

Spotify's U.S. Landing Page - hunterowens
http://www.spotify.com/uk/coming-to-the-us/

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modernerd
Spotify feels like driving around in a stolen car and leaving £10 a month in
the glovebox.

I'm a European Spotify subscriber, and I'd be hard pushed to go back to
purchasing albums again. Access really does trump 'ownership', and it would
take Apple introducing a similar subscription service for me to go back to
iTunes now.

But I wonder how Spotify can scale and actively support musicians. It might
sound strange, but -- even as a paid subscriber -- I feel guilty when I use
Spotify. I can't help feeling that musicians get an even rougher deal when I
listen to their music over Spotify than when I buy tracks from iTunes or
directly from their websites.

There is something unsettling about having instant access to a huge array of
songs and only paying £9.99 a month for the service. It is so different to the
traditional model that it almost feels like stealing. It's a feeling I don't
get listening to the radio; with the radio, you're a passenger hitching a
lift. With Spotify, you're in control. And somehow it feels wrong. Like
joyriding[1], It's hard to shake the feeling that there will be consequences.

I'm sure that won't dent your enjoyment of the service if you're in the US,
but I thought it worth sharing the viewpoint.

[1]: So I'm told.

~~~
ender7
It seems that we're quickly heading toward a point where all music becomes
essentially free [1], and serves only as PR for boosting ticket sales. Keep in
mind that, currently, most musicians can be broken into two groups:

1\. Superstars that make so much money that they won't be missing your Spotify
dollars.

2\. Most other musicians, who don't really make that much off album sales
compared to ticket sales (unless they sell physical CDs at their concerts, in
which case, maybe).

I'm curious if there are any indie musicians out there with a different
opinion, though.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/08/360-music-deals-become-
mand...](http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/08/360-music-deals-become-mandatory-as-
labels-prepare-for-free-music/)

~~~
corin_
My take as a former professional classical musician is to say that your idea
of PR boosting ticket sales is not valid for (at least most) classical music.
That's not to say you're incorrect, just to add a different (hopefully
slightly interesting) perspective from another genre with a very different
audience.

One reason for this is that classical music is focussed much more on the music
than the musician, when compared to "popular music" (what's the best term for
non-classical music that doesn't sound patronising?). Sure, Yo-Yo Ma or the
London Philharmonic can attract people based on who they are, but even then a
lot of decisions to see them or buy their recordings will be based on what
they are playing. If you're a Katy Perry fan, chances are slim that you really
want to see her live, look up a concert, then say "ah, but I'm not a fan of
those songs, I'll give it a miss".

Another reason is probably range of repertoire - again this comes down to
caring more about the music, not having the piece tied directly to the
person/group who always performs it. If you love Francois Couperin's music,
you're going to find it a lot easier to buy recordings than find performances.
I suppose the same is true for indie performers, but I think a classical
listener is more likely to find a wider range of classical music that's hard
to see live than the equivilent situation for indie music.

Probably plenty more reasons too, but not too much off the top of my head. Oh,
and demand I guess. A classical music concert will typically either perform
once, or perform a short run, or perform a few times in different cities (or
countries). That's the case even for the very biggest performers. A big pop
performer, on the other hand, can do a much longer tour, and can sell far more
tickets for each.

As to recordings, I think classical recordings have a longer shelf life -
sure, some people still buy music from the 80s, or whenever, but much less
than around when it was released. Whereas classical music, all the music is so
dated (not in a negative way, just literally) that who cares if it was
recorded a month ago or thirty years ago, if it was originally written
centuries ago. On top of that, I suspect classical music listeners are less
likely to pirate music. Possibly that's a generic snobbish view, but I think
it's accurate.

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molukk
I've been a spotify subscriber for two years now, and it's more less the only
player I use for music on my PC, mobile and ipad.

Together with the related artists feature of Spotify, Spotify social(sharing
playlists etc.) and scrobbling to Last.fm, I've discovered lots of new music I
enjoy. It really is fantastic. The client is also pretty quick and fairly
sparesome on resource usage.

It's a bit annoying when music surreptitiously disappear from their library --
in that case you have to use local files.

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tptacek
I know this is exciting to people who have been envious of UK Spotify, but
we've had Rdio for like a year now, right? Rdio is pretty excellent.

~~~
Locke1689
I think it's going to depend on the selection for me.

Also, I have to say I really hate Rdio's queueing model. They make it really
tough to just navigate the queue and add and remove various songs from
different artists. For example, I find it really annoying when they add an
entire album to my queue when I just pressed the play button on one song.

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djb_hackernews
Whats the difference between Spotify and Rhapsody? I've been a subscriber to
Rhapsody for years and it's been a terrific experience.

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shii
Grooveshark already does everything listed. And it's been available in the USA
for years. The only problem is their iPhone app has been continuously rejected
by Apple so they've been forced to publish for iOS on Cydia's store for
jailbroken apps. That and licensing/litigation issues with some large
recording companies. They have deals with a few and have been through court
with others.

