Rdio Will Launch $3.99 Streaming Tier as Apple's Streaming Service Approaches

[shorn]

I'm a long time user of Rdio. It's been great. Diverted to Spotify to test it but ended going back to Rdio.
That being said, if Apples music streaming services offers the ability to have some sort of unity between your purchased library and the streaming service I'll be switching.
I

 

[lolkthxbai]

You can do the same exact thing with Spotify. You can download any number of songs you want. All you have to do is connect once every 30 days to keep you validated.

I'm extremely surprised to see that people still don't know this with all the different streaming discussions going on all the time

I actually hate the way Spotify makes you download music for offline listening, at least Beats Music let me pick individual songs. I also felt that Beats Music had better citation than Spotify. I have no interest in Rdio or Pandora One.

 

[Jimmy James]

I hardly ever listen to music at home.
I do listen in the car during my commute. In order to regularly use streaming I would also need to upgrade my data plan, which is obviously an additional expense.
I can't be the only one who feels that streaming is a poor option.

 

[MacrumoursUser]

I usually listen to the Jazz, Alternative and Latin Top 50. Rarely listen to the Pop, Country, Rock, etc. lists. My days of bubble gum pop hits are way past me.

Thumbs up for the Jazz.

 

[MacrumoursUser]

I hardly ever listen to music at home.
I do listen in the car during my commute. In order to regularly use streaming I would also need to upgrade my data plan, which is obviously an additional expense.
I can't be the only one who feels that streaming is a poor option.

Same here.

 

[furi0usbee]

And call it.... wait for it..... Rdio Shack

 

[darwen]

I would gladly pay $9.99/month for Spotify if they had the following guarantees in their contract:
- The price will never go up more than the rate of inflation

Why not just join, and cancel if the price goes up?

- Any song that is added to their service will never be removed

That's not how licensing works. That's never going to change. Services will always rotate the catalog so that they can continue to offer new releases without increasing the price.

- Users will always be able to export their playlists, play counts, history, and all other usage and meta data in an open format.

You mean, you expect them to program software into their system that supports/maps into all of their competitor's feature sets? Who would ever do that? Where is the financial benefit in that? They'd never have enough engineering resources to keep up with the competition. You'd end up with a pretty crappy product, that users would leave for services that don't offer this feature.

Why not just ask for a fairly priced service, with a catalog you enjoy, that innovates useful features? It sounds far less pretentious, and actually exists.

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The only thing I like about this service is the fact that there are no limits on skips. But other than that, it sounds lame. Not getting it.

The only thing you like is unlimited skips? I think Spotify already offered that. I assume you meant that you like unlimited skips on radio stations for $4/mo... which is pretty much the entire product. If you don't like the 25 song library, don't use it. That's still a great deal on a useful product.

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I hardly ever listen to music at home.
I do listen in the car during my commute. In order to regularly use streaming I would also need to upgrade my data plan, which is obviously an additional expense.
I can't be the only one who feels that streaming is a poor option.

If you are in the US, there is a solution for that: http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/free-music-streaming.html

 

[oneMadRssn]

Why not just join, and cancel if the price goes up?

Because I don't want to put in the effort to make my playlists and get it's engine to learn my preferences, only to cancel later. Unlike movies and tv, music is very personal. I don't want invest time in something I am not confident will stay as it is today for the foreseeable future.

That's not how licensing works. That's never going to change. Services will always rotate the catalog so that they can continue to offer new releases without increasing the price.

Licensing works however the licensors and licensees want it to work. It's a contract and they can structure it however they want. What I think you meant to say is, that's not how the music labels want licensing to work. To that I say, then I won't license. Like I said above, music is more personal than other content. If someone is a fan of a band, they will likely remain a fan of that band forever, and will want to come back and listen to an album of that band at any given time. Thus, a rotating roster of music doesn't work, not like a rotating roster of movies works for Netflix.

You mean, you expect them to program software into their system that supports/maps into all of their competitor's feature sets? Who would ever do that? Where is the financial benefit in that? They'd never have enough engineering resources to keep up with the competition. You'd end up with a pretty crappy product, that users would leave for services that don't offer this feature.

