Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Spotify is still making a loss. Maybe they need to serve even more ads?

They've been focusing on getting big and now at 150 million customers and over 50 million paying ones, they've got interesting options...

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/18/dictate-top-40/

My favourite is becoming the label themselves, signing artists directly, and paying them directly. They can give the artist 5 times as much as the traditional label and still raise their profits a lot. Things like their discovery queue mean spotify is already doing the label's job better than the label.
 
They've been focusing on getting big and now at 150 million customers and over 50 million paying ones, they've got interesting options...

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/18/dictate-top-40/

My favourite is becoming the label themselves, signing artists directly, and paying them directly. They can give the artist 5 times as much as the traditional label and still raise their profits a lot. Things like their discovery queue mean spotify is already doing the label's job better than the label.

Call me biased, but I feel Apple would make a better label than Spotify. Wasn't that what Apple was doing a while back?

https://www.google.com.sg/amp/s/ven...ss-what-apple-is-becoming-a-record-label/amp/
 
well no - if the movie started on time people would be on time and they would get their snacks beforehand. As usual it's a race to the bottom, people arrive 10 minutes late to avoid the ads so they play the ads for 15 minutes so people arrive 15 minutes late to avoid the ads so they play them for 20 minutes.


Ads? You mean movie previews? I don't see ads in my theaters unless you are super early.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jcmoney10
Just seems like a bit of an over reaction to me. No matter what you do or where you go, you are served ads. Driving down the highway, watching tv, surfing the internet, not sure why someone would draw the line at movie theaters. But hey, to each their own I guess.

Actually, I'm a cord cutter 100% because of ads. I was okay with normal commercials, but when they put them on top of the content, complete with sound and flashing animated graphics, it ruins the content and there is no reason to watch it at all much less pay for it. Commercials are on thing, but they now completely ruin the experience.

The internet is another world with an ad blocker.

And I don't even seem to notice highway billboards.
[doublepost=1495123672][/doublepost]
Call me biased, but I feel Apple would make a better label than Spotify. Wasn't that what Apple was doing a while back?

https://www.google.com.sg/amp/s/ven...ss-what-apple-is-becoming-a-record-label/amp/

Maybe you're right, Apple could do it better if they wanted to see it through. I disagree because Spotify's best features are related to music discovery while Apple Music is a horrible mess and unless you like Hip Hop all you can do is play your own playlists. No point in that kind of speculation though because Apple isn't going to do it.

Apple isn't going down that road, they lack the innovation, drive and focus right now. The link you post is a perfect example, Apple makes a lot of noise, says they've got a lot going and nothing really materializes. Timmy and his gang really are like kids playing in Steve's party room, and they're like kids with ADHD.

Spotify on the other hand has 7 times the users as Apple (including their free tier). If they do start signing a-list artists directly by paying them a lot more than the labels for exclusive deals, it could really bite Apple hard.
[doublepost=1495123823][/doublepost]
Ads? You mean movie previews? I don't see ads in my theaters unless you are super early.

Then you either live some place people don't like movies or you go to older movies or you like crappy seats.

Because around here, if you go to a general admission screening of something less than 3 weeks old and don't get there 20 minutes before ticket time, you're sitting in the front row. And the ticket time is when the 20 minutes of previews starts.
 
Last edited:
Actually, I'm a cord cutter 100% because of ads. I was okay with normal commercials, but when they put them on top of the content, complete with sound and flashing animated graphics, it ruins the content and there is no reason to watch it at all much less pay for it. Commercials are on thing, but they now completely ruin the experience.

The internet is another world with an ad blocker.

And I don't even seem to notice highway billboards.

Like I said, to each their own. When I go to a movie, I view pre-movie ads much like you do Billboards on the highway. If I'm at a movie early, I'm either talking to the people I'm with, or playing on my phone, the ads simply become background noise that is easily ignored. I guess if one goes to the movies early, is by themselves, and doesn't have a smartphone to keep them occupied for the 30 mins or so before the movie, then maybe the ads would be harder to ignore.

I am curious though, you mentioned commercials being put overtop your content that ruined the experience... can you give an example? I understand these kinds of ads while on a website reading an article, but I've never experienced this while watching a TV show.
 
Then you either live some place people don't like movies or you go to older movies or you like crappy seats.

Because around here, if you go to a general admission screening of something less than 3 weeks old and don't get there 20 minutes before ticket time, you're sitting in the front row. And the ticket time is when the 20 minutes of previews starts.

