Why I'm Not Going Near Spotify (and Why You Shouldn't Either)
blogs.hbr.org
blogs.hbr.org
We don't own what we hear on radio. Anyone old enough to have owned a vinyl record, 8-track, or cassette knows we "owned" those until the player "pwned" us and scratched the record, warped the record, or otherwise ate the tape.
The CDs I "own" mostly mark me as ... old with 1980s musical tastes.
I'm actually pretty happy with combination of Rhapsody and Google Music, though there are definitely some albums I wish Rhapsody would get (The Beatles, and, ... Soundtrack to American Werewolf in London, and, ...).
But actually Rhapsody, Google Music, and Squeezebox Server have made me purchase a lot more music than I have for a long time.
Of course, the music I purchase tends to be used CDs from Amazon for pennies plus shipping.
I would in fact like the Zune Pass model.
Simply put: the way we consume music is fundamentally different to the way we consume movies and TV.
This used to be true, but I am not sure it is any longer - at least not for everyone. Listening to the same album obsessively over and over again is certainly a phase I went when I was younger, but now I am perfectly happy to listen to Pandora, especially as my tastes have broadened, and finding new interesting stuff to listen to trumps the need to hear the same familiar stuff over and over.
And the songs you listen to now may one day be "classics" that you want to listen to again. Given the volume and diversity of present day music, that might only be possible if you have an MP3 stashed away somewhere.
Much to do about nothing.
This article makes no sense. Duh, if Spotify goes away, if you leave for any reason (rates, terms of service, whatever)... their music goes with it. That's how subscription services work. If Netflix goes away, I lose access to the movies that Netflix was letting me stream. The fact that someone is used to "owning" their music or re-listening more than you usually re-watch movies doesn't change any of the core principles of the business model.
One album costs $10. If I listen to that album once a day for 30 days (not EVER going to happen, but I'm trying to be generous), then I'm still only filling a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of time I listen to music.
$10 with Spotify gives me effectively non-stop new music. In 6 months, I'll have spent $60 and had the benefit of listening to hundreds of albums. Even if something happens that I stop using Spotify... are you really implying that I haven't extracted good value from Spotify as a service?
If Spotify's price increases that I don't think I can get the same or a good value.... I just stop using it and go back to life as it was before. What is the lock in? There seems to be an implication that I will have "wasted" my money on Spotify since I have no music mp3s to show for it. Did my family waste their money on Netflix despite the fact that I don't own any of the hundreds of DVDs that they've watched or streamed?
I just don't understand this implied malice at work here. Besides, it (seems) completely ignorant of Spotify's existence in the rest of the world for some time now.
To look at it another way. I have, in my current library of music, listened to over 400 albums in the last 3 years. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've not paid for all of them. The heavily listened to favorites, I have, but not all. Even if Spotify quadrupled in cost... it would still be small compared to (400 * $5) or (400 * $10). Not to mention the value from offline playlist prefetching, sync-free mobile access, and access to the same library on all 3 computers and my mobile devices.
The entire argument only shows a lack of careful thinking on the matter.
We consume music many different ways.
Radio, pandora, on the tv, in the mall, in games, cd, gramophone on the disco, live music and so on.
You could as easily argue that the spotify model shows that access beats ownership. If anything the way the music industry want us to consume music is what is fundamentally different and out of date.
The article is so shallow and can only be on the front page of HN because spotify is is new in the US.
Humans are an explorative but economic species. When the cost of exploration goes down guess what goes up.
I don't care about DRM on streaming music because I know I don't "own" it.
Now, I at least have been enveloped in 3G / Wifi wherever I go (maybe I should go out a bit more ? ).
Even from an analysis perspective, buffering over networks (which I use) is good enough for music consumption (44.1 * 4 bytes in 1 sec if we consider wav being streamed. That's 44 KBPs needed to repro at original sampling rate. Our networks do several multiples of that right now. I can't listen to music faster than that.)
It is convenient, it is the future.
OP's conundrum is the same my grandfather faced a few decades ago when my grandpa thought "Oh Shit, if the local library closes, I am owned and have to listen to a radio or something to pass my time".
And the MAFIAA ? Well, they're setting themselves up for some severe disruption. I-Will-Fuck-The-World is not a sustainable business model.
While I'm sure what they are doing is legal it still is a shady "the first hit is free" type business model. So far the annoyance has been minimal as my tastes are not too mainstream but it still pops up far too often.
It is actually really easy, I think they have an API for this. Once Spotify launched in the U.S., my friend switched from Spotify to WiMP (wimpmusic.se), and they could easily just import his playlists and boom he had all his music again. It's sure a heck of a lot easier than dealing with DRM - I still have a ton of songs from iTunes Japan (which still uses FairPlay DRM) I can't play on my Android phone at all
Other people who are prepared to pay know that pop music is fickle anyway. I don't know of too many people who'd dust off their Sonny and Cher albums for their guests (unless it is for Kitsch Nite).
Maybe services like Spotify will change that perception and the consumer and the industry will meet in the middle with a cheap subscription price. But unless all of the methods of illegally accessing music are closed, I don't think that'll happen.