Amazon is preparing to launch streaming music service – sources | Hacker News Reader

Amazon is preparing to launch streaming music service – sources

reuters.com

50 pointssazibtg29 comments

I installed the Prime music app and found the catalog to be so limited (albeit "free" with my prime membership) that it wasn't worth it. Also the app nags you randomly even when it's not running to rate and share titles. I uninstalled it after a couple of months.

Probably not inclined to commit to $9.99 for yet another music service, I already have YouTube Red and SoundCloud.

As a counterpoint, I don't feel a great need for a streaming music service, so Amazon's "free" service (with Prime) hits the right price point and is good enough for my purposes,

Out of curiosity, do you buy albums outright, or not listen to enough music to justify paying monthly?

A combination of things:

I do have a big collection of music going back decades. (ripped from CDs mostly although also acquired from, um, other sources when that first became possible)

I also buy some--more typically individual songs than complete albums--although, to be honest, I'm not especially aggressive or adventurous in terms of finding new music.

So, yeah, I've subscribed to streaming music services. (Rhapsody way back when and Apple Music more recently) and ultimately decided that they weren't subscriptions I was getting my money's worth from especially given that I have access to some things for no additional money. (And I probably have a bias toward owning anything I really like.)

Apple's Music Match may suit you if you want to have anywhere access to your music.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm mostly fine with just having the physical MP3s. I'm often on airplanes or otherwise don't want to consider whether I have inexpensive data network access or not. I actually had Apple Match but canceled it because I wasn't using it (after I matched a number of sub-optimal song version I had initially).

Same here, I'm looking for an alternative to iTunes Match since they removed the "mass download" feature. And I just can't find it.

I tried them all, I wanted something I could upload my mp3s to, sync them across all my devices, keep my playlist, play them on my phone, see which tunes I added last...

I thought Google Music was the best one I could find, although not perfect (the distinction between your music and their music is hard to see, you can't see what are the last songs you added...), but I ended up noticing a few days ago that a LOT of my music is missing in there. So I'm seriously reconsidering going back to iTunes Match or developing my own app...

I have a spreadsheet to compare them all here, if someone wants to add: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0...

> you can't see what are the last songs you added

Not sure when you learned that, but it's not been true for the past few years I've been using Google Music. Go to Music Library => Auto-Playlists => Last Added

if I want to see the last Added inside an already existing playlist I can't.

I had the same problem asking my Echo to play songs. Half of the songs I asked the Echo to play weren't recognized so I gave up. Amazon is very good at improving their services very rapidly so I do think there is hope, but it seems like streaming services are marketing more than just music. Services are now differentiating by artists, media content, and events. If Amazon can tackle all of those areas, they will be in a good position, but the market seems to already be crowded with Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music.

> I installed the Prime music app and found the catalog to be so limited (albeit "free" with my prime membership)

I wonder, how does the Prime endgame looks like for Amazon? Assuming almost every Amazon member upgrades, will Prime be profitable without a huge price hike? Something's gotta give at some point.

What makes you think Prime won't be profitable? It's $99/year/person (or more if you bill it monthly) even if you never buy anything from Amazon ever.

Their licensing fees for media content are variable, but they will have a large install base and market leverage.

Prime is essentially a warehouse club at this point, but Costco/Sam's Club doesn't throw in movies and music streaming.

That's what anyone would guess but I was hoping for some kind of researched answer.

I genuinely wonder how long it will be until an independent (as in, not vertically integrated in another company with different sources of revenue) service like Spotify just gets bought out by one of these companies. Or is it just that the other players don't feel the need to do any acquiring because they can just siphon off (and gain new) subscribers?

(For one, I like that Spotify and Rhapsody are separate because they work basically everywhere and aren't trying to lock me into another company's ecosystem...which seems to be the name of the game for almost everybody these days.)

Every case is different. This made sense for Amazon because if you're already a Prime subscriber, you may consider using less of Spotify/Pandora/Apple Music/Youtube RED down the road. And if you're not, Prime just became a better value proposition and becomes harder to resist.

You're spot on about the ecosystem. This move is more of a hedge against Apple and Google than against the independent ones, although it will hurt them too. They'll become acquisition targets for companies that want to become a 'media company'. Yahoo tried this [1]... Verizon wants to [2].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/27/marissa-mayers-mavens/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go90

I'm not sure they have an incentive. They can't do like Facebook did with Instagram, because there are already multiple competitors anyway. Merging it with their existing service would be way too unpopular and lose them a ton of Spotify's customers.

I would welcome a larger library in Prime music but would definitely not kick in another $10/month.

This fits in well with Amazons' existing services. Surprised they didn't do it long ago.

Sure, why not? Because the world needs the billionth streaming service. //sarcasm

More competition the better for us all (the consumer)

I rather see people invest in harder world problems (battery capacity, co2 sequestration, habitat preservation, humane recycle programs, cancer research ) rather than the next copy of x.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

I'm not saying that things such as pagerank, dynamo, bigtable, mapreduce and tensorflow aren't innovative but most things are just remodels of old concepts ("AirBNB"for machine tools). Which lets be serious anyone with a good open source webstack can reproduce. The current web state reminds me of the smartphone/camera manufacturers desperation to push more sales.

Buy, buy, buy, Oh please buy our 16MP cameras even though the human eye can only process around 8 MP.

Tech companies are desperate to win more users/profit channels.

Source: Jeff Hammerbacher, 2011

www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm

Might consider it if artists like Taylor Swift are onboard

Wow, wonder about the downvotes here. This is a highly relevant question. So far the balkanized music rights are a major headache for consumers.

What I use to stream music off Amazon's S3. https://github.com/etopian/amazon-s3-music-player

I have given up on the concept that any third party service can provide music streaming for any significant length of time.

Url changed from http://www.businesshabit.com/2016/06/exclusive-amazon-is-pre..., which copies this.

If they give me lossless FLAC streaming and let me augment their catalog with my uploaded CDs, I will run to them with open arms.

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