
Spotify Form F-1 - coloneltcb
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518063434/d494294df1.htm
======
dopeboy
Spotify is the reason why I don't pirate music anymore. I say this as someone
who used to be involved in the scene (low level FXP couriering in the late 90s
and early 00s) and has gigs of release from the RNS, EGO, etc days. It's much
faster and convenient to use Spotify.

I also think they cracked music discovery. Their discovery weekly playlist is
stellar.

My only wish is they'd get off Electron (EDIT Chromium - thanks jjgod) and go
native. A music player is a frequently enough used piece of software to
optimize for performance.

~~~
mancerayder
_also think they cracked music discovery. Their discovery weekly playlist is
stellar._

Love Spotify, disagree strongly with this. My experience is terrible music
that doesn't seem to have anything to do with any of the hundreds of songs I
have on my playlist. I get this curious Millennial mix of soft rock music with
long, boring instrumental guitar strumming, a disco beat and a sleepy,
sarcastic-voiced gal (sometimes guy).

It might be because I live in Brooklyn.

And there's no Like or Dislike button like (beloved) Pandora.

edit: Don't think anyone compromised my account.

~~~
nitemice
I'm so happy to hear it's not just me.

When I first started listening to Spotify (about a year and a half ago), I
found the dicovery really high-quality, but it just seems to have gotten worse
and worse. Discover Weekly is particularly bad. I find that the first 5 or so
songs are okay, but from there is rapidly decends into madness.

I have the weird habit (though I'm weening off) of keeping all the music I
listen to out of curiosity on a big playlist together, whether I liked it or
not, as a way of keeping track. I thought that might be throwing Spotify's
algorithm off (and it probably still is), but it seems it's definitely not the
only reason.

I've decided to just trust that Last.fm is doing it's juob and not add any
more to that playlist.

~~~
Coincoin
Discover Weekly looks at the music you listened to recently. If you listen to
5 random songs this week because you were very busy, it's going to offer you
the same thing next Monday. Then if the only things you listen to next week is
the bad offering from Discover, it's going to propose you the same crap the
week after.

~~~
mancerayder
I assure you the music I listen to is far removed from the Discover Weekly
offerings, which I described graphically above.

------
jonknee
By far the most interesting part of this is that they are doing a direct
listing. There is no IPO underwriter (the bankers that the HN audience loves
to bash). The shares will just start trading, pricing should be fun to watch.

Update: This nugget from the F-1 [1] alludes to the interesting to watch
pricing

> Moreover, prior to the opening trade, there will not be a price at which
> underwriters initially sold ordinary shares to the public as there would be
> in an underwritten initial public offering. This lack of an initial public
> offering price could impact the range of buy and sell orders collected by
> the NYSE from various broker-dealers. Consequently, the public price of our
> ordinary shares may be more volatile than in an underwritten initial public
> offering and could, upon listing on the NYSE, decline significantly and
> rapidly.

[1]
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518063434/d494294df1.htm#rom494294_24)

~~~
tw1010
If you'd have to bet, do you think it's going to go significantly up or down
within the first few days?

~~~
indescions_2018
At the risk of turning into r/wallstreetbets here. My bias is to the downside.
Driven by a cacophany of pundits on CNBC post-IPO with negative outlooks.
"There is absolutely no money to be made in streaming music on the internet"
and "apple isn't into music for the profits" and so on ad infinitum. As well
as significant short interest in the options market.

$SNAP is probably as nearest neighbor as any for price-action historical
context.

Market timing (H1 2019) may also be ill-favored generally for anything tech
related if we see significant correction.

But I certainly hope I'm wrong. And will be looking to add positions in
Spotify, Dropbox, Uber, Lyft, Docker, Snowflake, AirBnB, SpaceX, WeWork,
Stripe etc if and when they become available ;)

~~~
all_usernames
Docker?

------
saym
They've gone from 28 million to 71 million premium subscribers in 3 years with
a declining, single digit, churn rate. I'm impressed.

I'm a happy Spotify customer, I hope they continue their growth and become a
pillar of the music industry.

