Comment by ssharp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ssharp | Hacker News Reader

I was with Apple in the mid-2000's, when Jobs was insisting that people wanted to "own" their music. This was when services like Rhapsody where the "big" players in online music. I would occasionally join Rhapsody and enjoy it, but it's mobile capabilities at the time were bad and devices like the iPod were entirely offline. It made more sense to me to own my music files then.

By the time Spotify came to the U.S., my iPod was long retired in favor of a smartphone, and I could get enough data on my plan to make mobile streaming a very reasonable option. I haven't bought a track on iTunes in almost three years now and give Spotify my money instead.

I'm really curious about how Apple is going to address the on-demand streaming stuff. It seemed like Beats Music was going to be their entry in, but that's now being shelved. Apple tends to think big and music has been a huge part of their brand for 10+ years now, so I'm interested to see what they have planned for early next year. It better be good!

There are two business models here: record shops and radio. These business models have existed for decades. iTunes Store mainly disrupted the record shop model. You could buy an album online, just like with the record shop, you could rip your existing tracks (for backwards compatibility) and as a disruptive move, you could also buy single tracks (initially DRM'd but later DRM-free as well).

Spotify/Rdio/Last.fm/Pandora essentially targeted the radio model - the disruptive feature of course, being that you got some control over what was being played other than "channel".

With cheap, pervasive mobile data coverage and smart caching (like Amazon/Google music), these models are more and more in contention, thus the Apple purchase of Beats music.

However, they are still separate. In one case, you own a persistent license for the music and in the other, you have much wider selection but have limitations imposed - sometimes you lose access to what you had before (not unlike Netflix's loss of Stars/Disney content).

My life follows exactly your first two paragraphs (except for the working for Apple part).

And then Spotify started pulling albums randomly, probably due to rights reason (I'm an expat so like to listen to niche/indie music from my home country), so in the past year or two I've gone back to owning my music. It's much, much better.

I do use iTunes Match, which I find fantastic to be able to listen to any of my music on the go without having to sacrifice storage space.

The story is the same with Netflix, which I used to use exclusively, but their selection has been dwindling in the recent years and now I'm back to hoarding my favorite shows/movies on hard drives.

Spotify don't pull albums. Record labels does.

The way I solve it is to not listen to them if the record label pull the music. If they don't want my money I'm not going to give them any.

... sure, but the experience for the end user is the same: I can't listen to the music I want to on Spotify.

>> "The way I solve it is to not listen to them if the record label pull the music. If they don't want my money I'm not going to give them any."

How does that help? If they don't want your money...they probably don't care you won't give it to them.

It doesn't matter who makes them disappear, the fact is that it happens, which makes the convenience of an all-streaming in-the-cloud solution not that ideal when it comes to media.

I've seen a couple independent artists pull their music from Spotify due to the poor proceeds they were receiving, or from a dislike of the revenue model. That may have been the case once or twice.

I must listen to weird-ass music, because a good 40-50% of the music in my iTunes library simply isn't on Spotify.

I think I would be OK with the Spotify model if the catalog was better.

I had similar problems and moved to Google Play. They still have massive gaps, but at least for me they're less massive? Play also lets you upload tracks, which I confess I haven't done yet, but I should.

If I understand their situation correctly, the statutes allowing for on-demand play by Spotify are too expensive, so they negotiate direct deals to furnish their catalog. Your tastes may not be worth negotiating for!

I was given a beta account very early on, and the remarkable thing was how much variety was in there. This was before it was publically launched. Huge amounts of ethnographic records, lots of European good electronic music (Mille plateaux etc), thousands of vintage country artists and somehow even merzbow and his massive box set. Slowly the catalog has gotten stripped down.

I have found that due to my data price sensitivity that I listen to far less music on the go then when I had an iPod.

T-Mobile (at least in the US) doesn't count the data you use for several music services towards your data quota.

http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/free-music-streaming.html

Kind of makes one wonder what relationship T-Mobile has with the companies listed at http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/music-freedom-list.html, especially in light of recent net neutrality debates.

I'm torn. As a T-Mobile customer, it definitely benefits me. As a net neutrality advocate, it does concern me.

It's well known (I've read articles and heard from inside sources) that service providers like FB and Twitter partner up with big carriers to make use of their app free for carrier customers. It's possible that these music providers have set up similar deals. But could also be that T-Mobile is creative with their offerings (which they're known for) and offer free music an USP against others like AT&T.

Just be grateful you do not live in Canada. Quite seriously, it is almost painful to have a data plan up here. :(

why is caching playlists on your device not a solution?

Why not just sync the tracks to your phone? Spotify allows you to sync 3333 tracks per device.

I think the closing of the Beats streaming service is a good argument for owning your music. Especially since it seems that exclusive licensing agreements could mean that I may not be able to hear my favorite band on whatever replaces the service.

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