Am I missing something? Is it just one runs better on iPhones or is more hip (like why people choose snapchat over instagram or something)?
- My friends use Spotify
- Larger library
- Well made playlists
- Social feed
In the end, they are very similar products. I feel that Spotify has a huge head start on Google here, and it shows. The more mature product is Spotify. I think Google can't really compete in terms of curation and popularity.
Really, the edge cases of "music that is not on Spotify" ends up being so small that Google's upload your own music feature doesn't tip it in their favor. At least in my eyes.
Google Music 40M [2]
Apple Music 45M [3]
[1]https://press.spotify.com/us/about/ [2]https://play.google.com/music/listen#/sulp [3]https://www.apple.com/apple-music/
Many of the self publishing activity that Soundcloud was/is famous for has moved over to Spotify.
New releases from smaller acts seem to be Spotify FIRST right now.
For example, I like some noir movies and the jazz within that genre. There isn't a specific genre that most music playing devices would realize but Spotify has lots of user made playlists that has the type of music I want. Compared to Google's lackluster results
https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/srst/noir+jazz/EAY
I don't really think that iTunes or Google Play has the same thing, I may be wrong though.
Yeah I like the social feed. Wish you could get to it on mobile though.
This Taiwanese artist is on Spotify but not Google Play Music.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2JBUyLiFvpFPWdZGqIGYLD?si=uq...
https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/sr/crowd+lu
Nothing except youtube, but that's just cheating.
Same with this one.
Spotify claims to have 35m songs and GPM 40m. Not that that means much, either. The killer feature GPM has over Spotify is that you can upload your own tracks to fill the gaps wherever their library is lacking.
Spotify has the ability to upload music as well, however that is contingent on you having premium.[1]
[0] https://open.spotify.com/artist/3nFkdlSjzX9mRTtwJOzDYB?si=j1...
[1]https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Can-you-upl...
Google Music, Pandora, iTunes, are seemingly there to cover bases. The momentum appears to be towards releasing your music on Spotify first for your friends to listen to.
Uhm no they are all licensing the same content from the same 4 entities.
I think Spotify's UI is fantastic, and its multi-device awareness is functional and intuitive. To your point, Google does have ad-free Youtube, but the ads don't bother me enough/I don't watch enough Youtube for it to impact me like it does with music.
Finally, I like diversity sometimes; giving not-Google money is a plus, all other things being equal.
I guess that’s true if you define the “modern era” as “starting with Spotify”.
I vividly remember being blown away by their product when it came to market. I remember because I had never seen anything like it and literally didn't believe it could be done at that time. I was waiting for a train and could just search for any song and play it right away from my phone, no downloading, no waiting, just instant music. I was very sceptical beforehand but was instantly sold.
Did I miss another service that did something even remotely similar before Spotify did it?
Myspace was a popular way to share music, if limited.
Youtube, again though this doesn't fully fit the definition.
Anybody know about soundcloud? I know I was using that before I heard of spotify but I'm not sure if it came out beforehand.
Myspace def. was limited and didn't have full catalogs of all music in any scope approaching Spotify.
Youtube is video that has music, and can't be conveniently used on mobile or used for music discovery explicitly.
Soundcloud is actually the closest to what I meant, but it obviously isn't used for record-label music distribution en masse.
True.
> and can't be conveniently used on mobile
I disagree, but that's highly subjective.
> or used for music discovery explicitly.
It can be, but the YT Music app only was launched in 2015.
- Better iOS app
- Native (well, Electron) MacOS app
- Playlist folders - niche feature but a big one for me
- Amazingly good music discovery on Spotify (not properly compared with Google but they get it so right a lot of the time even for niche genres)
I do wish Google Play could address some of these (most of all playlist folders! big one for me and how I organise music) as I do love the ability to store your own music along with cloud music that GPM gives, and it would be enough for me to switch with just a couple of changes.
In the same light, Spotify is incentivized to crush the music app space. They need the best UI, the best discovery experiences, etc... whereas Google’s product is like the rich family that funds their son’s strange lifestyle business: It can live or die and the world keeps spinning. They do not need to innovate or be better... and they really aren’t.
My wife used Spotify before we met. My sister uses it. My step mom uses it. All my buddies use it. I can count dozens of people around me that use it. It’s almost becoming a verb now: “Spotify it”. On the contrary, I only know one or two diehard google fanboys who use their music product.