~~~
pyronite
I was a Spotify lifer until I butted up against their 10,000 song limit. [1]

Now, I'm using Google Play Music. There's no doubt in my mind that everything
else outside of this limit is better on Spotify.

Please, Spotify, fix this! Let me help inflate your valuation!

1\. [https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Library-Song-
Limit...](https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/Library-Song-
Limit/td-p/1664935)

~~~
tomhschmidt
+1. Ability to upload music on Google Play Music is also keeping me from
switching to Spotify. I have a lot of tracks that simply aren't in the Spotify
catalog. If they add that, I'd switch tomorrow.

~~~
cheeze
I'm blown away that the solution for this has been the shitty "local playlist
sync" solution for _years_ at this point.

I guess I'm in a niche? For me, there are tons of hiphop mixtapes that will
never be on Spotify that I definitely need in my music player of choice.

Hell, Spotify won't even let me import local MP3 files from my phone!

~~~
fossuser
I just stopped listening to music that doesn't exist in Spotify.

I fought it for a while with local playlist syncing and such, but just wasn't
worth it over time. There's enough other music out there that I gave up
trying.

~~~
halflings
You should give YouTube Music a try. It has both the "regular" catalog you'd
expect from Spotify (high quality audio, organised by albums, etc.) + more
indy bands that publish their music on YouTube.

------
strong_silent_t
A few early thoughts:

I think about half of their 2017 net loss was due to something to do with
Convertible Notes, that they're explaining on pages F-43 and F-44.

I'm trying to calculate patio11's "fundamental equation of SAAS" (
[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/965985835790184448](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/965985835790184448)
) for the numbers for churn, subscribers, and ARPU on pages 67 to 70ish. Will
update if I actually figure it out.

Ok, here is my attempt for their premium service:

pp68, 2017 ARPU = 5.32 EUR/mo.

pp69, 2017 Churn = 5.5%/mo.

pp79, 2017 Customer Acquisition, 48 Million at end of 2016, 71 Million at end
of 2017. (71 - 48) / 48 * 100% = 48%. To convert to monthly, if I just divide
by 12 it is 4%/month. If I do (1.48)^(1/12) it is 3.3%. I guess this is net of
churn, So their fresh acquisition I would estimate at 5.5% + 3.3% = 8.8%.

I'll leave the math as an exercise to the reader, partly because I don't know
what is being summed over in the formula.

I'd be curious to know at what number of users do they break-even if their
cost of revenue, sales, and marketing are linear to users and their other non-
financial costs remain fixed.

------
riku_iki
Key numbers:

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, we generated €1,940
million, €2,952 million, and €4,090 million in revenue, respectively,
representing a compound annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of 45%.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, we incurred net losses
of €230 million, €539 million, and €1,235 million, respectively.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, our EBITDA was €(205)
million, €(311) million, and €(324) million, respectively.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, our net cash flow (used
in)/from operating activities was €(38) million, €101 million, and €179
million, respectively.

For the years ended December 31, 2015, 2016, and 2017, our Free Cash Flow was
€(92) million, €73 million, and €109 million, respectively.

~~~
actuator
I think one more interesting number is churn of premium customers. It seems to
be dropping over time and seems very good:
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639920/000119312518063434/g494294g32g10.jpg)

------
steve-benjamins
I really hope Spotify succeeds. I've mentioned this before on Hacker News, but
as an artist, the algorithmic playlists are amazing. On a good week I get
~4,000 new listeners. It's incredible. Discovery Weekly drives the most but
Release Radar and Radio also send a good chunk.

Apple Music on the hand hasn't even verified my artist profile— which I need
in order to view analytics. So I don't even know if people listen to me there.

~~~
extr
I've said it before, but Spotify is the single most valuable subscription
service I pay for. Video streaming is convenient, but some of the music I've
come across on Spotify has literally changed my life and that would never have
happened if I was still forced to torrent everything. It's just so easy, it's
everything they said the steaming model would be.

~~~
twostorytower
Wrote a "persuasive speech" in college a decade ago about how to solve the
problem the music industry was facing (piracy). I proposed an all you can
listen subscription service, at a price point of say $10. Saying the record
labels would work together to make this happen. My professor nearly laughed me
out of the room when I proposed my thesis for the speech. I presented the
speech anyways and got an A.

Today, Spotify is thriving as a company and the major record labels have their
hands in it. Sure, they have some work to do to figure out how to become
profitable and sustainable, but they've come a long way.