No, I don't mean I want them to map their competitors features to their own. Other competitors can do that if they want to be able to import spotify metadata, from spotify deserters. I want to just know that if spotify does something I don't like, then I can leave without losing all the metadata surrounding my music.

Why not just ask for a fairly priced service, with a catalog you enjoy, that innovates useful features? It sounds far less pretentious, and actually exists.

I don't think that exists. Especially the innovates useful features part, definitely does not exist. Also, are you saying their music sounds less pretentious?

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I can't be the only one who feels that streaming is a poor option.

It's a neat idea on a technical level. On demand radio... cool. The way it has been implemented is clearly favorable to the music labels, but worse for consumers and worse for artists.

So yes, it's a poor option.

 

[viachicago22]

Longtime Rdio user and they seem to be in a bit of an Apple pattern where they're constantly adding features and polishing the look but there's just tons of bugs. It's been really bad lately. The app itself blows Spotify away. But the amount of bugs are a total drag.

 

[rocknblogger]

I actually hate the way Spotify makes you download music for offline listening, at least Beats Music let me pick individual songs. I also felt that Beats Music had better citation than Spotify. I have no interest in Rdio or Pandora One.

I don't understand. You create a playlist, add individual songs, make playlist available off-line. What is it about that process that makes you hate it?

 

[Mackinjosh]

I hardly ever listen to music at home.
I do listen in the car during my commute. In order to regularly use streaming I would also need to upgrade my data plan, which is obviously an additional expense.
I can't be the only one who feels that streaming is a poor option.

I stream when on Wifi, and if I'm going off Wifi I download whatever it is I want to listen to on my phone. That's via Spotify. Not sure if RDIO offers that option.

 

[Jimmy James]

I stream when on Wifi, and if I'm going off Wifi I download whatever it is I want to listen to on my phone. That's via Spotify. Not sure if RDIO offers that option.

That sounds like a good option.

 

[vixster1901]

I actually hate the way Spotify makes you download music for offline listening, at least Beats Music let me pick individual songs. I also felt that Beats Music had better citation than Spotify. I have no interest in Rdio or Pandora One.

I too do NOT like the way to download from spotify... infact, I have not figured out an easy way to download an album from the phone. I believe it must be down from a cpu.. I actually think it's an awful app. MOG had a great great app.

 

[nsfw]

I curate my own music and I pay for it. streaming means listening to someone elses playlist, which is fine on occasion to hear something new.

It doesn't seem like you've ever actually tried the paid version of spotify? The paid version of Spotify is like have a collection of a million records at home and going to any one of them and going to whatever track you want and then putting it back on the shelf. It has nothing to do with curated lists.
I find it amazing that people aren't willing to spend $10 a month on music. Just ten years ago, way way back in 2005 I'd spend $100 a month at the record store. What did that get me? Only about 2 new records and maybe 2 used and one collectable.
People have no problem spending $150 a month on a 100 channels of crap on TV and a couple good shows and then complain that they can't find anything they like on Spotify for $10.
Must be a whole new generation of kids who just couldn't care less about music. It was such a big part of my life and going to see shows every other weekend that it kinda makes me sad for the future of music.

 

[macpanzer]

Well, the problem with Spotify (and pretty much any other online service) are the regional limits. Spotify may advertise they have 30m songs available, but that's not everywhere. I was a subscriber for a while, but got annoyed by the "not availabale in your blah-blah-blah..". I don't subscribe anymore, nor do I use their free service.

If I find a song or album I'm interested in, I buy it and I download it. If for some reason the license owner has decided not to make it available to purchase based on where I live, there are other ways to download it. Sorry, it's not that I refuse to pay, they just don't give me that option. And I can listen to those songs whenever I want, be it today or 10 years from now.

And to those claiming you don't even notice spending $10 in a month for Spotify, in a year you'll pay $120. Lay that 120 bucks out on the table in front of you and I will bet you will have better ideas how to spend it - because after the 12 months are over and you have paid $120 to Spotify, you'll end up with nothing.

