
So Much Streaming Music, Just Not in One Place - hvo
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/03/16/business/media/so-much-music-streaming-just-not-one-place.html?hpw&rref=technology&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
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nzoschke
The glory days of media companies are over. Record labels aren't needed to
distribute music. Cable companies aren't needed to distribute shows.

I have Spotify and Netflix subscriptions and that's about it.

It's certainly annoying that some artists aren't on Spotify but I feel like
that's not a winning strategy for them in the long term.

I'm not going to have replaced cable and CDs and bootleg mp3s with juggling
subscriptions to 10 different services.

I'm going to be content with the content that is available.

I'm totally fine not hearing the new Kanye album. I can listen to his old
albums or one of the infinitely other great rap or hip hop albums on Spotify.

And if I'm not listening to the new album, I'm not DJing from it, falling in
love with it, and buying tickets to the world tour. I doubt he'll have any
trouble selling tickets though.

Netflix has it tougher with video. They don't have nearly the breadth of
content to keep everyone happy in the first place, and re-watching the
classics isn't as satisfying for video.

So their strategy of producing originals is brilliant.

I expect and hope Spotify does the same. They already have killer live Spotify
sessions. And they are doing more and more to promote new artists through
discovery tools. A Spotify record label could be rad.

If artists don't want to play, they don't have to.

~~~
jonnathanson
Spotify is hiring aggressively from record labels. Not sure if they are going
after the A&R folks, though.

And then there is the longstanding rumor that Jimmy Iovine creates an Apple
record label. I wouldn't be surprised if this is going on right now.

(No idea how Apple, Inc. deals with the Beatles' Apple Corps. in the music
trademark world, though...Those two have legally tangled in the past.)

~~~
tw04
Buy them and shut them down.

------
mathgeek
> ... it can be frustrating for consumers that no single outlet has
> everything.

I'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems. I know this
frustration as well, but for me it's a perfect reminder that maybe the ability
to stream any song at any time isn't that big of a deal in the broader
picture. One could say that the issue here is really corporate control of
creative properties, but I'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy
with someone like Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen
to any artist at any time.

~~~
mikestew
_I 'm not sure there's a better example of first world problems._

You forgot to remind us how if we're not paying, we're the product and not the
customer, and something something Betteridge. Now that we've gotten the
obvious out of the way, let's move on.

 _but I 'd wager that most people would be perfectly happy with someone like
Apple controlling everything if it meant they could listen to any artist at
any time._

I don't know if I'd be _happy_ with it, as a single controlling entity can't
end well, but my streaming habits work as if that were true: Apple Music is my
sole paid streaming provider (though I listen to a few sources that are
donation-only). I'm not "frustrated", but I'm not going to juggle more than
that.

Hence, it's probably worse on the artists than the listeners. Me, if it's not
on Apple Music then I probably won't ever notice the difference. The artist,
however, has to make sure they have all of the services covered.

~~~
orbitur
> The artist, however, has to make sure they have all of the services covered.

There are "middlemen" services that do exactly this for artists, but can still
be cost-prohibitive for the really small-time acts.

I'm in a minority who actually seek out these artists, and yes, it is
incredibly frustrating that I pay for Apple Music, but for some of the bands I
__really __care about, I need to open up the Bandcamp app, or the Soundcloud
app. I always make sure to bug them on their Facebook pages to let them know
their presence is missed on Apple Music.

Although, I'm obviously more likely to pay for an album if I have to go
through the Bandcamp gateway. Makes me feel good about myself, and gets actual
money to the artists, so there are benefits compared to the streaming
services' model of paying artists fractions of a cent per play.

~~~
BEEdwards
I think we are the opposite, I have found nothing nothing but frustration in
the apple music. Shitty interface, short samples, bloated as a three day dead
whale AND proprietary.

I however love bandcamp and soundcloud. They have changed the way I discover
music. Not so much listen to music, that's still a download it and play it
myself sort of thing.

------
Kenji
The only reasonable way to go is buy/download music DRM-free and store high-
quality files on your own HDD. I've been burnt too many times. Youtube taking
down files. Grooveshark disappearing. Newgrounds outages. Never again. I like
a song, I hunt it down and download it, whatever tools it takes to do so. In
general I download everything I like from the internet because it's gonna
disappear. When I look at my old bookmarks, like 50% are defunct now.

