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> A streaming service that has no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC etc is going to shed users pretty quickly.

I disagree. I think for most people music is fungible; they just want something to listen to. I think Spotify can afford to have gaps in it's library. Sure, if a large enough portion of the music industry cut them off it would be an issue, but I don't think they're in imminent danger of that.

I think you underestimate the annoyance and frustration users feel when content disappears from their library. This is especially noticeable in playlists: when half of your favorite workout playlist suddenly disappears, it's not something you'll ignore easily.

People pay Spotify a monthly subscription for the convenience of being able to listen to the music of their choosing, at the time and place of their choosing. Anything that jeopardizes that convenience is going to be a problem.

It’s already happening, and it’s less of a problem than I thought it would be. Some of my playlists are 200+ tracks. A few songs go missing from time to time. I can never remember which tracks have gone, I just know something’s missing as the flow from song to song is off.

It’s extremely irritating, but not enough to make me go elsewhere as I can’t see any other service not having the same problem.

Yeah, it's already happening, that's why I brought it up. Right now it's not a huge problem, because it doesn't happen too often or on a large scale. Like you said, it's usually a couple of songs in a larger playlist.

Now, imagine the scenario comparable to what @bogomipz said above: "no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC". I'm betting all of us would be a lot more frustrated and irritated than we are right now. Maybe you won't do anything about it. Maybe I won't, either. But it sounds plausible that a lot of people will, whether they switch to a different service, come up with a solution of their own or simply revert to piracy.

I’m curious. Do a lot of people actually use a single music streaming platform? As an avid music lover, I get my new doses from various services. Spotify is the only one that I pay for. I mainly use it to discover the latest mainstream stuff from genres I don’t typically listen to. But the Beatles? Come on, why isn’t that saved in your hard drive somewhere?

Because it’s included in my Spotify subscription. Why would I pay ~200 dollars to “own” all the Beatles albums when music ownership is basically worthless?

Why would I save music on my hard drive when I have music streaming services?

I don't think most people are avid music lovers, and many people probably don't even use a computer for music at all, just their smartphone.

I don't think they would switch to another service, because another service is likely to suffer from the same problems of rotating availability. The only service I know of that doesn't suffer from that is piracy, which I don't think people will go back to on any significant scale.

In case you’re not aware, there’s a setting to show unavailable tracks greyed out in your playlist, so at least you can tell which ones are missing.

Where is that setting on iOS?

Best I can tell, this feature is only applicable if the track is not available in the region you're in, and/or for tracks that are 'local music' that haven't been syncned to the device you're playing on.

If a song is removed from Spotify entirely, it just disappears from the playlist.

I'd love to be proven wrong, however, and start to see all the tracks that have disappeared in the past!

Absolutely agree with your point. Happened to me a couple of times when the music just disappeared and I could not really understand the reason. Good, I am paying for a student (4.99 instead 9.99 per month), but it's still money and I expect the promised services to be fulfilled.

There are so many people that listen to their ONE favorite artist all the time...I don't think that music is as fungible as you think.

Indeed. Since the rise of ClearChannel in the '80's, the industry has been reducing the variety of popular music down to the chords, and repeats trite elements like the 'millennial whoop"*, as far as they can. Content for them is very much a simple commodity. The number of really successful songwriters is tiny.

For those interested in this one, small-scale phenomenon: https://qz.com/767812/millennial-whoop/

Spotify's catalog is so spotty that it is borderline useless for me. Most small indie labels still do not publish to Spotify

If you are the kind of person that will sometimes strongly desire to listen to only one song/style/artist, and that desire is so strong that nothing else satisfies it, then Spotify not having your track can be a big deal.

If I can't build a decent playlist because Spotify's lack of coverage, that's going to be a big deal to me.

The mainstream is not sensitive to nor do they care about the logistics of music distribution. I wish there was a way for Spotify to ignore these bullshit distribution deals because the only people who care about them are megalabels and their A&R reps. I don't know of a single artist making bank off streaming...

