
Spotify raises $526M at a $8.5B valuation - robinwauters
http://tech.eu/brief/teliasonera-spotify-funding/
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maaaats
I had to check: I became a paying member of Spotify in 2009. That's a lot of
money spent on music I never would have done if not. Before that, I had maybe
bought 2-3 albums in my entire life, growing up when piracy was at its peak.

At the same time, I think it's weird raising this kind of money so late in the
lifetime of the company?

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interesting_att
At a $120/year for 6 years, you've basically spent $720. That is amazing. I,
on the other, have spent $0 on all music in my entire life (excluding
concerts).

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m_eiman
The sad thing is that those $720 have provided no lasting value for the user;
had it been spent on albums it would have been enough for 50-ish CDs that will
last "forever" (at least if you rip them). Or 720 individual songs.

That wouldn't have given access to as diverse music as Spotify does, of
course. But on average, how diverse is the music taste of random people?

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Osmium
> The sad thing is that those $720 have provided no lasting value for the user

I don't necessarily see this as sad. I spend money on lots of things that have
no lasting value (beyond memories), many of which are experiences. I think we
over-estimate how much time we have in ours lives anyway to enjoy these
"permanent" things (like CDs).

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lentil_soup
And not only time but mental and physical space as well.

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rhia
This here! For 10 bucks a month I know I never have to worry about syncing
music, whether something is available, etc.

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72deluxe
How will you satisfy your desire to hoard crap and fill your house up with
ever-increasingly dusty CDs?

How will you read the sleeve notes and who did a rubbish job of mastering and
mixing this album?

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colmvp
God this spoke to me.

I'm in the midst of cleaning out our basement filled with old cassettes, VHS'
and CDs. My siblings who moved out years ago, asked me to donate them or throw
them away. So now I've got to spend hours sifting through piles of media to
figure out what to do with them.

It's such a hassle. (Yes, First World Problem)

My parents as Costco users have this belief where having physical things,
especially in bulk, is a key strategy in savings. They hate subscription
models especially for digital formats. But what they fail to acknowledge is
space is valuable too. The space lost around the house because of their buying
habits and unwillingness to let things go (items that were bought on sale but
never used, old clothes, magazines, books, media, etc.) is pretty sad.

~~~
72deluxe
I used to keep loads of DVDs etc. but after getting rid of lots of them, the
house feels emptier and less cluttered (kind of like a clear desktop, no?)

My parents have the problem of hoarding things and they refuse to sort
anything out, so it'll be a MASSIVE pain if/when anything happens to them and
I have to sort it out. I will need to just have a bonfire or burn the house
down or something.

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djf1
I notice in the article that Coca Cola is an investor. Anyone care to explain
why Coca Cola would make such an investment? I assume it's because they're
sitting on a bunch of extra cash; but wouldn't it be more efficient to
distribute that cash to their shareholders?

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neilpeel
I have a few more details on it (I wrote the linked article)

Coca Cola invested $10M back in 2012 as part of a $100M round.

I know that before they invested, Coke and Spotify had an existing partnership
including integrating Spotify into Coke’s music websites and Facebook page.

At the time, the Director of Global Entertainment at Coke said:

“Music has always been a huge part of Coke, I think since 2008 or 2009, you've
seen us ramp up from the global perspective, and I think Spotify is the next
evolution of Coca-Cola music. It's going to be interesting to see how Spotify
accelerates our global music strategy, and how the brand can facilitate that
conversation where people discover music and share it amongst each other.”
(from an article on AdWeek)

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72deluxe
"Music has always been a huge part of Coke"

This is strange. I thought it was just syrup and bubbles that was a huge part
of Coke.

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matthewcford
like that apple device is just a computer?

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72deluxe
It certainly has no bubbles in it!

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antr
I'm going to give Apple Music a serious try. I've been using Spotify since the
very beginning, but I find that music discovery and UX in Spotify are a mess,
and for some reason I end listening the same music all the time. I've got the
feeling that Apple is going to get discovery right. Time will tell.

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Osmium
I hope so too. I, too, have been a paying Spotify user for a long time and it
just drives me crazy. I tried Rdio too but wasn't a fan. All music catalogs
being equal, the bar is set pretty low at the moment. I really want to like
Spotify too, because they seem like they're trying hard, but the UI and UX
just feel terrible to me.

