Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Very nice curated playlists based on your favorite genres from actual people (sometimes famous people, athletes, etc) - not software. Dive into these playlists and pick and choose songs if you'd like. Add them to your Library and play them whenever you choose. Beats Music is fantastic. App is very well designed. Worth the $9.99/month for me thus far.

Spotify does that too. my little cousin loves the playlists by the One Direction boys :D

i dont know what it is but the beats design reminds me of an android app plus its US only so it fails right there
 
why do people pay money every month for a limited selection of music thats only online and full of ad trackers/marketing spyware that monetizes your activity and preferences?

i dont get the streaming music fad at all. its incredibly anti-consumer.

For the price of a single album per month, I can access any song, any time, anywhere.

Or

For the price of a single album per month, I can have a single album per month.

Clearly we're all just a bunch of idiots, right? :rolleyes:
 
Pandora is like a radio station. You do not get to pick specific songs to play. Also, you have a 6 song skip limit, paid sub or not.
With spotify or beats you can think of an album or song and go straight to playing it. No skip limit of course.

I know, but that's the allure of Pandora for me. You never really know what's going to come next. I've discovered lots of artists using Pandora that I never would have stumbled across before. That's worth the subscription cost for me.
 
why do people pay money every month for a limited selection of music thats only online and full of ad trackers/marketing spyware that monetizes your activity and preferences?

i dont get the streaming music fad at all. its incredibly anti-consumer.

i just still collect music in preparation for the imminent internet blackout of 20[xx].. it's coming. i can feel it.
 
why do people pay money every month for a limited selection of music thats only online and full of ad trackers/marketing spyware that monetizes your activity and preferences?

i dont get the streaming music fad at all. its incredibly anti-consumer.

Because I like to discover and listen to new music without having to commit to paying $1.29 for a song I may listen to once or twice and then get sick of. If you do this 8 times per month, you now "own" 8 songs for $10.32 when you could have spent $9.99 for open access to millions of songs.
 
I know, but that's the allure of Pandora for me. You never really know what's going to come next. I've discovered lots of artists using Pandora that I never would have stumbled across before. That's worth the subscription cost for me.

The problem I have with Pandora is that eventually most of your stations start to sound the same. Their algorithms do a poor job of really diversifying your playlists without getting off into the weeds. We are also Spotify subscribers and while it's great to listen to whatever you what, Spotify does a very poor job of introducing you to new music.

This is where Beats comes in. They offer the same play anything model of Spotify, but the interface greets you with both curated playlists and a mix of new and old favorite albums every time you open it. That's what works so well - if you've ever opened a music app and felt like you are just looking at the same old stuff again, Beats offers you a nice mix of the new and familiar every time, and because they use real music aficionados instead of an algorithm, they hit rate on new music is a lot higher.

----------

why do people pay money every month for a limited selection of music thats only online and full of ad trackers/marketing spyware that monetizes your activity and preferences?

i dont get the streaming music fad at all. its incredibly anti-consumer.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Most music streaming services have a free option and the paid options are ridiculously cheap to the point that artists aren't really yet able to make money under this system. It's anything but anti-consumer. It's one of the best deals on the Internet.
 
Because I like to discover and listen to new music without having to commit to paying $1.29 for a song I may listen to once or twice and then get sick of. If you do this 8 times per month, you now "own" 8 songs for $10.32 when you could have spent $9.99 for open access to millions of songs.

why do you pay for music?
 
What does Beats provide that other music services such as Pandora or Spotify don't? I've never once thought I need a third music service.

Beats is Spotify with a better UI IMHO. I think streaming services and record companies need to raise subscription prices and lets just get away from the old outdated record sales model. What record companies actually care about is music consumption.
 
That doesn't make any sense at all. Most music streaming services have a free option and the paid options are ridiculously cheap to the point that artists aren't really yet able to make money under this system. It's anything but anti-consumer. It's one of the best deals on the Internet.

the "free option" is ad-ridden, so its not really free because you have to spend your time (time = money) listening to ads

Because historically the music made by musicians working as a hobby has been really bad!!

huh? its become the norm for newer independent (not mainstream radio trash) artists to release their music for free online but you pay for merch and concert tickets....
 
It's ironic how everyone wants Apple to have a subscription-based music service instead of a la carte iTunes...and at the same time wants to ditch subscription-based cable TV service in exchange for a la carte Apple TV channels.