So I guess at the end of the day.. to answer your question, yes you’re missing something!
A nimble team of people focused on solving one core problem, whose entire livelihood depends on it working well, triumphs the giants.
We can assume Microsoft and Google has enough middle management that they’ll fk it up along the way for sure. Too many agendas and failure doesn’t mean much.
Therefore it’s in the best interest of giants to acquire companies that fit their mission and scale them with their marketing power. YouTube, Android, docs, are all good plays by google.
- Better discovery
- Much cheaper (150kr/mo for 6 subscriptions, vs 100kr/mo for one with GPM)
- A desktop client (even if it's a crappy electron one)
- YTRed isn't available here anyway
- Google. Privacy.
- trying to shove the Android/Material UI on iOS, such
an impedance mismatch... I *hate* that.
- no dedicated client on desktop (so, no offline mode)
- the UI in the browser sucks (again, alien, and basically
*negative* information density if it could be so)
- uploading/downloading is a crapshoot[0] with official tools,
and the API is unofficial so hacks[1] may be short-lived.
The only thing I miss in Spotify from GPMAA/Apple Music+iTunes Match is the digital locker for seamless syncing of music I own.
FTR, despite having a native UI and digital locker, I moved from Apple Music to Spotify because discovery and reliability were terrible.
[0]: official tools behave similarly to this: https://github.com/simon-weber/gmusicapi/issues/140
I've switched to Amazon Music (free with my Prime membership) and although the app works well, the curated lists aren't as great.
My point is that maybe other people have started with the free Google Play (Music?) app and had the same experience and looked for options elsewhere.
They are all insanely buggy. I was a Spotify user for about 6 years before this and it was buggy, and is getting buggier as far as I can tell.
Some people on HN like areas especially might care about diversifying who they give their money and/or attention to. Spotify has an advantage there too.
Those websites will be looked at one day the same way we see Java and Real Player plugins today.
Simple answer: I'm a tech literate person (I read HN and a dozen other sites) and I hadn't even heard of "google play music" until now.
So that's one reason.
The other is likely that Spotify is pretty aggressive with marketing here (Sweden). E.g. get a phone contract and you get a year of spotify etc. But the most important reason is probably that after manty years on a product you get some lock-in. Now I wouldn't switch if the product was 10% better or if the price was 10% lower unless many of my friends switched and I could also port all playlists etc.
That being said... I've been underwhelmed by the app's UI and performance and have given frequent feedback but haven't got any response and there has been no changes. Typical of Google... Its been so bad that I'm considering switching to Spotify soon. Its really annoying when you're trying to select some romantic music for dinner with your partner and the app keeps refusing to work.
Another thing I really enjoy about spotify is their app's ability to pause a song on my laptop at work and press play on my phone when I get in my car and the song picks up right where I left it. And the remote control functionality during parties is great. They're also experimenting with some "auto-DJ" features which don't do too bad of a job for an algorithm :)
--Spotify's ML features are way way way way way way better than Googles --Everybody else uses Spotify, which means I can share it
The latter is obviously the thing Google won't win, so shouldn't try
Google know enough already!
* My TV has spotify and not play music. I could get a Chromecast but why? * Spotify exclusives are still a thing. * The daily mixes are still better than anything Google has for recommendations. It's surprising google is as bad as it is for music recommendation. * Google keeps things close to their chest for popularity. I like knowing if an artist's top song is 100 times more popular than their next, for example, or how many people follow a playlist. Spotify lets me know who runs a playlist, whereas that's hidden for GPM.
(Spotify has moved closer to their own playlists, which saddens me a little. I always hoped there would be room for curation from personalities. I miss DJs.)
In any case, I switched to GPMAA when it was launched and had the $7.99 a month rate locked in.
Then, GPMAA started adding tracks to my playlist, etc. at random. No, Google, I don't want your suggestions to be auto-added to my collection. I simply want to listen to what I want to listen.
I want to get away from Spotify but there are no better options. Amazon Music seemed promising for a bit but their catalog isn't as comprehensive and their app is just wonky. E.g.: the app won't sync / display song time when streaming over Bluetooth to my car audio. Deal breaker for me.