~~~
jamespo
If you were enjoying groovesharks services, you're unlikely to be the target
audience for paying for stuff.

~~~
Kenji
You are mistaken. I spend a lot of money on music. If I think a composition is
deserving of compensation, I will most likely buy the album even if I find a
free download link. I didn't use grooveshark much but there were some songs
that were extremely hard to find in other places.

------
selfsimilar
What should (but will never) happen, is an agreed upon streaming API that
arbitrary clients can connect to. Pay for a subscription and you can use
(Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) from a single application. The only trick will be
the application will no doubt need to placate rights holders that no saving of
streaming-only content is going on, which will mean some kind of DRM.

~~~
nickik
I stream my own music from Ampache, and their are many clients, but I don't
know of any commercial offerings.

------
ewzimm
Am I the only one that sees this as a good thing? The only real holdouts are
some of the top selling artists, the ones who, in my opinion, already get way
too much attention. If a few people end up trying something new because they
can't immediately stream the latest Kanye or Taylor Swift, I think the world
will be a better place for it.

~~~
FilterSweep
You aren't, just understand the medium through which NYTimes expresses its
viewpoint favors a "Centralized" model of everything.

------
CaptSpify
Disclaimer: my own blog -
[https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy](https://blog.thekyel.com/?anchor=piracy)

This is really, IMO, an economic problem. I'd love us to have a system where
these artists can just release their music, in the format they want, and the
consumers can grab it. Unfortunately, we're still stuck in the old business
mindset of selling physical CD's. And, as our economic model is based on
selling a physical product, we don't really have a solid way of making sure
the artist gets paid, so we jump through logic-hoops to make it happen.

------
SixSigma
If you like Classical, Baroque, Jazz, or a couple of others

try [http://stream.psychomed.gr/](http://stream.psychomed.gr/)

44khz 320kbit no ads, no talking

I am just a happy listener

~~~
tombrossman
This is great and it comes just as several Dutch AVRO stations discontinue
streaming, so I am actively looking for replacements. AVRO streams were
256kbit, and no talking ever - perfect!

You can find a decent list of streaming classical stations here, but many have
occasional announcements and some do news breaks with extended talking.
[http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html](http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html)

For the simplest and lightest-weight streaming on Linux try Radio Tray
([https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-
tray](https://bitbucket.org/carlmig/radio-tray)) which might be in your repos
already.

------
hellofunk
How is this different than cable vs satellite television programming? I could
say "So much on television, just not in one place."

~~~
smacktoward
There's no such thing as a "DirecTV original program." Satellite and cable are
just two ways to deliver the same bundle of programming channels.

~~~
tkjef
Actually, Directv does have the Audience network for original programming.

~~~
untog
...and when was the last time it aired something culturally significant?

~~~
hellofunk
Now there's a pretentious remark if I've seen one. What you consider not
culturally significant, someone else might consider entertaining. And
entertainment value is somewhat important in the television and music
industries, FYI.

~~~
untog
Huh? Why are you suggesting that entertainment and cultural significance are
two separate things? Entertaining things are culturally significant. Breaking
Bad and Big Bang Theory are both culturally significant.

My point was "when was the last time they made something that would impact on
someone's overall choice of TV provider?". The lack of either Big Bang Theory
or Breaking Bad might make that choice for a person.

~~~
hellofunk
>"when was the last time they made something that would impact on someone's
overall choice of TV provider?"

Again, what _you_ consider entertaining or significant is your business. But
to claim the entire network has no value to anyone else on Planet Earth,
well...

~~~
narrowrail
>But to claim the entire network has no value to anyone else on Planet Earth,
well...

I cannot see this claim being made by anyone. Care to link to that claim?

~~~
hellofunk
I was responding to the comment that the network had nothing culturally
significant.

>...and when was the last time it aired something culturally significant?

~~~
tamana
And yet you haven't been able to name something culturally significant on the
network.

------
fucking_tragedy
If a consumer is paying fees to multiple companies, then the rights holders
can collect more in royalties and licensing agreements than if they were
dealing with one entity.

------
ralphc
I have a Spotify subscription, a Spotify account in the UK I access through my
VPN, and my wife has Apple Music that we share on family plan. US Spotify has
most of what I listen to, UK Spotify has some guilty pleasure girl groups
(Girls Aloud, The Saturdays) and Apple Music as the best selection of K-pop in
the US.

~~~
dublinben
Think of how many albums you could add to your permanent music collection for
that $300 a year! Before you know it, you would own everything you want to
listen to, and wouldn't have to keep paying a monthly fee to rent access to
it.

~~~
mathgeek
This only works if the albums you enjoy are a static set. New releases and
discovering existing but unknown albums means you are already paying a
recurring cost if you buy all of your content. The main advantage of owning
over renting is that you can keep your existing collection if you stop paying.