~~~
lucb1e
Could you link the paper? Reading a future prediction/expectation with such
accuracy should be interesting.

~~~
twostorytower
Hey sorry I just saw this reply. Unfortunately, I can't find the paper, as it
was written in word and pre-dates my days of using Dropbox (edit: it pre-dates
Dropbox period). However, I was able to find the email thread with my
professor, since Gmail is forever. I had to redact some personal information.

[https://imgur.com/UeSzTal](https://imgur.com/UeSzTal)

------
malshe
A key metric not mentioned in the comments is premium average revenue per user
(ARPU). It's consistently decreasing over the last 3 years:

2015: € 6.84

2016: € 6.20 (9% decline)

2017: € 5.32 (14% decline)

Also, the number of hours consumed per MAU as of December of each year is also
increasing. I should have taken the average over the year for both but I am
interested in the trend.

2015: 191 hours per year (17.4 billion/91 million)

2016: 217 hours per year (26.7 billion/123 million)

2017: 253 hours per year (40.3 billion/159 million)

~~~
spyspy
This probably just means that more people are using family plans instead of
paying individually. I'm part of a family plan, as are pretty my everyone else
I know. It only makes sense. The upside is that canceling a family plan is
much harder than a single one just due to the increased number of people
involved who'll be inconvenienced.

~~~
oxymoron
It may also mean that they’ve expanded the user base in countries that have
lower purchasing power than western europe, and thus probably lower pricing.
That’s surely a good thing?

~~~
gafasRotas
Can confirm. Countries in Latin America are getting plans for the equivalent
of $1.5

~~~
propogandist
how easy would it be to VPN to a LA country, signup for the plan and then just
have service for $1.5?

~~~
skoocda
Probably not very hard. The biggest headache is probably that the recurring
credit card purchases might be flagged and blocked for being an unrecognized
international transaction. But then again, $1.50 won't raise alarms for many
banks.

~~~
rplnt
Don't they know the country where the card was issued? I.e. Spotify could
refuse payment using non-LA card? Or, ideally, just bump it to the higher
bracket (with appropriate notice).

------
wonder_bread
A brilliant CEO in Elk and an unfortunate industry. It will be interesting to
see how they face marginalization. The risk factors of Apple being able to
retain 100% of their revenue while Spotify being forced to give away 30% back
to Apple is kind of sad. It really does feel like there's continuously
diminishing opportunities for companies to get in front of consumers without
facing some sort of platform tax.

~~~
dmlittle
Where do you see this 30% fee that Spotify has to pay to Apple? The app itself
is free.

~~~
teemwerk
spotify premium is $10. it used to be if you subscribed to spotify premium
through the app store it cost $13 because Apple literally wants 30% of any
money that changes hands through the app store. otherwise you give spotify $10
directly and go on your way.

------
wufufufu
Am I reading this right?

> No public market for our ordinary shares currently exists. However, our
> ordinary shares have a history of trading in private transactions. Based on
> information available to us, the low and high sales price per ordinary share
> for such private transactions during the year ended December 31, 2017 was
> $37.50 and $125.00, respectively, and during the period from January 1, 2018
> through February 22, 2018 was $90.00 and $132.50, respectively, in each case
> excluding the Tencent Transactions (as defined herein).

> As of February 22, 2018, we had 176,976,280 ordinary shares outstanding.
> Except as otherwise indicated, the number of ordinary shares outstanding
> excludes (i) 14,095,254 ordinary shares issuable upon exercise of stock
> options outstanding as of February 22, 2018 at a weighted-average exercise
> price of $49.02 per ordinary share, (ii) 191,985 ordinary shares issuable
> upon the settlement of restricted stock units (“RSUs”) outstanding as of
> February 22, 2018, and (iii) 6,720,000 ordinary shares issuable upon the
> exercise of warrants outstanding as of February 22, 2018, at a weighted
> average exercise price of $59.92 per ordinary share.

So their private valuation is somewhere between $15B and $23B?

------
hxn
I am a huge huge music fan and meanwhile I tried most music services. I had
Spotify for a while too.

But nowadays I prefer to use smaller sites like
[http://www.bandcamp.com](http://www.bandcamp.com) and the sites of small
labels.

For discovery I use [http://www.gnoosic.com](http://www.gnoosic.com) an AI
recommender created by a fellow HN member.

For me, music consumption feels more adventurous this way.

