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While all the executives at these companies are toasting one another the actual musicians and artists are getting pennies...no fractions of pennies on the dollar and angry as hell. You want to know how bad it is? Vinyl revenue is actually pulling in more money than streaming.

It's because of this that I only buy physical albums. I'm not supporting this borderline legal theft.
Well, for what it's worth, a lot of the music I like to listen to was made by artists who are now dead, anyway.
 
I threw everything I knew that was obscure as a test of Spotify, including a track that took me over 20 years to find. It was all there.
 
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its an odd thing. Google Never ever releases numbers on GPM. I honestly don't expect ti to be in the top 5 of streaming services. While it's available for all platforms, Google does almost nothing to advertise it's existence.


Which is sad, I always wanted Apple to do something like it when I used Android a while back, thought it was amazing how integrated it was on the os and how well it worked. If your on Android GPM is amazing, and is definitely better than the alternatives offered by Apple, Spotify, and the sad others with barely any market share. I also believe it's one of the highest paying to artist out of all the streaming services. They offered a free trial from black friday to the end of march and it's been great on IOS, i'd say as good as spotify, but nothing beats the integrated Apple music which ill be going back to.

People say Apple stole the idea from spotify, but actually they took a bigger chunk of the idea from Google.
 
You want to know how bad it is? Vinyl revenue is actually pulling in more money than streaming.

That is pure BS or at best a misunderstanding. You are probably thinking of the article last year claiming that vinyl revenue was higher than digital download sales.

While that might be true, streaming is on a whole other level. Apple Music and Spotify combined generated $7 billion in revenue in 2016, vinyl sales (where often less than 10% of the price goes to the artist...) are tiny compared to that.
 
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Old news.
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I agree about the interface but not the quality of music, Spotify is the worst of them all.

That is wrong. Spotify offers the best sound quality and bitrate of all three. Apple and GPM are both limited to 256kbps audio, while Spotify goes up to 320kbps with premium, and once Spotify implements a Hi-Fi option, that'll be even better.
 
I'm quite happy with Apple Music but find Spotify very tempting. Better playlists (imo) and user-curated and shareable playlists, direct to Sonos support, and now this lossless function are all things I wish Apple Music had.

Exactly. I still can't understand why Apple Music let's you have "public" playlists that aren't public at all, only shareable. I hate having to rely on the limited number playlists from annointed curators.

And every time the New York Times publishes yet another article with tempting new music and direct links to Spotify playlists, I'm left scratching my head why AM doesn't include such basic functionality.

And don't get me started on the mess of iCloud match / iCloud music library. It a single day goes by when I don't discover yet another track I own that is missing, or "unavailable". Great.
 
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BTW: A million streams on Spotify is worth in excess of $4000, and even a moderate hit easily have 10+ million streams. Just look at Spotify's Global Top 50 where not a single song has less than 1 million streams per day. There is money in streaming, big money even.

So, in order for a single, independent artist to make a reasonable living in the streaming world, they have to have at least 10 million streams. For one thing, very few artists are going to reach even 1 million streams. Most, if lucky will get 10,000 streams per year.

God forbid you have to pay an entire band. Then you're talking 40-80 million streams per year to make a meager living. Touring is not always an option, even for a solo act. Let's be realistic, for 95% of artists, streaming music is not a viable way to make money.

I'm not implying we should go back to the cd/album sales only, but the original iTunes model where the purchaser can choose songs a la carte, isn't an unreasonable way to go. Anything you (meaning everyone) listen to more than once, buy the single and/or album. Give artists a chance to create without having to worry about getting a day job. Professional musicians lives matter too.
 
Subscribers =/= Paying Subscribers

it's clear even from their tweet. There's a lot of free promotions from carriers, etc, good to inflate the upcoming IPO offer.

You realise apple does exactly the same thing when quoting thier numbers?

Imagine Spotify were to own .....like....a really successful smartphone, that came bundled with AM with constant pop ups.....lots of lots of apple devices running greater than iOS 8.4....
 
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I have Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. While I use Spotify daily I rarely start Apple Music and I never listen to Amazon.

Reasons ?
Spotify has the better UI and a much better recommendation and channel system.

Do you pay for both?
 
Having used AM, google music and Spotify, Spotify wins in relation to being the easiest and most intuitive . AM interface was so poor, to this day I have no intent of using it again , even when offered 6 months Promo, I know it's been updated...so maybe will try again...

Google music...on a trial at the moment, not a huge fan of the interface , though just started, Spotify if they go with thier lossless tier, will probably get my money
 
One of the biggest reasons I stick with Apple Music is the ability to use it with Apple TV (which is connected to my home stereo obviously). The ability to play through my home speakers and control using a remote connected to the tv without tying up a phone or computer is huge. Am I alone here?
 
One of the biggest reasons I stick with Apple Music is the ability to use it with Apple TV (which is connected to my home stereo obviously). The ability to play through my home speakers and control using a remote connected to the tv without tying up a phone or computer is huge. Am I alone here?

Probably. Not many like Apl TV especially to hook a stereo too. An audiophile would go much further and casual listener thought MP3 was cool since the Ipod ..so you are somewhere in between and rare.
 
As someone who is exploring which streaming service to pay for, and as someone who frequents music festivals, I am impressed with the Spotify playlists they ALL seem to utilize. Hangout, Cayamo, Bonnaroo, Coachella, SlossFest, etc. ... they all utilize Spotify playlists to highlight the upcoming show.

