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Comment by atrudeau | Hacker News Reader

This reads like they've been acquired by Google and are integrating. Now Google just has to write the check and own music streaming.

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Hmmm...interesting point but Google already has an awful lot of music infrastructure in the form of Google Music and YouTube does it not? Would it really make sense for them to purchase Spotify too?

Buying brand loyalty, perhaps?

They'd be buying the users.

That's about the only real value. But then what? Do they run the two entities separately? Or merge Google's offering with Spotify and risk pissing customers off who are loyal to the Spotify brand and app?

No idea whatsoever. Maybe merge Spotify into Google Fiber and include it as part of a content offering?

I use Google's offering and it's probably pretty solid with YouTube Red, but I'm guessing at this point they're third behind Spotify and Apple?

Sure, one less competitor in the market.

I've only really looked at Spotify and Tidal, but Spotify is really good. There's more to streaming than content.

Makes me curious about how good Google's recommendation engine is.

As a long time Spotify user who switched to Google a few months ago: I really like the playlists and I've found a lot of new music that I like. The recommendations have worked really well. I'm not looking back.

I've also found that Google's radio stations are more diverse and less repetitive.

Just checked out Google Music on Wikipedia. No native desktop clients. Not even for Windows, and I use Linux. They can't be serious. Total dealbreaker.

I tend to always have a browser open so a desktop client doesn't matter to me. I keep Play Music open in a tab. Then I use an extension[0] to add the other controls I normally use.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/prime-player-for-g...

I like it more than Spotify's. I found the repetition was much higher with Spotify, and never felt that it was "learning" what I liked. I don't know how many Mumford & Sons songs I thumbed down, but it would find progressively more obscure songs from them to slip into my Alt playlists.

Even when Spotify wasn't repeating individual songs, it repeated artists a good deal. This was over a period of six months until I got frustrated and switched to Google Play Music (what a clumsy name this is, though!).

With Google Play Music (GPM?), it throws a lot of different things at me in their generated playlists. I've had great success with the "I'm feeling lucky Radio", as well. I don't want to stop and think about what to listen to during a work day, so it's valuable to me to be able to start it in the morning and just listen in.

Why shell out for that effort before you get bought, though? Seems counterintuitive

I thought this as well. They have. This is Androids answer to Apple Music.

edit: This also seemingly posted from a shelf account. Front page on HN, account 530+ days old, 0 comments, 0 posts.

Reads like an acquisition. I am not sure what to make of this as it could be a total coincidence that after a year and a half dmichel was really interested in spotify's backend migration, but either way I wouldn't be surprised if google is going to purchase or bid for it.

Maybe spotify moved unilaterally and is trying to position itself, could be a thouyght as well.

Do you have any source that Spotify has been acquired by Google? It sounds like baseless rumormongering to me. This wouldn't be a good way to announce such an acquisition anyway.

Sorry it was a flippant guess, which frankly I still stand behind as likely to be correct, but if unclear it was a guess.

Just an employee of spotify excited about the transition (I usually just lurk)

hahaha awesome! Glad you spoke up, exciting news. Just started using spotify a few weeks ago, but it is an awesome product. Cheers.

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