The same dilemma would arise. Pay cable companies $100+/month for access to hundreds of channels or pay something like $2.99/month per a la carte channel and eclipse the $100 barrier at 34 channels. In both cases, subscription-based service seems like the best bang for your buck if discovery is something that interests you.
 
why do you pay for music?

In the case of a subscription service like Spotify or Beats, you're not really paying for music - you're paying for access, convenience, and an experience.

Next time you're at the gym and want to play a song that you don't have on your phone, feel free to try and torrent one and play it within the same window of time that I can search in the Beats app and tap play.

Whether what they do is right or wrong, I'd also like to avoid dealing with the RIAA's lawyers here in the States.
 
why do people pay money every month for a limited selection of music thats only online and full of ad trackers/marketing spyware that monetizes your activity and preferences?

i dont get the streaming music fad at all. its incredibly anti-consumer.

Of course it's anti-consumer. They don't own their music any more. Once their sub goes, that's it. There's nothing to pass down, there's no ownership any more (with those services at least) and that's why I'm not going down that route. And in a few years when my kids are older I can pass it down to them if they want, except unlike with my parents and their record collection it won't result in fights of who gets the rare records :).

For similar reasons I still buy films on bluray and DVD (and I rip them to HDD for compatibility with devices that aren't my PS4!). I have Netflix too but yeah. Not really into streaming services and subscriptions as my main source of entertainment.
 
Of course it's anti-consumer. They don't own their music any more. Once their sub goes, that's it. There's nothing to pass down, there's no ownership any more (with those services at least) and that's why I'm not going down that route. And in a few years when my kids are older I can pass it down to them if they want, except unlike with my parents and their record collection it won't result in fights of who gets the rare records :).

For similar reasons I still buy films on bluray and DVD (and I rip them to HDD for compatibility with devices that aren't my PS4!). I have Netflix too but yeah. Not really into streaming services and subscriptions as my main source of entertainment.

It is going to be a rude awakening to discover that your kids don't want your physical goods. Kids these days are growing up in a digital world. They're not going to see the romance in it like you do.

Don't be shocked when they scoff at your stacks of Blu-rays, put back on their Beats headphones, and resume blaring EDM into their ear canals via a music streaming app on their phone.
 
I wonder how the Beats acquisition will affect the iPhone 6s next year: hardware-related (Audio by Beats on the back of the iPhone), Apple-Beats earphones included, or will it just be the streaming service???
 
For the price of a single album per month, I can access any song, any time, anywhere.

Or

For the price of a single album per month, I can have a single album per month.

Clearly we're all just a bunch of idiots, right? :rolleyes:

Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself! My Beats is well worth the ten bucks.

----------

I am a little concerned. I just did the yearly plan for $99 and I'm a little worried about what will happen when Apple does whatever they're going to do. I guess I'll just cross that bridge when I get there.

----------

Between Rdio, Rhapsody, Beats, Spotify and Google their might be one or two services to many.
 
It is going to be a rude awakening to discover that your kids don't want your physical goods. Kids these days are growing up in a digital world. They're not going to see the romance in it like you do.

Don't be shocked when they scoff at your stacks of Blu-rays, put back on their Beats headphones, and resume blaring EDM into their ear canals via a music streaming app on their phone.

every young person i know pirates their music or listens to it on youtube, unless theyre sheltered or too rich to care
 
Free services like Pandora and iTunes Radio are radio stations with ads....
Paid services like Spotify and Beats give you unlimited and ad-free access to millions of songs....

I have bought a yearly subscription to Beats, based on my experience with MOG.

Beats seems to have inherited the MOG library after it bought MOG, but it removed MOG's Artist Radio, which made MOG usable in a Pandora-like fashion, getting the best of both worlds.

Since the removal of Artist Radio, I almost never listen to Beats anymore, even though I have paid for it. Their Sentence feature is a joke and most of the curated playlists are a joke as well.

Beats is so bad that I find that I am back to listening to Pandora most of the time now, even though the streaming quality is lower, at 128k for the free version and 192k for the paid version.

I am not a big fan of Spotify, since their library seems to have less original tracks and more covers (Rdio is similar) than MOG/Beats, but they have a feature similar to Pandora/MOG's Artist Radio so I will probably go with them for a Beats replacement. Pandora has the best song selection algorithm I have ever seen, however.

Beats Music seriously sucks as a streaming radio, or for playlists. Plus they don't even have a desktop app, so you have to play in-browser.

Beats paid $15 million for MOG and ruined it, then Apple paid $3 billion to Beats three month later. :eek:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.