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Dont knock amazon Prime if Prime member-

• Its Free - free music!
• Its improving daily
• It works with Echo Dot
• SONOS are offering Echo Dot integration in 2017
• for just over £20 you can upload a quarter of a million songs to their server.

Cheers

(GPM subscriber and amazon Prime user),
Well technically, we are paying for it.
 
I know just can't listen to it with its poor sound quality. If I can get Prime cheaper without Prime Music I would.
 
I very rarely listen to Amazon Prime Music as I have a Google Play Music prepaid till Dec 2019 at £4.25 and with SONOS and 30,000,000 tracks to choose at 320 kbps I'm more than happy.
I certainly woundn't knock amazon Prime music I cant tell the diifference of 320kbps v 256 VBR http://www.head-fi.org/t/344883/question-about-vbr-vs-320kbps and if you have Prime anyway its Free - I've been Prime for 8 years and although less Prime Music wasn't available years ago.
I feel like I own record store chain with GPM its just brilliant - would love to know how many subscribers they have - why are Alphabet so cagey about this?
 
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"While many people are happy about streaming media, I remain cautious about where everything is headed.

To start is bandwidth of the interwebs. Streaming eats a lot of bandwidth that is still a limited resource in most of the world. The more people stream, the more constraints we put on the network. You can argue it forces growth, but it also causes headaches for transition.

This data comes at a premium through most ISPs/Carriers. Data caps make sure that you can only stream as much as they want you to. The more you want to stream the more you have to pay.

Ownership of content is at risk. While anyone born after 1995 is probably comfortable with all their documents, data, music, photos, movies and whatnots "in the cloud" many of us older folk understand why ownership of your content matters. Streaming gives you temporary access to content that is not owned by you. Whenever you don't pay for the streaming service, you immediately lose the music you listen to. It guarantees that customers will always be back for another month because otherwise they have to find some other means to listen. If the industry were to move completely to streaming, nobody would be able to listen to their music without a subscription being paid to a company who has rights to stream.

For a long time, my data cap on my cellular made streaming a non-option. But that cap has significantly increased by itself over time and now I can stream for a time during each billing period without worrying about crazy overage fees. Now that I can though, I don't want to. I buy my music because I believe a purchased album means more to the artist than streaming only their most popular songs. Plus the sound quality of a CD (uncompressed audio file) can't be beat with streaming (yet). Plus there's something to get signed at a concert.

Streaming music is also now introducing "exclusive" music. It used to be anybody could by an "exclsuive" album from Goodies (or Target or Walmart or wherever). Now, "exclusive" means only subscribers of the exclusive provider are allowed to listen. That's a huge difference in who has access to new music.

I know I'm a minority of people who don't like the path streaming music has taken. This is the way the industry is moving and due to all the **** pirates out there, we aren't going back because this keeps the industry alive; the point of he article. I dread the day I start feeling the need to add $10/15 month bills to my plate because it becomes the only way to access new music."

— Marty 1980 (Post #19)




That above bears repeating.
 
I was born in 1977 and I remember I first got online in 1996 and I remember for the longest time I refused to pay for music.

I remember when all the streaming services like Netradio (defunct), Spinner (first owned by AOL, now Slacker Radio), audio radio something (service that let you stream radio stations and internet only stations for free bought by Yahoo now defunct too), Echo.com (defunct), MSN Radio (defunct merged with Pandora). DI.fm (still around was free but now paid without ads), Soma.fm (actually the only service still around that is free surprised and give them credit that they are still ad free and I still listen to them quite often). The ones that stayed around (except Soma.fm) went to a paid service and I refused to pay anything.

Even started to use P2P programs like Napster, WinMX. Also subscribed to XM Radio in 2002 which was great until Sirius merged and ruined them. Finally started to pay for some online music first by buying some songs off of the iTunes Store and subscribed to some music services that went pay but got tired of there repetitive playlists with Slacker Radio.

What got me into full albums was actually Amazon Prime Music at the time not spoiled by the sound quality. Finally then got Play Music because they had way more albums and I had it free for two months. Only after stayed with Apple Music because of there great blocking of explicit tracks something that Amazon and Play Music does not do good.
 

Long storey involves:

• 15% off credits initially
• Tesco points (not included in the £4.25 but worth a mention)
google offered 50% off pre pay approx March 2016

If you want more info and for me to go into more detail then I will do.

Cheers
[doublepost=1474607389][/doublepost]
"While many people are happy about streaming media, I remain cautious about where everything is headed.

To start is bandwidth of the interwebs. Streaming eats a lot of bandwidth that is still a limited resource in most of the world. The more people stream, the more constraints we put on the network. You can argue it forces growth, but it also causes headaches for transition.

This data comes at a premium through most ISPs/Carriers. Data caps make sure that you can only stream as much as they want you to. The more you want to stream the more you have to pay.