~~~
LMAlVvQjSGj
I've used Spotify since 2008. The recent UI change really ruining the
experience. I believe they are using Chromium now.

Spotify uses 1GB of ram, and every 10 seconds the CPU usage spikes to max. The
UI is so unresponsive, Firefox is more responsive while restoring a session of
100 tabs.

I no longer pay for Spotify. The free version is litterd with malware ads, on
par with SourceForge.

They've also remvoed 70% of it's original features.

The UX of Spotify has been regressing since 2011.

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72deluxe
I have never used Spotify but am I right that a music streaming app uses 1GB
of RAM and spikes the CPU???????

I thought iTunes and RealPlayer were bad but this is incomprehensible.

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apapli
This is great news for Spotify, but a bit frustrating for me and I am sure
plenty of others as individual investors.

So many great companies I am passionate about are just too hard to invest in
before they go public. And you're in way too late at IPO stage.

I keenly start following these types of companies a lot earlier than most of
the general public, and I can bet I'm much more emotionally invested into
seeing them succeed than a broker in a 100 story building ever will be. I
understand their business models and want to give them money to help them
grow.

SpaceX is one example - all the investment banks have first rights on new
issues and even waving a respectable amount at them doesn't help. And it's too
difficult to get a feel for whether you are getting a "fair deal" on second
market so to me it's not really a viable option even though the service is
good in theory.

Awesome, and frustrating, at the same time!

~~~
dylanjermiah
>SpaceX is one example - all the investment banks have first rights on new
issues and even waving a respectable amount at them doesn't help. And it's too
difficult to get a feel for whether you are getting a "fair deal" on second
market so to me it's not really a viable option even though the service is
good in theory. Awesome, and frustrating, at the same time!

Elon addressed this in the shareholder meeting today/yesterday.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q60FOIV6Ew8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q60FOIV6Ew8)

It's close to the end, during the Q&A.

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saturdaysaint
It will be interesting to see how Apple Music affects them. If you listen to a
lot of new music, the cost of switching music services is pretty trivial
(moving from Rhapsody to Rdio to Spotify has been a minimal hassle for me),
and being able to call up any album with Siri is a powerful advantage. Fair or
not, this is why Apple could report a vast advantage in map requests over the
superior Google Maps.

I like Spotify a lot, but they look to have a weaker defensive position than
Dropbox or Netflix to me. With minimal switching costs (search is the main
interface even if you build up something of a "library") and undifferentiated
content, it's really a commodity service.

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hanley
I've built a large list of artists that I follow in Spotify (so that I get
notifications when they release new music), and an even larger list of albums
saved to my library so that I can easily browse through music that I like. It
seems like it would be a bit of a pain to switch to another provider, but I
imagine it would still only take me an hour or two to setup all my follows and
saves in another app.

I'm eager to try out Apple Music once it comes to Android.

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rplnt
I use Spotify Free, i.e. with ads and what I find interesting that most (paid)
ads are from Universal Music. So they pay for ads so you listen to their
content (targets are playlist with crap pop music). Weird.

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jackgavigan
When Spotify's contract with Sony Music leaked, it emerged that, as well as
granting Sony a credit for advertising inventory (i.e. free ad impressions),
Spotify must "offer a portion of its available unsold ad inventory to Sony
Music for free to allow the label to promote its own artists."[1]

It's not unreasonable to assume that other labels (like Universal) have a
similar deal, so those adverts you're seeing may well be unsold ad inventory
that has been given to Universal to promote their own artists.

So, I'd question your assumption that Universal is paying for those ads.

1: [http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/19/8621581/sony-music-
spotify...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/19/8621581/sony-music-spotify-
contract)

~~~
rplnt
I see, that makes more sense, haven't heard about it before.

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rrss1122
You'll never see Google Play Music or Apple Music trying to raise money like
this.

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arthurcolle
Yay Spotify!