Apple needs to crack into that market.
 
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I will never directly pay for a music subscription service. That being said, I am an Amazon Prime member. I dowloaded their music app, its pretty good.

The best paid service in the game is Prime. No other service gets you as much over multiple platforms.
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Yes, of course. I need Spotify for myself, Apple Music for my family and Amazon is part of their movie streaming bundle, which we have to use in Europe as Netflix's offer here is a bad joke.

If it weren't for Netflix implementing their own good content, the service would be junk everywhere. Old and outdated movies, unknown D list movies, and reruns of tv shows from years ago. I'm glad Amazon finally stepped their game up and entered the original content market.
 
Last week I was looking for a list of songs from a TV show and I found an awesome Spotify playlist containing more than 300 songs from that show. That's how I got to try their service and it's been great so far. For me the most important feature of a music subscription service is music discovery, and for some reason Apple Music hasn't work very well for me in this regard. On Spotify their suggestions are pretty good and I love discovering user created playlists.

Oh, and this:

IMG_0720.PNG
 
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Brilliant! My streaming music service of choice. Spotify changed the way that I listed to music two years ago and to this day I still appreciate the new features that are rolled out ~every couple of months. Go Team Green!

By far what I'm most thankful for is the hundreds of new songs I've found through Spotify. Prior to Spotify I found it darn near impossible to find new music. My only hope was to hear new music on video game montages (oh my middle school/high school days) or to scour the charts on iTunes. Was anyone else in the same shoes?
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Seems like every time I hear about the issue they STILL are not profitable.

I bet Apple Music isn't either. It's impossible to make money with the fees/cost-per-play that these labels charge. They have a monopoly on the music industry and they know it.

That's the magic, though. Apple Music doesn't have to be profitable ever. Spotify has to be eventually.
 
Not to the bottom line there isn't.
1 account earning 9.99 is identidal to 1 account earning 9.99. Regardless of whose pocket it comes from.

You're assuming the company providing the "free" Apple Music subscription bundled with their own service is actually paying Apple's retail rate for each of their customers. Hint: They aren't. The promotion benefits both parties, Apple is going to be giving a discount of some sort to the partner.
 
It's funny how this company whine like a baby when Apple Music was released. They want a free ride to provide their service through Apple's platform. Their service was good before Apple Music but they're lacking some music that my kids listen. I do like competition but it haven't driven down the price yet. I hope it will someday. :D
They didn't whine at all, on the contrary they said Apple Music was good the streaming in general and that was good for them.
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So, in order for a single, independent artist to make a reasonable living in the streaming world, they have to have at least 10 million streams. For one thing, very few artists are going to reach even 1 million streams. Most, if lucky will get 10,000 streams per year.

God forbid you have to pay an entire band. Then you're talking 40-80 million streams per year to make a meager living. Touring is not always an option, even for a solo act. Let's be realistic, for 95% of artists, streaming music is not a viable way to make money.

I'm not implying we should go back to the cd/album sales only, but the original iTunes model where the purchaser can choose songs a la carte, isn't an unreasonable way to go. Anything you (meaning everyone) listen to more than once, buy the single and/or album. Give artists a chance to create without having to worry about getting a day job. Professional musicians lives matter too.
If an artist is lucky to get 10000 streams a year, then they would be unlikely to sell any CDs, Vinyl or downloads. Low steaming revenue is a symptom, not a cause of artists not earning enough for their work.
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That's the magic, though. Apple Music doesn't have to be profitable ever. Spotify has to be eventually.
I think you will find they do....Shareholders are not a charity!
 
I encounter the odd memory leak. or did last time I tried it on the PC. though it's been a year

But it's not a matter of how it works on a work machine

it's about policy, and permissions. Work Policy is no iTunes or other user non work software on work PC's.

And since I set the policy, I sure as hell am going to stick with it
I guess it depends on the industry you're in, where I work we can install what we like generally.
 
The ASP for each paying user is probably around $4-5 dollars compared to $8-10 for Apple...
And I'd bet Apple gets more profits.
BTW, got 2 years of Spotify premium as a promotion with my phone plan, pretty sure Fido's not paying full price to Spotify for that...
Spotify has been very aggressive with those kind of promotions around here.
The key will be if these people, like me, will continue with them once the subscription expires.
From my perspective, the lack of integration with the Iphone grates so I'm going to say : no.
 
Interesting. I like Apple Music a lot personally and it's good to see Spotify growing as well. This will lead to competition and improvements which ultimately benefit the consumer.
Or collusion and cartel creation which ultimately benefit the companies.
 
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Competition is good for ALL of us. IMO, Apple needs to feel some heated competition to be motivated to try harder.
The problem is when has competition ever forced Apple to do anything price-wise? It seems to be either put-up or shut-up.
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That's simple IE was better than Netscape and killed it
IE won because Microsoft pushed ActiveX non-standard extensions which worked for a while (remember sites saying IE 6 required for viewing?). However once AOL open-sourced Netscape we had what became Firefox and a seed was planted in the publics mind about using an alternative browser. This opened the door for Chrome to come in and usurp everyone so Netscape is massively important. But I digress, Apple can afford to run Apple music at a loss regardless of subscriber numbers, Spotify will HAVE to make money at some point to survive.
 
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