 

[2457282]

It doesn't seem like you've ever actually tried the paid version of spotify? The paid version of Spotify is like have a collection of a million records at home and going to any one of them and going to whatever track you want and then putting it back on the shelf. It has nothing to do with curated lists.
I find it amazing that people aren't willing to spend $10 a month on music. Just ten years ago, way way back in 2005 I'd spend $100 a month at the record store. What did that get me? Only about 2 new records and maybe 2 used and one collectable.
People have no problem spending $150 a month on a 100 channels of crap on TV and a couple good shows and then complain that they can't find anything they like on Spotify for $10.
Must be a whole new generation of kids who just couldn't care less about music. It was such a big part of my life and going to see shows every other weekend that it kinda makes me sad for the future of music.

When vinyl was in, I had a collection of 10,000. I have 20,000 songs representing about 3,000 albums now in the digital format. I spend more than $10/month on purchasing my music. You seem not to grasp that what was true with vinyl is still true today (not as strong, but still there). Namely, I want to own my stuff. I do appreciate you call me a kid, though, as I haven't been called that in a couple of decades (at least).

 

[Mike MA]

I would gladly pay $9.99/month for Spotify if they had the following guarantees in their contract:
- The price will never go up more than the rate of inflation

Do you get this anywhere? Well, not over here, that's for sure.

I guess from a business perspective no manager would offer something accordingly, at least he own a crystal ball

 

[lolkthxbai]

I don't understand. You create a playlist, add individual songs, make playlist available off-line. What is it about that process that makes you hate it?

The fact I have to have them in a playlist to make them available offline. On Beats Music, while I browse for music I can make any song available offline on-demand without having to add it to a playlist first. The playlist requirement is annoying and adds an extra step.

Have you ever used Beats Music and made a song available offline? I also prefer their curation. It's incredibly deep. It was kind of like it understood what I liked before I knew it. I can't say the same about spotify. Spotify hasn't been very helpful in discovering music I really like. I have to do most of the work looking for the artist among similar artists whereas Beats will suggest I listen to a specific artist and song and with good reason. I honestly didn't give a crap about Beats Music but after trying it out I'm sold. I'm glad Apple bought them because the only complaint I had was that their interface sucked.

 

[rocknblogger]

The fact I have to have them in a playlist to make them available offline. On Beats Music, while I browse for music I can make any song available offline on-demand without having to add it to a playlist first. The playlist requirement is annoying and adds an extra step.

Have you ever used Beats Music and made a song available offline? I also prefer their curation. It's incredibly deep. It was kind of like it understood what I liked before I knew it. I can't say the same about spotify. Spotify hasn't been very helpful in discovering music I really like. I have to do most of the work looking for the artist among similar artists whereas Beats will suggest I listen to a specific artist and song and with good reason. I honestly didn't give a crap about Beats Music but after trying it out I'm sold. I'm glad Apple bought them because the only complaint I had was that their interface sucked.

Yes I had a subscription for a good six or seven months. I had no problems with it and I liked it quite a bit. I had both subscriptions going at the same time so I could compare both services. In the end I liked them both about the same. I can't even really say why I chose Spotify for now. To me they're both easy to use and seem to have the same music for the most part.

 

[Michael Scrip]

because after the 12 months are over and you have paid $120 to Spotify, you'll end up with nothing.

But you had an entire YEAR of listening to tens of millions of songs. Isn't that something?

Or... you can spend $120 and purchase around 100 songs and listen to those same 100 songs forever.

It's two different ways of consuming music.

Neither is right or wrong... just different.

What are your thoughts about another service like Netflix? You don't get to keep those movies and TV shows either. Wouldn't that fall into your "keeping nothing" category too?

When I go see a movie in a theater... I don't get to walk out with the reels...

 

[eyeseeyou]

Honestly don't see any reason to pass up $3.99 a month to stream any song and get unlimited skips and no commercials. Music app devs just need to integrate rdio's services like djay etc.