~~~
thirdsun
Another avid Bandcamp user reporting in. Streaming isn't an option at all -
there's just too much music missing, or it might be missing someday. However I
maintain a very large collection of music with lots of obscure and rare music,
which is very different from most listeners, which are, frankly, very well
served by Spotify - for a very cheap price. Too cheap. Nobody is earning any
money from streaming.

I couldn't imagine renting my music and I don't think it's a working business
model for anyone but Apple, Google & Co., who can handle a loss.

------
criddell
I wonder if Spotify will become a music label for the same reasons that
Netflix has been making their own shows? Spotify could be severely damaged if
only a few labels were to pull their content.

~~~
underwater
Spotify would be severely damaged if _any_ major label pulled their content.
That’s very different from Netflix.

~~~
lucb1e
Well, not exactly. I don't have Netflix exactly because of that: not all major
producers are on Netflix. That's the same as a major producer pulling
something from Spotify.

There's no point if I'm still going to have to pirate half the stuff I watch
or listen to, or pay twice for a subscription. (If you can subscribe in the
first place, that is; last I heard one couldn't even watch game of thrones
legally in the Netherlands if I wanted to.)

Well, and it also doesn't help that I've heard you need to unroot your android
device (I will not be an unprivileged user on my own hardware) and enable DRM
in firefox to watch Netflix. But the main reason is that every time I check,
they don't have at around a third of what I would want to watch.

------
yeukhon
Spotify is absolutely affordable especially there's a family plan and a
student plan. I also stop pirating music (well I do work for a music company
but that's not even a factor at all) because of Spotify.

------
alehul
I remember reading how Spotify charges ~equal to Netflix, and their expenses
will likely be much lower due to not needing to fund 'originals' and all.

While Netflix's originals also offer a distinct advantage over their
competitors and increases the cost of switching, Spotify will likely have a
very profitable future as a company, and I'm curious to see if their market
cap will ever approach that of Netflix.

~~~
gautamnarula
I was thinking that Spotify would actually need to go in the Netflix direction
and have the music equivalent of "originals" (that is, signing artists and
having their own label) because otherwise record companies would try to spin
off their own services and take their content with them (which has happened in
video streaming), or the moment Spotify gets too profitable they'll see an
opportunity to increase content prices since they know Spotify can afford it.

~~~
s_ngularity
The difference here is that presumably fewer record companies have the money
to fund the development of their own streaming service. The movie industry has
much bigger players in the game.

Additionally I don't think anybody's cracked the code on how to make reliably
well-received music yet. You can't distract the audience with good visuals and
special effects if the plot is no good like in a movie.

~~~
nopriorarrests
>The difference here is that presumably fewer record companies have the money
to fund the development of their own streaming service.

They don't need it. With Apple Music, Google Play and Spotify majors can
afford to destroy Spotify with royalties as they please, and users will just
migrate to other platforms and continue to pay.

It's kinda funny once you think about it. Back in early 00's, when Napster
appeared, everybody was "dude, record labels are dead, new business models,
bla-bla-bla".

And now we are 18 years later, and majors are quite fine. And they did
literally nothing for 18 years. No investments, no development, nothing. They
just milked different internet services with their royalties.

~~~
thirdsun
> 18 years later, and majors are quite fine. And they did literally nothing
> for 18 years. No investments, no development, nothing.