Ownership of content is at risk. While anyone born after 1995 is probably comfortable with all their documents, data, music, photos, movies and whatnots "in the cloud" many of us older folk understand why ownership of your content matters. Streaming gives you temporary access to content that is not owned by you. Whenever you don't pay for the streaming service, you immediately lose the music you listen to. It guarantees that customers will always be back for another month because otherwise they have to find some other means to listen. If the industry were to move completely to streaming, nobody would be able to listen to their music without a subscription being paid to a company who has rights to stream.

For a long time, my data cap on my cellular made streaming a non-option. But that cap has significantly increased by itself over time and now I can stream for a time during each billing period without worrying about crazy overage fees. Now that I can though, I don't want to. I buy my music because I believe a purchased album means more to the artist than streaming only their most popular songs. Plus the sound quality of a CD (uncompressed audio file) can't be beat with streaming (yet). Plus there's something to get signed at a concert.

Streaming music is also now introducing "exclusive" music. It used to be anybody could by an "exclsuive" album from Goodies (or Target or Walmart or wherever). Now, "exclusive" means only subscribers of the exclusive provider are allowed to listen. That's a huge difference in who has access to new music.

I know I'm a minority of people who don't like the path streaming music has taken. This is the way the industry is moving and due to all the **** pirates out there, we aren't going back because this keeps the industry alive; the point of he article. I dread the day I start feeling the need to add $10/15 month bills to my plate because it becomes the only way to access new music."

— Marty 1980 (Post #19)




That above bears repeating.

Hi

• I think you need 128GB or more and just download (on an "unlimited" householders broadband) for offline listening so no concerns over 'bandwidth' issues for you personally.

• ISPs networks are improving daily throughout the world

• I think 3rd world countries will improve their ISPs - well they must do - to accommodate the increase in streaming subscribers.

• the "ownership" issue I cant see an issue here
Its like if you go to the cinema do you want to "own" the film? .....well if you do just buy the movie on DVD or BLURAY - when the studio release the movie - no big deal.

• ownership of album please see above as same

• the exclusive you mention I find is more aimed towards physical purchase
ie Targets exclusive on Adele "25"

• you mention your "dread" of paying 10 to 15 $ I now save a fortune now - I used to spend approx £30 a month on physical CDs (to be fair NOT every month) but still a lot.

I love my 30,000,000 record store on iPhone and SONOS plus my 50,000 'free' uploads of my own music

Cheers
 
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• 15% off credits initially
• Tesco points (not included in the £4.25 but worth a mention)
google offered 50% off pre pay approx March 2016
Aaah, amazing. My pet peeve stands though, Google Play Music can't play gapless on Android (checked on Z3 Compact, Z5 Compact and S7). I'd upload those 20 live/continuous albums to Poweramp, but I keep on thinking that if I am paying for streaming, someone should get it right.

Apple Music can't do it either by the way, but then, there's very little that actually works on AM Android.
 
Aaah, amazing. My pet peeve stands though, Google Play Music can't play gapless on Android (checked on Z3 Compact, Z5 Compact and S7). I'd upload those 20 live/continuous albums to Poweramp, but I keep on thinking that if I am paying for streaming, someone should get it right.

Apple Music can't do it either by the way, but then, there's very little that actually works on AM Android.

Yep, gapless is a major problem (GPM on SONOS is 100% okay for gapless)
but google need to address lack of gaplessss on many android devices ASAP.
Cheers
 
google need to address lack of gaplessss on many android devices ASAP.
Absolutely. I really don't understand why their own player can't do it with their own system. Somehow the only streaming app that gets it... 80% right is Spotify. And Poweramp has no problems either. But that's off-topic :)

I'm quietly hoping AM finally fixes that – around 2019 probably. Or maybe Nougat does it first. I am convinced Apple Music has the potential to become the absolute best simply because it's Apple, but it still feels like an early beta, both on desktop and my phone. And on another forum I frequent I saw yet another post from someone whose phone downloads were replaced by random other versions of songs, so it looks like Match is STILL not rolled out everywhere. If Apple Music was my first experience with streaming, I'd go back to buying songs – maybe that's what Apple want :)
 
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Reactions: deany
Absolutely. I really don't understand why their own player can't do it with their own system. Somehow the only streaming app that gets it... 80% right is Spotify. And Poweramp has no problems either. But that's off-topic :)

I'm quietly hoping AM finally fixes that – around 2019 probably. Or maybe Nougat does it first. I am convinced Apple Music has the potential to become the absolute best simply because it's Apple, but it still feels like an early beta, both on desktop and my phone. And on another forum I frequent I saw yet another post from someone whose phone downloads were replaced by random other versions of songs, so it looks like Match is STILL not rolled out everywhere. If Apple Music was my first experience with streaming, I'd go back to buying songs – maybe that's what Apple want :)

Yep, agree the only reason I'm with GPM is the embarrassingly inexpensive £4.25 per month till Dec 2019 that I pay.
 
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