~~~
dublinben
>The main advantage of owning over renting is that you can keep your existing
collection if you stop paying.

Clearly. It's not your collection if you're only renting access to it.

Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your
collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't.

~~~
mathgeek
> Clearly. It's not your collection if you're only renting access to it.

I never said it was.

> Do you think you discover 30 albums per year worth buying and adding to your
> collection? I listen to a lot of music, and I certainly don't.

I certainly don't spend that much on music. Most of what I listen to is simply
through Amazon Prime, which I would pay for even without the music portion.
Even if you prorate is based on the services I use, which is subjective as to
specific costs per service, it's not much.

------
vr3690
Most audio streaming apps have terrible UI across platforms. Spotify and Saavn
are the only ones that are satisfactory and useful and I end up sticking with
those.

I am ready to not listen to artists I like if they're going to make me jump
through hoops and cause frustration just to listen to them.

------
peatmoss
I went through a maddening period recently of trying to find something,
anything that met the following criteria:

1\. Lossless playback. I am willing to / currently pay for it. I don't care if
it's a placebo--I _think_ I can hear the difference when I'm listening through
good headphones and a reasonable quality DAC. Plus, some musicians like Neil
Young have made this a not-odious condition for being on a service.

2\. Best effort on catalog. A huge catalog isn't actually super important for
reasons stated below. Amazon's catalog is a little on the sparse side, but the
others' are fine.

3\. Allow personal user-uploaded tracks, and stream them back to the uploader
account losslessly. This allows me to backfill the crazy and not so crazy
stuff I've purchased over the years that is not on any of the streaming
services.

4\. Support a reasonable number of devices such that I don't have to choose
between Prime Video and your streaming music service on my TV (to which my
hifi equipment connects digitally). Right now I'm running Tidal (best
compromise for me) sideloaded on a FireTV.

Or distilled to first principles: "Allow me to enjoy the convenience of
streaming music, while allowing me to access any content I wish (even if I
must pay for it), at the same quality I experienced when I was 16 shopping at
the local record store."

Nobody does this.

Google Play Music: Not lossless; doesn't support FireTV because arbitrary
corporate bickering reasons. Props for self-uploaded tracks.

Amazon Prime Music: Not lossless (worst encoding). Props for self-uploaded
tracks.

Apple Music: Not lossless; limited device support. Props for self-uploaded
tracks, however the interface to self-uploaded tracks and streaming music not
really well integrated on AppleTV.

Spotify: Not lossless; no self-uploaded tracks.

Tidal: No self-uploaded tracks.

Deezer Elite: Only available in lossless on Sonos. Props for amazing catalog
and self-uploaded tracks.

In terms of fixing things...

Amazon Prime Music could be my choice overnight by going CD quality (not like
they don't have the infrastructure to do it). Their device support is
surprisingly good. Their catalog isn't great, but I'm willing to buy / upload
CDs that are missing--provided Amazon doesn't start shitting-up their content
availability to drive CD sales.

Google Play Music also not too far off mark. Fix the lossless thing, and I
might be convinced to live with their Amazon bickering.

I suspect Apple will launch lossless soon, but also think it will be a cold
day in hell before I can use Apple Music on something like FireTV. Also, the
integration of self-tracks and streamed-tracks is bad and should feel bad.

Deezer Elite: OMG, don't make me buy a Sonos. I want you.

Tidal: I like jazz, and your partial Pat Metheny albums and anemic Dave
Holland selection kill me. But if you allowed me to upload my own, I could buy
my way around your content negotiation failings.

~~~
svantana
Re:1 You don't care whether it's a placebo?!? We should get in touch, I have
some expensive sugar pills to sell you that will do wonders for your ailment
of choice.

~~~
ksenzee
I seldom care whether something that works _for me personally_ is a placebo or
not. If I can harness the power of my brain with a sugar pill, excellent. The
placebo effect is powerful, and was the basis of a lot of medicine before the
20th century.

Where it does matter, obviously, is science, which is the only tool we have to
come up with solutions that are better than placebo. But "better than placebo"
is a fairly high standard[1].

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19246102](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19246102):
"The placebo effect accounted for 68% of the effect in the drug groups.
Whereas clinical trials need to control the placebo effect, clinical practice
should attempt to use its full power."