What a ridiculous generalization. I live in a place where people LIKE movies, that why have at least 4 high end theaters ($25 a seat, 21 and older, dinner, alcohol) in a 5 mile area around where I live and I only go to those. And we buy our tickets online days before and choose our seats. I NEVER wait in line. Who goes to the movie theatre without knowing you're getting a good seat? You don't have the option to purchase online?
 
Blah blah blah, yeah, sorry, I am deeply embedded into the Apple ecosystem -- I love my Mac, I love macOS, I love iOS, I love my iPad and iPhone, and I have no desire to change any of that....
This is the post I could have written myself. I'm ***-deep in Apple stuff, but Spotify works better and I pay $10/month and feel it's totally worth it. I've got many GB of stuff cached on my phone for offline playing and that works quite well. I also often have it playing on one device and control it from another. I frequently use my iPhone as a remote while my docked iPod Touch is handling the actual streaming and AirPlaying to my home speakers.
[doublepost=1495125601][/doublepost]
What a ridiculous generalization. I live in a place where people LIKE movies, that why have at least 4 high end theaters ($25 a seat, 21 and older, dinner, alcohol) in a 5 mile area around where I live and I only go to those. And we buy our tickets online days before and choose our seats. I NEVER wait in line. Who goes to the movie theatre without knowing you're getting a good seat? You don't have the option to purchase online?
Umm, not everybody wants to (or can afford to) blow $25/ticket going out to a movie. And the movie experience in general, aside from the boutique $$$ theater you go to, is pretty badly degraded at this point. Remember when they used to just play a little light music and maybe some movie trivia slides before a film? Now that the marketing parasites have their hands in it, they're banking on the time they make people sit before the film to blast us with 20-30 minutes of high-intensity garbage. Assigned seating is still rare in most mainstream theaters I go to here in NYC, though there are a few that offer it standard.

I finally got a decent-quality HD projector and screen at home, and find that for 90% of the movies I want to see, it's better to wait a few weeks and rent it then for $5 or whatever. I get to choose my seats in advance and there are plenty of snacks and alcohol available :)
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Matthew.H
What a ridiculous generalization. I live in a place where people LIKE movies, that why have at least 4 high end theaters ($25 a seat, 21 and older, dinner, alcohol) in a 5 mile area around where I live and I only go to those. And we buy our tickets online days before and choose our seats. I NEVER wait in line. Who goes to the movie theatre without knowing you're getting a good seat? You don't have the option to purchase online?

We have a lot more than that within 8km of me including a 30-plex across the street from a 21-plex as well as other premium theatres. 19 and up in Ontario though for the "VIP" screens:).

But I suggest you learn what "general admission" means since I think my post whooshed over your head. You're paying $25 a seat partly to avoid commercials, I do the same the twice a year I go to a movie theatre, but that only proves my point. General admission movies suck and the commercials are huge part of why.
[doublepost=1495130031][/doublepost]
I am curious though, you mentioned commercials being put overtop your content that ruined the experience... can you give an example? I understand these kinds of ads while on a website reading an article, but I've never experienced this while watching a TV show.

The bottom 25% of the screen is overlaid for about 20 seconds with a full motion commercial at key points throughout the show. There were even sound effects, but I think they've gotten rid of that because it was so bad.

The station logo is always on the screen, but every 15 minutes or so, it turns into a larger vivid animation.

Also, sometimes before it actually goes on an actual commercial break, they do the bottom 25% thing with the same company that runs the first commercial and it's a graphically loud, obnoxious countdown to the commercial. As if the commercial is something to look forward to. And obviously right before it breaks, is when something good happens and you don't want the distraction.

IMO, it completely kills any possibility of enjoying the shows. I wouldn't watch them like that for free, and I'm certainly not paying a cable bill for that.
 
I can get plenty of 'totally free' Music from Apple on DJ podcasts! It's rather hypocritical to claim you need to pay..
These streaming services would be alright but they are useless in the car as you need a good signal and a huge data allowance plan, you can save your favourites sure, but the entire point of a streaming service is to discover new music all the time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DevNull0
I would definitely use Apple Music over Spotify if there was a free version. Once I start my first full-time job in a month or so I'll make the mover over to Apple Music.
 
Remember when they used to just play a little light music and maybe some movie trivia slides before a film? Now that the marketing parasites have their hands in it, they're banking on the time they make people sit before the film to blast us with 20-30 minutes of high-intensity garbage.

Without advertising, I would speculate that many movie theaters would either go out of business or would be drastically limited in their resources. Movie theaters have historically made their money on volume and concessions, very little of their revenue comes from ticket prices (regardless of how high they are). Back in the day, if you wanted to see a movie on a big screen, with surround sound, and decent picture quality you were almost forced to go to a theater. This meant a lot of volume and a lot of concession sales. Now as you've pointed out, you can wait 5-6 months and watch it at home on your own projector in HD with surround sound.

