
To everything there is a season – Why we're shutting down - RmDen
https://blog.8tracks.com/2019/12/26/to-everything-there-is-a-season/
======
j1elo
> _in early 2016, we were required to cut off streaming to listeners outside
> the US and Canada_

I didn't fully understand _who_ it was that required 8tracks to stop streaming
abroad, but I wholeheartedly hate them so much. It was my preferred music
service, I loved discovering all sorts of playlists and new music, while I've
always disliked the Spotify client.

To see it dissappear, probably due to _greed_ from royalty owners somewhere,
was a loss. Now it's all just random Youtube mixes, but it is not the same.

I also used some other site that tuned music according to a chosen "mood"...
but cannot recall the name right now. Stereomood, maybe?

~~~
phreack
A tragedy, these laws were created to promote art and nowadays are exclusively
used to hide and destroy it.

~~~
nine_k
No, these laws were created to promote art being _paid for_.

This sort of worked! But maximizing the payout ≠ maximizing the breadth of
distribution. It often is more lucrative to segment the market, only sell to
those who is ready to pay more than a pittance, and never try to sell for
cheaper to a wider audience. It's especially true for digital goods that can
be perfectly moved around the globe in under half a second of latency.

~~~
closeparen
They were created "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
Allowing creators to monetize their work is a means towards getting more
creative work produced, not an end in itself.

------
ChuckMcM
You only need this line: _And our growth in listening and revenues during 2013
meant we no longer qualified as a Small Webcaster; instead of paying royalties
calculated as a percentage of revenues — such that royalties grow as revenues
grow, as one would expect — we now had to pay high per-play rates as a Large
Webcaster, taking us out of profitability._

The music licensing structure is set up to kill anything above a certain size,
period. What is worse is that there is no size at which you are in a position
to change that structure and disintermediate the entrenched interests of the
major labels.

~~~
loceng
I wonder if this is something the big players like or dislike - as it creates
a certain economies of scale as a barrier to entry, but yes, as you say,
you're still at the mercy of the major labels come license renewals. It's an
industry that certainly is calling for regulation - it's killed off a number
of promising companies that consumers loved, innovation and creation that
should be supported and celebrated.

------
momokoko
8tracks was amazing. Unfortunately, after they attempted the paid subscription
model I moved to a paid subscription service that also included play on demand
of songs and albums.

I had always hoped that 8tracks could have been purchased by a larger
player(Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music) and then be allowed to continue its
content model under one of those subscription plans. Unfortunately, that never
happened.

Thanks 8tracks for, by far, the best playlist based streaming service. Good
luck in the future to you all.

------
_rpd
> for regulatory reasons, credit cards could not be used to invest; and while
> SeedInvest, the platform we used to execute the round, was able to accept
> debit cards initially, our debit card processor decided, several weeks in,
> that it no longer wished to support crowdfunding initiatives.

Cautionary tale for equity-based crowdfunding. I'd love to read about some
success stories.

~~~
aphextron
> "equity-based crowdfunding"

Isn't that called an IPO?

~~~
anandchowdhary
> Isn't that called an IPO?

No, it's like regular crowdfunding (think Kickstarter where you see a pitch
and add your credit card) but you get equity in the company instead of a
product. It's still not a publicly traded corporation, just another private
company but with way more individual investors owning small stakes.

AngelList [1], Fundable [2], and SyndicateRoom [3] are some popular choices
for equity crowdfunding.

[1] [https://angel.co/invest](https://angel.co/invest) [2]
[https://www.fundable.com](https://www.fundable.com) [3]
[https://www.syndicateroom.com](https://www.syndicateroom.com)

------
deepsand
I’m interested to know to how much their data breach in 2017 [0] impacted
attrition. This breach included email addresses and encrypted passwords.

I really enjoyed the service but like many, Spotify’s competing (albeit
subpar) features led me astray as I consolidated my listening to a single
platform. And being outside of the US and Canada, I couldn’t use it after the
2016 cut off.

Subsequently, 8tracks fell off the radar for me. Until news of the data
breach, which was much more annoying to hear about - as it was for a service I
couldn’t even use anymore. However, their transparency has always been great
and the post-mortem and customer comms were quick.

RIP 8tracks, I still miss the service and there is still a large gap in
curating playlists the way they did.

