
Is Spotify Going Bankrupt in 2017? - scarhill
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/02/02/spotify-bankrupt-ipo/
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ricardobeat
It really pisses me off that a company to which I pay €120/year, for a service
that costs pennies to operate, is milked to death by the labels and has to
"find a path to profitability". Makes me think of just stop listening to
mainstream music at all and just live off my old MP3 collection.

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scriptkiddy
Pretty much anyone can self publish on Spotify. I listen to a lot of Folk Punk
that is independently produced. I really hope none of these record companies
are trying to take a cut for music they didn't even produce.

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ardaozkal
Bandcamp is a good source of indie songs. The cut is less than spotify too.

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scriptkiddy
I've bought a couple albums off bandcamp. I like how they usually make the
tracks available in lossless format.

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nickthemagicman
Back to torrenting music for me and many others if Spotify goes under. The
record labels dont seem to be able to see the forest for the trees..

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guitarbill
On paper, there's alternatives. In practice, I strongly prefer Spotify's UI,
cross-platform apps (which are dying but still work for now) and social
functions. So for me and many of my friends, it would also be back to mp3s (+
last.fm?) instead of a different streaming service.

This wouldn't be the first time one of the more user friendly streaming
services have been taken down. Happened to Rdio, too.

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nickthemagicman
Yeah there's no streaming services I like better than Spotify.

I would love it if there was some sort of self hosting version that could read
from a torrent folder haha.

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wcarron
Well, back to torrenting for the digital and slowly building a vinyl
collection for the physical, gonna hold out as long as possible, since the
service if fantastic. Nothing in the space , that I've seen, approaches the
quality.

This is unfortunate for all, since if labels think they'll see any of the
money they currently make off Spotify, they're fucking insane. Nobody likes
labels, and all the people I know who are technologically literate enough to
torrent music, DO torrent their music. As another commenter said: Milking
spotify dry is not seeing the forest for the trees.

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jakebasile
I don't really see these types of services staying alive independent of a
larger company. Google and Apple can afford to pay what the labels want and
can justify it through improving brand recognition, getting lock in, or
whatever else they dream up. Spotify has nothing else to prop up, and will get
priced out by the big corporations in the same space.

I'm not really happy about it. Spotify has warts but it also has some things I
really like that the competitors don't have. The social features are great and
I often find links to Spotify playlists around the net, but not for Apple
Music.

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yladiz
As a Spotify premium subscriber, I'd happily pay an extra $5 a month (as in,
$15 total per month) and I feel like many people would be in the same boat
(okay, maybe not $5 but $1-$2 per month). I use Spotify nearly every day and
in the US any music I could ever want (I don't listen to Taylor Swift) is on
there. I've had some issue with less common music, especially from Asia, but
in general this is not the case and I really like the service.

I would guess that some people would initially balk at the idea of raising
subscription prices (the same happened with Netflix I believe), and some
people would move to another service, but I would guess that the majority of
people wouldn't move. On the flip side, Spotify may have some negotiating
power but the labels unfortunately have a ton of power and if they couldn't
negotiate a contract with e.g. Sony and that music wasn't available, that
would cause more people to move. I'm hopeful that Spotify can renegotiate with
labels. Maybe they can pull a Netflix and somehow make their own
content/become their own label.

I'm not worried about these loans and their terms causing too much issue for
Spotify, but I am worried about their lack of profitability. They seem to not
have a war chest full of money to run at a loss forever so eventually someone
will come knocking, and I just hope the person on the other side of the door
isn't asking for enough to cause the house to collapse.

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rosstex
The comments here seem to conflict with the comments on today's other Spotify
article:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13556714)

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phmagic
The one size fits all pricing model that Spotify has doesn't work well with
how record labels want their royalties to be paid out.

Perhaps it's time Spotify became a record label, like Netflix became a content
producer.

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RichardHeart
Music should not live behind a corporate wall. If your overlords are unhappy
with you, or they just decide to turn their servers off, no more music for
you. Want to recover your costs by selling off the music you bought? No. Want
to pass it down to your children? Not allowed. Remember the days when you
could own and share things? Those were nice days.

These walled "gardens" are slowly reducing the human digital experience into a
prison.

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dbbk
That's a bit overly dramatic. The Spotify model is just renting vs buying. You
still have the option of buying, you have ever since the dawn of the iTunes
Store. No one is going to take away songs you have digitally purchased.

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RichardHeart
This is the problem. I do not believe iTunes allows you to sell or hand down
to your offspring your music "licenses." So yes actually, someone is going to
take away the songs you have digitally purchased.

Try playing a game on release date when all the drm servers are overloaded as
well. The people who didn't pay get to play, while the paying folk do not.
Because truly owning a thing means not having to beg to use the thing.

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dbbk
I was under the impression iTunes songs haven't had DRM for a long time.

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RichardHeart
Physical access ≠ Legal ownership

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anotheryou
Why don't the labels just build their own spotify? Because they would have to
work together?

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dbbk
The labels have their own Spotify. It is Spotify. They have equity stakes in
it.

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anotheryou
well than it won't go bancrupt I guess... There is not really a competitor.

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dbbk
How is Apple Music not a competitor?

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anotheryou
ah, not an apple person, didn't have it on my radar...