Well, except enabling you to buy your music from anywhere, DRM-free, playable
with the software of your choice.

Is it really their fault that an all you can eat service for 10 bucks doesn't
actually feed anyone, including the artists and the platform itself? It's
simply too cheap.

------
zrail
I really would like them to rebuild their Roku app. We recently got a TV with
a Roku built in and it's been fantastic, except the Spotify app appears to be
a beta from 2014 that never got finished.

We pay for Spotify but we use Pandora on the TV because of the app quality.

------
k4ch0w
I only left Spotify for Youtube Red/Google Music. It was not an easy decision
because they have the best music selection and discover imo. They should
acquire pandora and then I think they could dominate this space.

~~~
nindalf
Its interesting that you praise Spotify's selection. I love Spotify, have been
a Premium subscriber for 4 years, but there are hundreds of songs that I'd
like to listen to but have never been available on Spotify. Meanwhile, they're
available on Apple Music.

Also, some of the songs that I've saved over the past few years have been
removed from Spotify's library - just yesterday I noticed that The Safety
Dance is greyed out in my client. (Others include I Walk the Line, Save
Tonight and Ambarsariya)

That said, I'm a Spotify lifer. I can't see myself leaving and as for the
selection, I live in eternal hope that they'll improve it with time.

~~~
Orphis
Don't blame the service for missing tracks but the artist's label for not
putting them there.

I once complained to Sufjan Stevens' label about his albums missing in
Spotify. They basically told me the deal with their distributor in Europe
expired and they didn't look for a new one yet. "woops". It took them many
months to get the tracks back.

------
1_800_UNICORN
I want Spotify to do well, but the reason I'm cautious is the lack of true
differentiation. Spotify has a great platform, but I'd worry about the level
of control that the labels and artists have over their catalog, and the fact
that they make a lot of money as a middleman between consumers and artists...
I just feel like I could see another company coming and eating their lunch
relatively easily. They're not like Netflix, who has differentiated themselves
with exclusive content.

But I REALLY hope they succeed, because I've been a customer since they first
announced US support.

~~~
smogcutter
Their competitive advantage is discovery and algorithmic playlists. For my
part at least, what got me onto spotify was the large library but what keeps
me using it is the discover weekly playlist.

------
baby
I’ve tried Spotify but I cannot upload my own library (lots of mashup, asian
music, remix, etc... that Spotify doesn’t have), use it and retrieve it later
if needed. I’ve been looking for a service to do that and I couldn’t really
find anything except iTunes match. But iTunes match is not really the same as
spotify. So I did this spreadsheet
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0WgQ7asZFK2WBoIlg8OcBKg8)

~~~
kepano
You can do this in Spotify, it's actually one of the main reasons I use it.
You need to add your local directory to the list of music sources. The trick
to getting that music to sync to other devices is that you need to create a
playlist and download it while both devices are on the same local network.
Your personal library is never uploaded to the cloud.

~~~
baby
The last time I tried it was really an ordeal to make it work. I should have
taken better note as to why it wasn't a good solution.

------
holmberd
I've used Spotify for many years now, especially since growing up in Sweden
where its been around for awhile, I currently live in North America.

There is a few things that bothers me though. One is that zero effort is spent
on solving developer issues in regards to their public API. Some issues has
been open far too long on github and the community is unhappy. The other is
that they bought up EchoNest, which provided everything Spotify was lacking in
terms of a music API, only to close the service and implement none of those
features into their public API.

That's it.

------
MediumD
There has been a lot of discussion over the fact they are direct listing,
instead of a traditional IPO, and how that will affect the price. However,
does anyone know their motivation for doing a direct listing in the first
place? They're still paying invest bankers and being 'engaged' with Morgan
Stanley. So what's their reasoning, besides shits & giggles?

------
spondyl
I really like Spotify but I feel I'm soon going to rebuild an MP3 library. A
mix of songs being removed (licensing), the apps being sluggish due to library
size and local playlist features being rubbish for years. I've got enough
"niche" read: game osts and that to make it worth while.

For anyone considering the same, beets (python) is your best friend

~~~
KozmoNau7
I prefer using Quod Libet. It does take a bit of customizing, but the benefit
is that you can customize _everything_. It also doesn't try to do anything
fancy with tags, letting you determine the entire structure you want to use,
including custom tags.