In order for movie theaters to survive they have had to adapt, and part of that is selling ad space. It's a brilliant non-intrusive business model. They bring in 10s of thousands a month, and in return all they have to do is play the ad in a number of theaters, regardless of whether anyone is even there or paying attention.

For me, if 30 minutes of ads means the theater stays open and tickets stay somewhat reasonable, then what do I care if an ad plays In the background as I talk to my wife, or check sports scores on my phone.

Without Ad revenue, this world would be a much more expensive place to live in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Cigsm
Without advertising, I would speculate that many movie theaters would either go out of business or would be drastically limited in their resources. Movie theaters have historically made their money on volume and concessions, very little of their revenue comes from ticket prices (regardless of how high they are). Back in the day, if you wanted to see a movie on a big screen, with surround sound, and decent picture quality you were almost forced to go to a theater. This meant a lot of volume and a lot of concession sales. Now as you've pointed out, you can wait 5-6 months and watch it at home on your own projector in HD with surround sound.

In order for movie theaters to survive they have had to adapt, and part of that is selling ad space. It's a brilliant non-intrusive business model. They bring in 10s of thousands a month, and in return all they have to do is play the ad in a number of theaters, regardless of whether anyone is even there or paying attention.

For me, if 30 minutes of ads means the theater stays open and tickets stay somewhat reasonable, then what do I care if an ad plays In the background as I talk to my wife, or check sports scores on my phone.

Without Ad revenue, this world would be a much more expensive place to live in.


Oh, won't someone think of the poor multiplex chain corporations!

If your argument held any water at all, none of the indie theaters where I live (which do not blast ticket-buyers' eyes with intrusive ad rolls) would be flourishing as they are. And yet, they are. And their ticket prices are on par with the chains, or less -- but with actual human food available.

Nah, what's driving the parasitic adpocalypse at the movie theater is good old-fashioned corporate greed. And guess what? Turns out a lot of people will just as soon stay home or go to an indie theater to have a better experience. And I'm one of them. $15 a ticket (where I live, anyway) is a pretty hefty price, on top of high-priced concessions. I'm paying a fair price to enter the theater, I expect to be treated with some level of respect that doesn't include blasting ads at me and my friends while we hang out in our seats before the movie.

Lap that garbage up if you want to, but if it's "necessary" for a movie theater to offer a terrible experience to stay open, then something is wrong with their business practices. Not everyone subscribes to your "ad subsidized" point of view. Marketers are already plastering every square inch of the earth with their "messages". And guess who pays for that, perversely? Where do you think the marketers get the money to pay for all that ad space? It's built into the cost of everything we buy. We are paying for this **** ourselves. Paying for our attention spans to be eroded, the basest and most crass imagery to be beamed right at us and our children. Enough.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tonyr6 and DevNull0
Without Ad revenue, this world would be a much more expensive place to live in.

And this is the biggest fallacy. First, where do the companies get the money to advertise with? Many times I've "discovered" items at the grocery store that I like and are quite cheap. Then a few months later they start advertising them and the price shoots up 40+%.

Would TV shows not be as good if the actors didn't make $1 million an episode? That money comes from everyone who buys consumer goods. I guess for $100k they wouldn't do their best? The only reason they can make so much is the whole business is so big because advertisers pay so much. But that makes everything much more expensive.

Now add to that, how much do they really make for each person they annoy with their ads? You're right they don't make much off the ticket sale, but when you're paying $12 for a movie ruining the experience for 10-25 cents is just stupid. And how many people like me and the other posters here do the drive away so that's how many lost sales of popcorn and pop for the tiny extra they think they're making?
 
Last edited:
Oh, won't someone think of the poor multiplex chain corporations!

If your argument held any water at all, none of the indie theaters where I live (which do not blast ticket-buyers' eyes with intrusive ad rolls) would be flourishing as they are. And yet, they are. And their ticket prices are on par with the chains, or less -- but with actual human food available.

Nah, what's driving the parasitic adpocalypse at the movie theater is good old-fashioned corporate greed. And guess what? Turns out a lot of people will just as soon stay home or go to an indie theater to have a better experience. And I'm one of them. $15 a ticket (where I live, anyway) is a pretty hefty price, on top of high-priced concessions. I'm paying a fair price to enter the theater, I expect to be treated with some level of respect that doesn't include blasting ads at me and my friends while we hang out in our seats before the movie.