Spotify is mass market music platform, it's not meant to be an indie publishing platform, and it doesn't even make economic sense for indie artists to publish on Spotify.

It's like complaining about the lack of techno (especially remixes) on Spotify, that's what Beatport is for.

What does Spotify not fitting your niche case have to do with its mass-market appeal?

I don't know what music you listen to but i have a pretty broad and eclectic taste and still find Spotify to be amazing for discovery.

I have never been happy with Spotify/Pandora as discovery system. Nothing beats an hourlong mp3+tracklist with real DJs pushing real buttons :/

Most people listen to top 40 music and artists, and not much else.

Most people on Spotify don't make their own playlists at all, and just rely on the ones that Spotify supplies in the Browse tab, or listen to albums.

From a quick scan of the friend activity pane, if Spotify only had music from the past 5 years, 80% of my friends would still be able to listen to their music.

People complaining about gaps in their library are a definite minority.

Indeed. 99% of Spotify users that I know, prefer to play Spotify playlists instead of listen their own playlist...

If this were true, Bandcamp and Soundcloud would be killing it.

Why the assumption that "to pull a Netflix", they will have to get rid of the back catalogue? Netflix has plenty of third-party content. I would assume that Spotify's music licences are highly variable cost, ie almost entirely pay-per-stream. All they need to do is to get people to stream less licenced content and more own-produced.

Because people expect broad coverage in their music service. When I ask alexa to play a song and she doesn't know it, I am like wtf? But I don't care if Netflix doesn't have every Matrix movie, I just watch something else.

Not just watch something else, if they don't have that matrix movie, you might watch it somewhere else. People don't make movie playlists and consume 35 movies in a row. Switching from one service to another to make up content gaps is OK when you're talking about a 2-2.5 hour block of time. It's not something people are going to do to listen to a mix of artists at a party.

> Not just watch something else, if they don't have that matrix movie, you might watch it somewhere else. People don't make movie playlists and consume 35 movies in a row. Switching from one service to another to make up content gaps is OK when you're talking about a 2-2.5 hour block of time. It's not something people are going to do to listen to a mix of artists at a party.

You nailed it. Music has a fundamentally different mode of consumption from music. People consume music in so many different ways and contexts. Music doesn't always demand your attention like a sensory-engrossing medium (like movies). But when music demands your attention (like having to change providers to hear a specific song) it introduces friction that is unnatural to that medium.

.. unless the music labels object to the conflict of interest.

Spotify has a lot of competitors biting at it's heels, they're certainly the largest (and IMHO, best) at what they do, but they've by no means locked up the market.

They're not exactly at the mercy of the labels, but they probably can't afford to piss them off either.

The labels themselves are large shareholders in Spotify, so they would have to balance the monetization of their own artists with Spotify's label artists.

This could lead to cartel-like behavior among the stakeholder labels and crowd out the smaller players, but that's basically been happening in the industry for a long time so I'm not sure how big the impact would be.

>"Why the assumption that "to pull a Netflix", they will have to get rid of the back catalogue?"

If they start poaching artists from the labels who own the back catalog or if the labels start to see Spotify as a competitor instead of customer there will a reckoning when it comes time for Spotify to renegotiate their licensing terms with the labels.

And then of course there's the risk of becoming a record label. For every Bruno Mars that blows up there are 30 or 40 other artist that failed to break. And each of those flops costs money and requires resources such marketing, A&R people etc.

>"All they need to do is to get people to stream less licensed content and more own-produced"

People want to listen to what they want to listen to when they want to listen to it. That's the whole value proposition of streaming for users. If someone has a specific record or song in my mind you aren't just going to persuade them to try some "non-licensed" content instead. It's not a sports drink.

>"I would assume that Spotify's music licenses are highly variable cost, ie almost entirely pay-per-stream."

No its most certainly not pay as you go. In fact the labels demand a certain percentage up front.

  Netflix has plenty of third-party content.

I agree they have plenty in the sense that they have many more hours of it than I have time to watch.

