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Comment by ben7799 | Hacker News Reader

I've seen some good analyses lately showing spotify's business model just can't survive in the long run with the way things are going in the economy and the record companies are squeezing them while simultaneously maneuvering to own them/buy them over time. Apple/Amazon/Google are diversified giants that can seemingly get away with running things without a need to make as much money as Spotify/Tidal/Whatever which just do music/podcast streaming.

In the long run these services are all unsustainable and bad for music.. I sometimes wonder if the young people going back to vinyl is somewhat of a pushback on how lame the entire experience of using these streaming services can be.

Podcasts can do well and have done well for a very long time in a small business model with sponsors & product promotion.. throwing massive money at them has always seemed an odd choice.

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Thing is though, I have probably thrown 3K into Spotify, If I cant get a "Flat rate subscription for All / Most of the music out there" - > I will 100% just go back to downloading discographies of the artists I like.

People saying "Support the artists" - I don't care about the artists, I just want to listen to whatever takes my fancy, and if they can't do that at my price point, they will end up getting nothing from me..

What is your price point?

Why would artists give anything to you?

Well, I am currently on like £15 a month for 2x users on Spotify.

>Why would artists give anything to you?

Literally not my concern.

Spotify isn't profitable. Tidal isn't profitable. Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple probably earn a profit on their bundles, but if artists and labels aren't making money on streaming, how long until they start pulling their catalogs?

Will you stop listening to music if/when the unprofitable music streaming services shut down? What happens if/when Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple are barred from tying and bundling their services?

It seems like artists and labels will simply revert to pay per song/album and legal battles instead of wasting resources on listeners who aren't willing to pay a meaningful amount for music. At your price point, you'll probably be able go back to buying a few hundred songs / dozen or so albums a year.

It seems like most casual listeners just don't understand this no matter how many articles there are about the current model not being sustainable or how many time their favorite artists complain about it.

There is not enough money in music for both the record companies and spotify, et. al. to simultaneously rob the artists. These streaming companies being the new middle man are going to be the first to lose out. Especially if the record companies wake up and start making their own stores/services.

>> It seems like most casual listeners just don't understand this

I very much understand it. I just don't care.

There will always be some form of music. I pay my money for it. If they can't get by on some agreement from the record industries, I really don't care.

how long until they start pulling their catalogs?

> Not my concern, I will just rollback to having an offline downloaded library if Spotify / All you can eat music stops being "Easy"

>Will you stop listening to music if/when the unprofitable music streaming services shut down?

No, I will just stop paying for it.

>What happens if/when Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple are barred from tying and bundling their services?

Yarrrrrr

>will simply revert to pay per song/album and legal battles instead of wasting resources on listeners who aren't willing to pay a meaningful amount for music.

Then they get nothing from me..

I think it all rolls back to - > Would they rather have 1 million listens at 0.5P or 1 million listens at 0p.

$3k is a lot of money to rent music. It's kind of odd to realize people have spent that kind of money to rent music and have nothing to show for it without continuing to spend money.

$3k would still buy a very large physical collection. Most people didn't have that kind of money into a physical collection back in the day.

Vinyl prices are a joke, but CDs are often cheaper than a digital download if bought new and they are easy to find for $1-2 used.

It's kind of amazing you're OK having spent $3k renting music but think the only option would be to go back to piracy if streaming rental isn't available.

"Nothing to show for it" is strange way to requiring getting value from something.

2 hours after I eat lunch, what do I have to "show for it"?

I'm perfectly fine with all the hours of music and the accompanying enjoyment I've received from paying Spotify, and that doesn't start to take in to consideration the amount of new music I have easily discovered.

Honestly, I paid for the convenience.

I paid to bark orders at my Amazon Echo's / Google in the car, and vend literally any song I wanted.

You could look back and be like >> Its amazing your ok with spending 100k on food over your lifetime, you could have eaten grass from the side of the road for free.

Piracy is easy, Spotify was easier.

Buying and ripping CD's is Effort

> $3k would still buy a very large physical collection

It's only a couple of hundred CDs. If you buy a lot of low-priced ones, perhaps a few hundred.

The large collection is an asset to you, but to many of us, it's a liability.

Almost everything I own I do because it is not cost-efficient to rent (which is what I would prefer to do). i.e. if cost-efficiency were even, I would rent things like books, movies, or music.

how have you spent $3k on Spotify? the company is 17 years old and if you were subscribing from day 1 for $10/month that would only be 2k.

OP probably just ballpark estimated… but you can certainly have spent $3k on Spotify since they now allow you to buy audiobooks.

Been using it since I was back at Uni, 2012, and have paid for both myself and another account recently.

you do realize that young people overwhelmingly stream, and do not generally purchase vinyl, right?

I've heard this idea of streaming being bad for music bandied about, but I don't believe it. streaming solved by piracy problem by getting people to actually pay for music. People in the industry like to complain about streaming, but I'm not actually sure that 'the good ole days' are actually better, or if people just have rose-coloured glasses about what the actual state of things were.

You are right that streaming-only companies cannot afford to take the same loss on streaming as Apple/Amazon/Google. And IMO that's probably a good thing: we need to find the balance between producers and consumers, not subsidize it with phone sales.

Artist revenues on streaming have been dropping substantially over the years, not increasing as the companies get larger. There is no shortage of artists talking about what a joke the payments have become.

If Spotify can't make money after cutting royalties 50% over the last 3-4 years how can that possibly work?

Realistically Spotify is a whole bunch of people making a lot of money as middlemen, but they can't seem to figure out how to actually make money.

The music industry really doesn't have a choice in this though. If Spotify and Apple music die out, then it's back to sailing the high seas again, and they get nothing. A Plex-like music streaming app will be born, with an idiot-proof way of downloading music from torrents, and they're fucked.

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