It's the only credible alternative to Foobar2000 on Linux.

------
brynjolf
When Spotify launched in USA they increased the prices on their existing
markets and lowered the prices for USA below their original. This left me with
a sour taste. Now they complain about Stockholms infrastructure while also tax
dodging. I know Americans are used to this incredible unhealthy relationship
but to me it is rotten to the core.

------
braderhart
I cancelled my Spotify premium membership after being a customer for over 2
years, because they refuse to actually develop their application. Their music
discovery and playlist radio functionality are horrific right now. They are on
repeat essentially, with no way to unlike music that you have liked or
accidentally liked.

~~~
majortennis
i can add or remove songs from my library, which seems to have an effect on my
discover weekly. I'm in a 3 month trial period for the 2nd time. its worth it
at this rate

------
john58
Will Spotify face the music for its unconventional public listing?
[https://news.alphastreet.com/will-spotify-face-the-music-
for...](https://news.alphastreet.com/will-spotify-face-the-music-for-its-
unconventional-public-listing/)

------
swlkr
This Spotify IPO is similar to the Dropbox IPO, when they first started it was
a blue ocean situation, almost no competitors, and now there are large tech
companies competing, not sure what Spotify or Dropbox's advantages are against
these large companies...

------
dirkk0
[https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/02/12/the-
bandcamp-2017-year...](https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/02/12/the-
bandcamp-2017-year-in-review/)

------
JumpCrisscross
Huh, their operations have been turning out cash since 2016 ( _page 11_ ).
Curious what they got for their €400 million of 2017 R&D spend ( _page 10_ ).

~~~
actuator
They might have bundled the compensation of their engineering team in that.

~~~
ethiclub
Agree probably mostly related to labour.

But further, could IP and acquisitions be split out and components attributed
to this?

They file plenty of patents, and acquisition of entities such as Soundtrap
could possibly have elements allocated to R&D. Is this standard/recommended
practice?

------
juddlyon
Spotify adds value to my life, I hope they are a wild success.

Also, RIP Rdio.

------
CodeSheikh
Pandora started "the algorithmic playlists" but sadly their management team
could not capitalize on it.

~~~
telmnstr
Eh, still the #1 streaming service in the USA. Record labels + licensing held
them back a good bit and has kept them limited to the USA.

Spotify has some huge lawsuits underway for not clearing proper rights for
music as well, I believe one is for 1.8 billion. They do have huge investment
(ownership chunk) from at least one major label though I believe?

I don't get all the hoopla about Spotify's bad discovery stations. I notice
this similar reality distortion field on reddit, feels like marketing.

And I will be keeping my hard drives full of media and cds.

------
dirtylowprofile
I quit Spotify just recently and transferred to Apple Music. Main reason is
because of their new policy on Family plan. I paid for a Family plan since its
inception. Recently they updated their policy where every member of the Family
plan must have the same address. My brother is working in another town and
that doesn't mean we're no longer fam. That is one stupid policy.

~~~
gokhan
Did you try contacting them? A divorced friend's daughter only lives with him
at weekends, got cancelled from the family plan. He wrote them and got her
added back.

I work away from home in another city weekdays and still in the family plan.
If your brother never visits, I understand their rationale though.

------
3327
Spotify stock is going to get crushed. you think the powerful investments
banks of wall street will let someone go around them and not make an example
of the stock? If everyone did this and gets encouragement from Spotify - its
serious bucks that wall street looses. It may work in the future, but Bold
Spotify and its shareholders will pay the price...

------
par
I just recently signed up for spotify and honestly I love it. Only wish I
signed up sooner.

------
tomc1985
I will never forgive the computing world for abandoning files in favor of
streaming.

We've gone from digital citizenship to digital serfdom...

~~~
KozmoNau7
No, we've simply gone from primarily direct purchase to primarily a
subscription model, which is common in a lot of other markets.