However, in my experience in the UK, if you pick a well known film at random and look it up on Netflix, there's only about a 5% chance they'll have it.

Not the sort of library that will have users throwing away their personal collections.

Yeah i disagree. In 20 years, the Beatles and ac/dc will be less relevant and easier to live without. If Spotify start their own content channels now, and i imagine they have, the situation could easily be reversed, where they have exclusive rights to the content that others want.

Time will tell but i feel like this can go either way.

>" In 20 years, the Beatles and ac/dc will be less relevant and easier to live without."

If you made that statement I'm guessing that you don't realize that the Beatles have been relevant for 50 plus years now and AC/DC for 40 plus years.

They are so enduring because they are classics. It's amusing that you believe that when yet another generation discovers these artists they are somehow going to become less relevant.

Both of those artists that you used in your example were long time hold outs to allowing their music to be streamed. And it was huge news for Spotify when they were added to their catalog.

It's worth mentioned that Beatles tracks were streamed 50 million times in the first 48 hours that they were available for streaming.[1]

[1] https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/12/beatles-songs...

They have been relevant, yes, but that doesn't mean their primary audience isn't aging. If you truly believe the Beatles and AC/DC are gaining more followers than they are losing, you are woefully out of touch.

Spotify was excited to get them because it means older people might join. A larger audience, that's it.

You are flat out wrong.

65% of those 50 million streams in the first 48 hours were by people under the age of 34. See:

https://www.thewrap.com/beatles-songs-stream-50-million-time...

So yeah, catalog is king.

And you don’t think those folks weren’t streaming because they were heavily pushed towards it? First 48hrs is completely irrelevant, I want to see sustained numbers. I’m not saying the later numbers don’t show them leading still, I’m just saying your choice of facts doesn’t support the argument you are making.

>"And you don’t think those folks weren’t streaming because they were heavily pushed towards it?"

It's very bizarre that you don't understand the magnitude of the The Beatles. They are not something that requires a push.

So here's some number regarding the first 3 months of their catalog being available on Spotify:

"24 Million Hours Of Beatles Music Has Been Played In Their First 100 Days On Spotify

The company revealed today that in just over three months, people around the world have played 2,793 years worth of Beatles tunes.

Yes, that’s right — years. When that figure is broken down, it can be better understood as about one million days, or over 24 million hours. Considering that the average Beatles song is less than five minutes long, those 24 million hours multiply into several hundred million plays."

In fact, a conservative estimate of total Beatles plays on Spotify is still over a quarter of a billion. [1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2016/04/08/in-thei...

Your original point was that millennials and younger love the Beatles on Spotify. How does this new reply show that?

I’m not sure why I’m bothering because you continue to miss the point and instead use multiple logical falicies to try to belabor your point. I get it, you have an obsession with this and you want to convince the world you’re right, doesn’t make it so.

I’m happy to be proven wrong as I have no skin in the game, but so far, you’ve not done so.

>"Your original point was that millennials and younger love the Beatles on Spotify"

No my original point was the value of back catalog.

While its unfortunate that you aren't able to follow the conversation, it's even more unfortunate that you insist on making comments when you have nothing of value to add.

Again with the ad hominem. I tried to have an intellectual debate, but alas, have a good day and best of luck!

Would you please do a better job of respecting the civility rule here? You've broken it frequently. That's a problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I will yes and I realize I should have just have flagged the OPs comment rather than respond at all. Cheers.

Please don't stoop to personal attack regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment may be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> It's very bizarre that you don't understand the magnitude of the The Beatles

I don't find it bizarre at all.

They are basically unplayed on UK broadcast radio nowadays and indeed for the past 30 years. I don't know if that is due to restrictive licensing or just lack of interest.

I am mid-40s and have never knowingly listened to an entire Beatles song. I've just asked my wife and she has never owned one of their CDs.

I don't know if they're even on YouTube. Edit: yes, their most popular song has 123 million views versus 3.2 billion for Gangnam Style.

My only peers who seem interested in the group and seek-out their music are musicians themselves.