Lap that garbage up if you want to, but if it's "necessary" for a movie theater to offer a terrible experience to stay open, then something is wrong with their business practices. Not everyone subscribes to your "ad subsidized" point of view. Marketers are already plastering every square inch of the earth with their "messages". And guess who pays for that, perversely? Where do you think the marketers get the money to pay for all that ad space? It's built into the cost of everything we buy. We are paying for this **** ourselves. Paying for our attention spans to be eroded, the basest and most crass imagery to be beamed right at us and our children. Enough.

Lol iunno where you live, but all the indie theaters where I live have shut down. Now I don't have access to their financials, but I can only imagine that they didn't make enough money to cover operating costs.

Do some research and run the numbers. Movie studios lease films to the theaters for a set amount of weeks, during that time span, they have a tiered % that they take each week. A lot of times movies make the majority of their revenue in the first few weeks, that's when excitement for a movie are at their peak and people are going to pack the theater. It's standard paractice for the movie studios to take 80% of ticket sales in the first couple weeks of a new release. In some cases of major releases, there have been instances of the studios taking 100% of ticket sales for the first week.

Do the math, and you will quickly realize that without concession stands sales and ad revenue, movie theaters wouldn't be around. You may have a few "indie" theaters that still manage to stick around, but that isn't the case everywhere, and even when they do exist, they can be pretty dumpy.

You may not believe in my "ad subsidized" point of view, but take it away and see how long you enjoy the simple things you take for granted. I'm sure you'd love having to pay a monthly subscription to google just to be able to google things each day, a monthly subscription for any social media sites you use, let's not forget your monthly Macrumors subscriptions and every other website you probably use for that matter.
[doublepost=1495163363][/doublepost]
And this is the biggest fallacy. First, where do the companies get the money to advertise with? Many times I've "discovered" items at the grocery store that I like and are quite cheap. Then a few months later they start advertising them and the price shoots up 40+%.

Would TV shows not be as good if the actors didn't make $1 million an episode? That money comes from everyone who buys consumer goods. I guess for $100k they wouldn't do their best? The only reason they can make so much is the whole business is so big because advertisers pay so much. But that makes everything much more expensive.

Now add to that, how much do they really make for each person they annoy with their ads? You're right they don't make much off the ticket sale, but when you're paying $12 for a movie ruining the experience for 10-25 cents is just stupid. And how many people like me and the other posters here do the drive away so that's how many lost sales of popcorn and pop for the tiny extra they think they're making?

Lol you are making assumptions without any knowledge or facts. Just because an item at the grocery store goes up in price around the time it's advertised doesn't mean they are related. There could be 100 factors that goes into a price hike either from the company level or the store level... or both. You could possibly just be misremembering the timeline, the original price, or simply didn't pay attention until the item was advertised

You're also only thinking of advertising in terms of mega brands, but aren't considering smaller operations that need advertising to get their name out there. I owned a rather unique business at one point in an industry that no one had ever heard of. You better believe that the money we spent on advertising was absolutely essential to getting our brand any type of visibility. If it wasn't for "greedy" companies like google and Facebook, we would have shut down real quick because you can only do so much with word of mouth.

At one point we actually looked into advertising at our local theater, and their lowest package was $5000 a month. You have to believe that most the ads on the movie screen aren't paying the lowest tier, so you better believe the $5000-$20000 per ad, per month is definitely worth losing the handful of people like yourself who can't manage to be inconvenienced for more than 30 seconds.

There's a reason why actors and athletes are paid millions of dollars and it's not because it boost their performance but because people like you and I are willing to pay to be entertained. Whether you are paying for a movie ticket or renting it on Redbox there is a lot of money that comes back to the industry and actors and actresses have every right to demand top dollar for their work. Iunno what you do for a living... but let's assume that you are one of the top people in your field... are you not going to demand to be paid top dollar for your work? I'm sure if you are offered a million dollar raise tomorrow, you'll tell your boss to just write you a check for 100k and save the rest in order to cut back on advertising.

Like I told another guy in this thread, the "ad-subsidized" model allow you to do everyday things that you take for granted without constantly opening your wallet. Unless of course your willing to pay a monthly fee to use Google, any and all social media, Macrumors and every other website on the web, and many of the apps that you probably use on your phone.
 
People are consuming more music than at any other period in history. You're opinion doesn't negate the fact that those artists should be paid for the work that billions of people consume.


You want me to pay for the artist of the minute and all you offer is lyrics and liner notes?


