Spotify moves lyrics behind a paywall
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Also block specific artists. They have bad music. Don't recommend them, don't show up in searches, skip them in playlists.
i know i'm not the target for those services that i wouldn't use in a million years, but i just wonder sometimes if Spotify or Apple Music actually provide any convenience or value at all
That's how some products exist even with competitors price dumping against them.
YTM is a lot better to allow you to upload your music.
Deezer has a better algorithm
Their discovery-specific algos/UX are ok, but I think becoming the global de-facto music/audio-specific social network is their biggest moat. It’s been so tough to replicate that apple/google/amazon have yet to make much of a dent despite spotify’s actively hostile UX and practices.
Edited to add: Music generes and fandoms have always been tribes and spotify was the first to capitalize on that aspect of music culture. Other companies approached their products in a “building a “digital CD-vinyl collection” kinda way, but there are few network effects in that.
1st world problems, but I’m paying for Apple Music since my running playlists are on there (Spotify didn’t support offline on Apple Watch at the time) and most of my other playlists are on Spotify. I’ll probably pay for both forever for lack of time to consolidate.
Same with streaming services, sadly.
Spotify was just first. But I think there's a lot of momentum here, most people don't like changing their habits after all.
At that point I notice the Spotify moat is actually quite substantial in my use case and switching to another service is pretty much out of the question.
How is this model still something CEOs go for? Is it because there are enough people stupid enough to keep on paying to make up for those who are leaving?
I wonder if there is a science of that sweet spot where it's still worth to lose people and keep on making more profits from quarter to quarter.
This is a pest. I am one of those who recently turned pirate again for my favorite shows because of this behavior, and I'm teaching all my less IT capable friends how to do it too.
I don't understand.
There's an odd dissonant quality to reading a broad-based lament* about "joining a service" and it "getting worse", in response to Spotify putting lyrics behind a paywall.
I get it, I subscribe to the lament.
It's just hard to imagine complaining about it in the context of using something in trial mode, for free, and the change being song lyrics are paywalled.
* Again, I lament this as well, but the language is sort of over-the-top and obviously unethical in a way that makes it seems more like its mocking people who lament this.
"I hate" "becoming worse and worse" "How is this model still something CEOs go for?" "there are enough people stupid enough to keep on paying" "worth to lose people and keep on making more profits from quarter to quarter." "This is a pest." "I turned pirate again" "I'm teaching all my friends how to do it too."
I went from pirate to paid because it was all there and I wanted to be able to give to the authors and artists without having to put discs on my shelf. Now I somehow not only don't care anymore, I feel like I just want to do the opposite thing. I'm on bandcamp now for music, but I just don't care about movies/TV shows. Honestly, at this point I feel insulted by this model. I'd be ashamed to admit that I pay for x-services to watch my TV shows.
> It's just hard to imagine complaining about it in the context of using something in trial mode, for free, and the change being song lyrics aren't accessible.
Don't those "free" users still have to endure advertisements? It isn't free then. It is stealing their attention as a price now they're just getting less for the "same" (is it the same? didn't the amount of ads rise?) price.
This circles back and begs the question: you need to stop giving to artists, because free users can't see lyrics, because Spotify is trying to nudge more people to go paid & give to artists?
Rest is a bit too much for my bird brain, morning coffee is wearing off, 3 PM EST :( (ex. I can't add anything to the idea free is paid because ads, so removing lyrics for free users with ads means its making the paid service worse, so it justifies dropping the previous ethical stance of paying to get artists money, in favor of pirating)
I'm sure this marketing argument works well with some of the customers as cover up for greed.
Meanwhile, in reality, nobody will start paying just because there are no more lyrics. It's just another thing they hit them with to make the "free" version unattractive.
Maybe it works on the bases of shame with the younger population, where your friends can see the lyrics right away, while you have to google them. Like the colors on chat bubbles thing in the US. I don't know.
Because to have music you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have lyrics you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have videos you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have your app working on some surfaces (think desktop vs phone vs speakers vs TVs vs cars vs...) you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because if you want to synchronize or show together some, or all, of the audio/video/lyrics/subtitles/etc. you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Disclaimer: I work at Spotify, and it annoys me to no end that these questions are never directed at the people who actually demand all this money: the rights holders.
These licenses are fixed percentages.
The only thing that is fixed about your employers' greed is that it has no end.
Spotify pays "$0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams."
This is disgusting since you know they HAVE to be on your platform, but there is no money to be made there. The IMMENSE share goes to Spotify.
So please...spare me that shift of blame. The only thing that would change if the license holders would demand less is that Spotify would make EVEN MORE, and you know it. No customer would get a discount or something like that. People know that. You can't lie to us.
And that makes them irrelevant? Negligible? Insubstantial?