I’m not totally stupid (just a little...), of course they have been relevant for a long time, but i think their ability to be a differentiator in what people choose to pay for exponentially deminishes as time passes. They will matter to some for sure, but i doubt it’ll be enough to really make or break the offering. Also, maybe in 20 years they’ll manage to license the content?

Spotify should not "pull a Netflix". Spotify should "pull a Bandcamp".

Rather, Bandcamp should start a streaming service. I've had a payment model in my pocket for years that I think would work really well for them.

This wouldn't make much of an impact because the statistical distribution of music listening time has an extremely long tail, i.e. the most popular songs are far more popular than even other very popular songs. In a given market, something like 90% of listening time will come from the top few hundred tracks, and 99% will come from the first couple thousand. Those top couple thousands tracks are already well-served by alternative distribution channels (youtube, "indie" labels, etc), so there isn't much room for disruption there. Starting a service to fight for that 1% of listening time will not move the needle.

source: I used to work in the data side of the music industry.

You can already stream everything on Bandcamp.

Why do you think Spotify has to ditch every other label when they start a new label? I think you're overblowing the power of music labels.

Indie and emerging artists aren't going to sign with a label if it means their music isn't available on Spotify, the #1 streaming service.

Music labels may have modestly more leverage, but it is not impossible for Spotify to start their own label while also maintaining relationships with existing ones.

Inversely, Spotify can buy super-low on fast-growing artists because they can juice the distribution channels for that artist.

The same reasoning would also have applied to Netflix when it was a younger company, though (i.e. back catalog, staying in the good graces of licensors, etc.).

Tidal has already been doing most of the stuff people are proposing here. It's a controversial topic but I don't think there is good evidence that music streaming services, from a business standpoint, shouldn't also be in the business of producing or sponsoring musicians.

How many shares do we think it would take to purchase a major record label at this point? What about a perpetual license to their content (since buying a label could be seen as anti-competitive)? This would certainly help avoid some of the down-side risk to the business. That said, their IPO didn't exactly help the company clear the working capital they'd need to do this.

Not only are there numerous labels with "must have" back catalogs, they now all know exactly how much money Spotify has.

Well there's no such things a "major record label" anymore. When people say "the Big 3" each of those three is global conglomerate. The result of years and years of consolidation.

Using the smallest of these 3 Time Warner Music Group, the company did $2.87 billion in revenue in 2013[1].

Let's say that Warner was actually interested in a sale. Let's say that the multiple they were looking for was 5x. Where is Spotify going to get the 15 billion dollars for that sale? Certainly not from this direct listing. And even if they had that cash what happens when you buy a 3,500 employee mega corporation? You actually have to run it and run it well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Music_Group

Wow, the big three put together did a laughable amount of revenue compared to an average tech major, surprised they haven’t been bought yet.

Where does the fear of these labels come from?

Why doesn’t someone just buy them for the catalog, and fire everyone in the dying parts of the business?

De-risk your revenue model, and gain leverage vs other streaming services.

A streaming service that has no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC etc is going to shed users pretty quickly

Last I checked, Spotify has those artists. Have you actually used Spotify lately?

Read the context.

I did. The context is Spotify's back catalogue. Which includes the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Motown, et al.

It could easily stop including those if the record companies think Spotify is competing with them instead of helping them. I think that's the point being made: that back catalog is leverage that will stop Spotify from ever rocking the boat the way Netflix has.

They aren't saying Spotify doesn't _currently_ have those artists, they're saying that they wouldn't survive as a music streaming service _without_ them, as no one only listens to the latest and greatest, as many do with TV/Movies.

Thus, Spotify can't directly attempt to go in the same direction that Netflix did, as the other labels would see them attempting to compete and could possibly pull out, destroying any reason to use Spotify in the first place.

They'll be able to buy a bunch of those classic catalogs with the money investors are pouring in

> A streaming service that has no Beatles, Pink Floyd, No Motown, No AC/DC etc is going to shed users pretty quickly.

I could mangage quite well without all these.

Just one datapoint but...