And nobody has actually abandoned local files, you can buy and download more
music than ever before, and own it forever (if you have backups).

~~~
tomc1985
You have to go to boutique retailers to get files that are anywhere near the
quality of commercially-available CDs. And while subscription models may be
common that doesn't make them pro-consumer, the right thing to do, or even a
good idea.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Bandcamp is pretty big nowadays, but it could still be considered a boutique
retailer when it comes to pop music. It depends a lot on the genres you
prefer. No matter what audiophiles claim, 320kbps MP3/AAC/Ogg/etc. files _are_
equivalent audible quality to CDs, and that's what most online music stores
sell.

Subscriptions have existed for hundreds of years, for anything from newspapers
to soap. Priced correctly, subscriptions are perfectly fine. You pay a
recurring fee for a service, and in return you don't have to worry about
logistics or storage.

A subscription model could even work perfectly fine for cars (and does, in
many cities), as long as it's correctly managed and fairly priced. Pay a set
monthly fee, and you get access to a range of cars, parked in a central
location near where you live. You don't have to worry about maintenance or
depreciation, the car sharing company handles all of that. In return, the
monthly rate is lower than what most people would pay to actually own and
maintain a car of their own. It works because the costs are shared across a
lot more people.

I know a lot of people prefer to own stuff, and I get it in a lot of cases,
especially when you know you'll need the item in question for a long time,
need to modify or otherwise do something that's outside of a normal use case.
On the other hand, I think this race towards owning as much stuff as possible
is driving western society to destruction.

~~~
tomc1985
> I think this race towards owning as much stuff as possible is driving
> western society to destruction.

I agree except it is only through ownership that you are free of others' (e.g.
your rentors') control. When that control is used almost universally to expand
the financial relationship between rentor and rentee, or to enrich the rentor
at the further expense of the rentee, it is imperative for individuals to
remove themselves from its influence.

Also, if you load 320kbps MP3 and 14.4khz WAV into a spectral analyzer you
will find differences, which will be detectable to anyone with the right
critical listening skills.

~~~
KozmoNau7
There are good and bad subscription services, it has always been like that.

 _> Also, if you load 320kbps MP3 and 14.4khz WAV into a spectral analyzer you
will find differences, which will be detectable to anyone with the right
critical listening skills._

Do you listen with your eyes? A spectrogram can't tell you what your ears will
hear.

The only way to know, is to do a proper double blind ABX test on files you
encode yourself from known original files. You can use Foobar2000 with the ABX
Comparator plugin for this purpose. I think you'll be surprised at just how
low you can take the bitrate even on an ancient format like MP3, before you
can tell a difference.

------
cronjobma
It would be super interesting to see if Dropbox and Spotify do well and set an
example for profitable tech companies to go public. Companies like Twitter &
Snap went public too early IMHO. It’d be a great signal to young entrepreneurs
to chase a business model early on.

~~~
pythonaut_16
I think one difference between Dropbox and Spotify and Twitter and Snap is
that Dropbox and Spotify sell a desirable, useful product to end users.

In other words, there's a clear function being offered and a clear path to
giving them money in exchange for that function.

While both Twitter and Snap are functional, their only real offering is a
slight twist on you general social network, and their only way to make money
is by advertising to their vast consumer base.

As an investor I'd be far more interested in the revenue streams provided by
Dropbox and Spotify.

~~~
nopriorarrests
I would disagree. I think Spotify is in much vulnerable position.

Twitter is selling user generated content, which costs nothing and not going
anywhere. Twitter is as popular as ever. Trump, et al.

Spotify is selling something that belongs to major recording labels; Spotify
just license it. Majors can change the licensing rules and torpedo the whole
business in a one year, and there is nothing Spotify can do about it.

Of course they won't do it, it reckless, but I think they will be adjusting
the licensing rules so Spotify will have almost zero profits for the years to
come.

As investor, I would sleep much better as a Twitter shareholder.

------
quickthrower2
This and Dropbox, I'm not excited to invest in either, but I'll keep using
their free-tier services, and I wish them the best.