It's common in streaming (that is anything you can think of: music, video, audiobooks) to pay 60-70% of revenue for licenses for content alone (that is, before taxes, before payroll, before infra costs etc.). You're more than welcome to try and start your own music service on those terms and see how far you can get with free/cheap offering.
> Spotify pays "$0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams."
Spotify pays the rights holders. Who in turn pay artists. I've never seen the fake outrage directed at Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment.
You're now outraged at Spotify for lyrics, but I don't see it directed at Musicxmatch and other lyrics providers who charge for lyrics.
> People know that. You can't lie to us.
To "know that" you'd first have to know more than zero about streaming, licensing etc.
Seeing that you don't even know who actually pays the artists...
The context? Did you pay attention? The prices are rising, the service is getting worse. You know...the topic.
> You're more than welcome to try and start your own music service on those terms and see how far you can get with free/cheap offering.
There are alternatives which somehow manage not only to provide a proper service, they even offer FLAC DOWNLOADS. Can you imagine that? Give it a try: https://bandcamp.com/
> Spotify pays the rights holders. Who in turn pay artists. I've never seen the fake outrage directed at Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment.
What is this derailing? Why should I rage on them? Do they own Spotify? Are you from the marketing department because I barely see the topic with all that smoke and mirrors here.
> To "know that" you'd first have to know more than zero about streaming, licensing etc.
Serving this level of arrogance after that cheap derailment show is hilarious.
You, however, still fail to move away the spotlight from that hilariously small amount of money you pay. It's not even a secret. You can google it up.
You work for a greedy example of a service which needs to die.
So if you were a paying customer nothing has changed.
As I wrote below: I doubt many people will start paying if they don't have access to lyrics. It is just another power move to make the "free" alternative worse for those who can't or won't afford the paid version.
Makes sense to not pay licencing costs for lyrics as well on top of music for free users, they don't bring enough revenue.
It's free, you can't expect to have all the features that cost money per user to be provided.
> It's free, you can't expect to have all the features that cost money per user to be provided.
It is not free. People pay with their data and their stolen attention.
Also if you mean more ads like in podcasts, those are mostly inserted by the shows themselves rather than Spotify, for most of the ads in podcasts Spotify is not earning anything.
> It is not free. People pay with their data and their stolen attention.
Ads on Spotify are much more similar to radio ads than the stuff done by Meta, and Google.
Are radio ads stealing attention? How should radios support themselves if the listener doesn't pay anything monetarily? Same for Spotify's free tier...
Not enough for whom? The investors or the customers?
We know it's for the investors who need more and more, but Spotify is a limited service. It offers music, lyrics and podcasts. You can't generate more and more money without making the service shitty if you don't plan to expand into some other service or media, but this is not what is happening here. The only thing you get more of is ads while getting less service for it.
> Also if you mean more ads like in podcasts, those are mostly inserted by the shows themselves rather than Spotify
I can't even blame them. They barely get any money from Spotify, but they still have to be there because they're being held hostage in a quasi monopoly situation.
> Are radio ads stealing attention? How should radios support themselves if the listener doesn't pay anything monetarily?
With paying customers of course.
The fact remains: it's not free and yes it is the same with radio, however I have more, easy choice. Just switch the station. No need to click links somebody else send you because they want you to listen to their music, for example.
FYI: there are also public broadcasters. Quite a many in less greedy countries.
I hate it. I recently tried to find out how to sort my liked songs by genre. Turns it, this feature has been released over 3 years ago [0], but hasn't made it to Europe yet.
[0] https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-25/how-to-sort-your-fav...
Everything else just gets in the way of that.
After they came out with the Car Thing[1], I realized there may be a loose cannon over there at Spotify, and not in a fun, creative way, but in a "greenlights harebrained nonsense" way, like Netflix's "Qwikster" near-debacle.
CarThing made sense for the US market at the time (a huge owership of old cars with barely a radio), but along the way other things interfered (I don't know how much of this is public, but time, money, licensing, regulations etc. pick any combination of those). The result was much less than it could've been, sadly. It was a quaint little device.
What do these companies have in common? Venture capital? Genuine question.
For me, Apple Music is simply the best. No clutter, no ads, no podcasts being forced in your face. It has the best recommendations I've seen, much better than Spotify.
But the way they generally behave towards their (paying) users irks me so much - not even a hint of respect. This general attitude (leading to progressive worsening of the product) eventually made me jump ship to Tidal, which also has its annoyances, but is at least consistent with them and doesn't randomly shuffle shit around every week.
I much prefer companies have a degraded free tier than try to squeeze dollars out of a free tier by disregarding user privacy and selling to data brokers.
That said, I'm sure Spotify is going to do both.
Disclaimer: I work at Spotify
We'd love to give all of that to you for free, or nearly for free. Almost everything you mention or want has a price tag attached to it by rights holders: Spotify has to pay for almost everything.
Also, in a different comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40241883
should do it