~~~
bobwebb
I have no idea why it doesn't get more attention. Inferior marketing
department, I suppose.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I don't think Grooveshark is a very good product, but I'm not crazy about
Spotify either. Last time I used Spotify (about a year ago) they didn't even
have the ability save albums to a collection or library. You could only create
playlists which turned into terrible UI once you had more than a few. Not
having a web interface is also a major minus in my book.

~~~
ElliotH
The thing with Spotify is the 'adding albums to your collection' model isn't
one they're keen to promote. The idea is really (as far as I can tell - and
I've been a full-price paying user for a long while now) that you have this
HUGE collection of music always available, and if you want to listen to an
album - you search, then there's playlist support as well.

You can ofc save albums as a playlist on their own - and this is quite well
supported, but personally, after the first 10 albums I'd saved there, I have
never found it to be very useful.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Sure, every subscription music service has search. It's essential, but
navigating their entire library and navigating just stuff I like is not the
same. Some times I just want to browse my favorite artists. I can't do this
effectively on Spotify. The user experience here is bad. I don't think I'm the
only person who wants to "favorite" albums.

~~~
gkn
All saved music lists in Spotify has clickable Album, Artist and Track links
so in effect you can easily make "Album" lists. I have done that for ages.

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melvinmt
Spotify has completely replaced iPod on my iOS devices and iTunes on my
MacBook. Coming from Europe, I'm using Spotify in the States for over a month
now so I guess that once you get a (paid) subscription it works everywhere in
the world (it has no streaming restrictions). So all you need to do to try it
out is create an account through a proxy/VPN and you're all set!

~~~
davidpadbury
I've been paying for Spotify in the UK and been using the desktop client
without any tricks in the US since moving here. The big problem is that the
Spotify iPhone app isn't available in the US app store. Is there anyway around
this?

~~~
tobylane
Switch to (and pay in) the UK store, links at the bottom of the itunes store
home page.

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pirko
If you are interested in how Spotify works and how they use Python you should
check out this talk from EuroPython: Spotify and Python: love at first sight
[http://ep2011.europython.eu/conference/talks/spotify-and-
pyt...](http://ep2011.europython.eu/conference/talks/spotify-and-python-love-
first-sight)

------
tsvk
Earlier this year, Spotify put more restrictions on the services they offer to
their non-paying users:
[http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-
cha...](http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-changes-to-
spotify-free-open/) . For example, there is no more unlimited listening: each
track can now be listened to only five times for free.

It might be that this tightening of free content was only a preparation for
the U.S launch, i.e. the record labels would not let Spotify in to the U.S.
market without Spotify changing its services to something more restricted.

~~~
adaml_623
I believe Spotify paid the labels for each and every track played. So their
burn rate was something like £20million per year. They needed to convert free
users to paying users.

Personally I'm incredibly happy with Spotify.

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kingkilr
A few of us at our office have had beta access for a few weeks, everyone with
it (for some reason I got left off the invite list :/) likes it, but the one
person I know who also has an rdio account prefers rdio.

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perfunctory
Spotify is an awesome service. Now we need Netflix to come to Europe.

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hubb
is canada still shunned? or will it launch here with the US launch?

~~~
quinndupont
I'm wondering the same thing... No word in the news about Canada

~~~
AaronMT
This will likely never happen.

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megaman821
A couple of questions to Spotify users:

What advantages does Spotify have over Rdio? Can Spotify be used as a
streaming service and a digital locker for tracks they don't have?

~~~
binarymax
Im not sure since I've never used Rdio. But here is what I love about spotify
(I am a premium subscriber for a laughable fee of £10 per month for all the
ad-free music I want).

\- The collection is enormous, and newly released albums become available
pretty quickly. There are of course artists who are not available but there is
so much out there its insane.

\- The speed. Since its pretty much legalized P2P, I never need to wait for a
song (well maybe sometimes there is latency but its rare).

\- Its mobile, across international borders. I live in the UK and travel a
lot. I can still access the service from anywhere.

And also, yes I can index my local catalogue (but the local tracks are not
available on other machines/devices).

~~~
kenneth_reitz
The most important: Audio quality. If you have a paid Spotify subscription,
you get 320kbps ogg streams (when they're available).

~~~
binarymax
Almost forgot about that - my speakers don't do the service justice :)

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hunterowens
Perhaps their partnership with Facebook will be discussed again at Facebook's
event today.

~~~
hskf
That's my prediction. I have a hard time believing it's a coincidence, but I
could be wrong of course

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joelrunyon
I feel like Spotify has been "coming soon" for the last 3-4 years. Lets go all
ready! :)

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taylorlb
I get the Zuckerberg quote, but Demi Moore endorsing the product can't be
relevant to anyone who might request an invite to a just launching music
service.

~~~
bryanh
You recognized the name, so that counts for something.