[0] [https://blog.8tracks.com/2017/06/27/password-security-
alert/](https://blog.8tracks.com/2017/06/27/password-security-alert/)

~~~
omgwtfbbqhihihi
did they really foolishly encrypt passwords? what a novice mistake.

------
gravitas
As a previous content creator, 8tracks was ergonomically hard to use and drove
me away from trying to create more mixes. It's been a long while, but I recall
having a lot of trouble ordering tracks (sometimes having to delete and re-
upload all 8 tracks in perfect order), having trouble putting in metadata
correctly, and the actively "we're afraid of copyrights" hostile presentation
of my resulting work (hiding info from end users). I just disliked the entire
experience, that much is memorable.

No time codes, could not list the tracks and times for curious listeners who
wanted more, etc. - I ended up leaving self-comments on the mixes with all the
various information because their UI and service would not let me present it
as I wanted and listeners wanted. I ended up just walking away after the first
half-dozen creations and moving on to a better service. For avid music
aficiandos it was sub=par listening experience because of these hurdles, I
didn't even like the phone app playing my own mixes. :(

Point is, failure of a company/solution is sometimes that it was just sub-par
and wasn't engaged by users because there were better alternatives, and
8tracks (to me) was one of the sub-par content creation services. 100% opinion
by an ex-member. :)

------
lhoff
For me, 8tracks always was a prime example of a great user experience without
"AI", "Big Data" or "Algorithms" The user clicked on a few keywords and gets
playlists which were tagged with these keywords. Worked better then spotifies
automatically created playlists.

------
Bootwizard
For someone that never used it, what was the appeal of this service? I took a
look at the site and didn't really get it.

What does this have over Spotify?

~~~
nicoburns
The curation (all by humans - mostly ordinary users I believe) was
significantly better than any other service I've used.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
I agree with what everyone is saying here. My years of using it led to some of
my best music discovery, and the ease of finding playlists with which I could
just put on and be happy with the music coming out for hours. I rolled off it
a bit when they went to the paid subscription model though, as it was never
quite the same for me after that. I didn't really realize how great it was,
until years later when I still didn't have any replacement I was happy with.
(And I got old..)

------
herbstein
Is there a name to the concept of always getting in on something too late?

I won't say I'm a music fanatic, but I quite enjoying finding new music and
new bands to listen to. I just checked out a few playlists and they were very
solid for the most part. I can only imagine how useful this would've been to
use regularly.

------
john-tells-all
I adore 8tracks! Their mixes (and continually surreal and hilarious cover art)
was always so much fun. I haven't found anything equivalent. They will be
missed! I hope the team goes on to bigger and better things.

------
stockholm
I'd love to know what Google offered for 8tracks back in 2013. If they reached
nearly 8m MAU who streamed 30m+ hours each month, that's still basis for a
pretty decent exit, no?

------
philipps
I have never used 8tracks but the concept and testimonials make it sound like
something I would have loved. I noticed in the blog post that all playlist
authors can export their playlist metadata. Would it be useful to collect and
store all the playlist metadata in a shared public place? I hate to see all
the work that has gone into creating these playlists disappear (and selfishly
I would love to see a new service emerge to make them accessible).

------
dvt
A real shame. I used to use 8tracks _all the time_ in the early 2010s. I'm
actually surprised di.fm is still around (another oldie but goodie).

------
alexashka
When Walmart shows up, small stores that sell the same goods go out of
business.

Apple is the Walmart of tech.

I liked and used 8tracks but for me, it's strong point was that it was free.
It's really hard to ask people for money when you're competing with free or
10$/mo for many many things.

You've got to really have an outstanding product - 8tracks was a good online
playlist player. It is now gone.

------
djinnandtonic
If you want your startup to fail, be involved with the recording industry.

------
revicon
Sorry to hear 8tracks is shutting down, it was a cool app to hear new music
back during their peak.

------
aldoushuxley001
Wow, I'm surprised their advertising revenue was so little ($6k/month),
considering how aggressive it got near the end. A large part of the reason I
pivoted away from 8tracks was the aggressive advertising. Sad to see it was
all for naught.

Was a great platform though, still one of the best ways to discover great
music from human-created playlists.

------
ianai
“the company and its streaming service will wind down with the end of the
decade, on December 31st, 2019”

Years started being numbered at 1 so the decade ends on December 31 2020.

~~~
narsil
Well that's a technicality. There's no reason to base practical realities of
Jan 1 2020 being the start of the "2020s" with the fact that Year 0 was
missing.

I recall a CNN article recently about this:
[https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/21/us/when-does-the-decade-
end-b...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/21/us/when-does-the-decade-end-begin-
trnd/index.html)

> Those technicalities, however, don't change the fact that as a society, we
> seem to have collectively determined that decades begin in years ending in
> zero and end on years ending in nine.

~~~
petercooper
It's not even a technicality, really. A decade is any span of ten years, and
in modern English we refer to decades by their tens digit. If someone wanted
to talk about the _202nd decade_ or something, then sure, that'd end next
year, but instead we merely talk about the 60s, 90s, or whatever. Calendar
shifts in the interim even make the "technical" approach a bit of a farce,
though.

