind (although Deezer seems to pay even less)

And yet they have a € 430 million loss in 2022… while the smaller ones seem to have a profit. Clearly this company has a problem.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I seldom see Deezer mentioned here. Is there a reason for that?

Not that I know of

 

[Jimbob54]

I seldom see Deezer mentioned here. Is there a reason for that?

I have experimented with most of the services. Deezer was the most "meh" of them all. (that's a scientific term BTW)

YMMV but tidal and qobuz play nice with uapp on android and Roon.

Amazon is cheap and cheerful but does the job and integrates well with Amazon stuff. Ditto apple.

Spotify is the Hoover.

Deezer is.....?

Edit Oh, and I tried importing my library. They have a low ceiling for track /album library /playlist maximums. NOT acceptable.

 

[voodooless]

Deezer is.....?

French…