The music industry is a joke, it’s made up of producers who basically steal songs so reality show contest winners can exist. Mix that up with the new cuts from boring dancer/actor/singer/choreographer jokes trying to stretch out viability and executives who think they know what the world wants and here we are. And for what? So they can sell playlists so some artists is rammed down our throats 3 times per hour.



Occasionally some artist cracks it and the rest of you scramble to copy it and mass produce it. Which destroys the music. Nah, I’ll pass on your ideology. Besides were really not far off from some virus that renders the internet unusable anyway.
 
Lol no you won't. That's why Spotify hasn't made a profit in their entire history. Not even a single dollar.

I'd rather have the 100 that don't. I'll make a heck of a lot more selling ads.

I guess you don't believe broadcast radio and TV is a viable business model?
 
It's you who doesn't understand where the money comes from....it's not from ads. Spotify hasn't made a profit ever. The only reason they still exist is because they got another round of private funding. They also pay far far less in royalties then Apple Music


It's not really 'free' if advertisers pay for it. Spotify collects millions from advertisers each year. Get your head out of your a$$ Apple. The adds in Spotify more than justify the free tier and artists can still be paid based on a % of the revenue from adds.

I think Apple doesn't fully understand where the money comes from...
 
Lol no you won't. That's why Spotify hasn't made a profit in their entire history. Not even a single dollar.

*yawn* you're late to the party. Why would you waste everyone's time posting to something pages ago without checking if it's already been discussed? I already replied to another poster who said that. Read the very top of the page you just posted to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: smorrissey
I wonder how many users they'd have if they hadn't screwed people using home-sharing, by removing the feature to force people towards Apple Music?

In what regard did Apple remove home sharing? That's not a rhetorical inquiry, perhaps Apple did remove some functionality for it that I haven't noticed yet.

But for me home sharing continues to work, mostly as it long has. When it comes to videos it's changed on iOS devices in that it works through the TV App now instead of the Videos app. And when that change happened, I believe it changed the login that home sharing on my iOS devices was using to the login that was being used for many other things on those devices. I had to change it back to the login I use for home sharing. But once I did that home sharing of videos worked fine for me, and I didn't have that issue with music.

I don't use home sharing much anymore, but when I try to use it it works.
[doublepost=1495194959][/doublepost]
Lol iunno where you live, but all the indie theaters where I live have shut down. Now I don't have access to their financials, but I can only imagine that they didn't make enough money to cover operating costs.

Do some research and run the numbers. Movie studios lease films to the theaters for a set amount of weeks, during that time span, they have a tiered % that they take each week. A lot of times movies make the majority of their revenue in the first few weeks, that's when excitement for a movie are at their peak and people are going to pack the theater. It's standard paractice for the movie studios to take 80% of ticket sales in the first couple weeks of a new release. In some cases of major releases, there have been instances of the studios taking 100% of ticket sales for the first week.

Do the math, and you will quickly realize that without concession stands sales and ad revenue, movie theaters wouldn't be around. You may have a few "indie" theaters that still manage to stick around, but that isn't the case everywhere, and even when they do exist, they can be pretty dumpy.

You may not believe in my "ad subsidized" point of view, but take it away and see how long you enjoy the simple things you take for granted. I'm sure you'd love having to pay a monthly subscription to google just to be able to google things each day, a monthly subscription for any social media sites you use, let's not forget your monthly Macrumors subscriptions and every other website you probably use for that matter.

I wouldn't be surprised if the situation for smaller movie theatre companies (or some of them) is quite different than that for the large ones - i.e., AMC, Regal, and Cinemark. But when it comes to those large players, which combined operate nearly half of the screens in the U.S., they keep nearly half of their admissions revenue for themselves.

That said, you're right - their models still wouldn't work if it weren't for all of the money they make from concessions. They generate about half as much revenue from concessions as they do from admissions, but the gross margins on the former are better in part because they aren't giving half of that revenue to the movie distributors. Admissions probably, on the whole, contribute a little more to their bottom lines than concessions do. But both streams are very much need.

When it comes to on-screen advertising, that revenue source is much smaller than the other two - something like 5% of their total revenue. It isn't broken out by itself, it's included in an other category for reporting purposes. Could those large theatre companies survive without that revenue? Perhaps, especially if the revenue loss was offset to some degree by increased revenue from their two primary sources. But their other revenue (which may be mostly from on-screen advertising) does represent a substantial portion of their (pre-tax) operating income.
 
*yawn* you're late to the party. Why would you waste everyone's time posting to something pages ago without checking if it's already been discussed? I already replied to another poster who said that. Read the very top of the page you just posted to.

Exactly he's so late that becomes boring.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.