bickster Posted February 14, 2018 Author Moderator Share Posted February 14, 2018 This is what happens to people who dis The Clash and Radiohead 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 1 hour ago, bickster said: This is what happens to people who dis The Clash and Radiohead Ha! Looking through the list. There are guilty pleasures there, but it's not just Shakey - Travis Tritt??? it'll be trying to find parallels in other users' playlists. This is the most 80s Pop thing in there... Not really that much like Shakey? The next nearest thing is billion miles away from this. Shakey has a not so obvious personnel connection with a couple of the tracks, which might suggest Spotify is dipping into Discogs as well now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted August 21, 2018 Share Posted August 21, 2018 Quote Why Are Record Companies Dumping Their Spotify Stock? Streaming is the future of the music business. Everybody knows this. Except, it appears, the record companies. On Tuesday, August 7, 2018, in an earnings call with stock analysts, Warner Music Groups revealed that it had now sold all of its holdings of stock in Spotify, realizing $504 million. This is the culmination of a trend. Within one month after Spotify’s shares first traded publically in the United States (April 3, 2018), the labels immediately started dumping their shares. Sony Music sold 50% of its shares. Warner Music Group sold 75% of its shares. Independent Record Label Global Digital Rights Agency sold 100% of its shares. And now, less than three months after the initial stock dump, Warner Music Group has joined Merlin in the “total divestment club.” When asked for a reason for the sell-off, WMG CEO, Steve Cooper, was all standard issue Silicon Valley unicorns and rainbows. As reported by Variety: “’Just so there won’t be any misinterpretation about the rationale for our decision to sell, let me be clear: We’re a music company, and not, by our nature, long-term holders of publicly traded equity,’ he said. ‘This sale has nothing to do with our view of Spotify’s future. We’re hugely optimistic about the growth of subscription streaming, we know it has only just begun to fulfill its potential for global scale. We fully expect Spotify to continue to play a major role in that growth.’” Except that WMG is not a stand-alone music company. It is wholly owned by the investment firm Access Industries. Which is very much in the business of holding long term equity stakes. One would assume that companies such as WMG and Sony know a thing or two about the music business. One would also assume that as direct shareholders of Spotify, they would be privy to day to day operational information about Spotify that the general public would not necessarily know. Please note that I am not suggesting anything resembling insider trading. Spotify’s management style, as discussed below, seems to involve burning large amounts of cash without regard to the bottom line. Something like this would be very apparent to a shareholder of a not yet publically traded company. Yet, if the prospects for Spotify are as rosy as the internet would have you assume, why, in a least two cases, dump the stock and run for the hills? (As of the writing of this post, only Universal Music Group still retains its full share out of the major labels.) As they like to say in politics, “the optics of this are not good.” Most of this is likely because the business model of Spotify does not work, and does not have prospects for working anytime soon, as previously posted on this blog. But don’t take my word for it. Forbes Magazine published this article the day after Spotify shares were first publically traded, titled “3 Reasons Not to Buy Spotify Stock.” The reasons boil down to the simple fact that Spotify has never turned a profit, loses hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and it’s getting worse. As reported by Forbes: “Spotify is growing fast, losing money, and burning through a common measure of cash flow. According to its prospectus, between 2015 and 2017, revenues grew at a 45% annual rate to €4,090 million. In 2017, Spotify reported a net loss of €1,235 million, nearly six times more than it lost in 2015, and its Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) was negative €324 million.” Nova Southeastern University Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted August 21, 2018 Author Moderator Share Posted August 21, 2018 22 minutes ago, Xann said: One would assume that companies such as WMG and Sony know a thing or two about the music business. I spotted a fail 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted August 21, 2018 Share Posted August 21, 2018 1 minute ago, bickster said: I spotted a fail Warner Music Group got bought by Access Industries. Access took them by the scruff of the neck. Not only are they operating at a profit, they're reporting good growth figures 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PompeyVillan Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Spotify are giving away a Google home mini for new and existing Family subscribers. Just claimed mine, couldn't believe it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 (edited) Claimed mine yesterday. Thought there had to be a catch. Nope. Available here. www.spotify.com/uk/family/ Quote Get a Google Home Mini with Premium for Family Multiple accounts. £14.99/month. Available for a limited time with a small-yet-mighty smart speaker. As of now the link is dead. Edited March 20, 2019 by Seat68 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 20, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted March 20, 2019 10 hours ago, PompeyVillan said: Spotify are giving away a Google home mini for new and existing Family subscribers. Just claimed mine, couldn't believe it. Where does one claim this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PompeyVillan Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, bickster said: Where does one claim this? https://www.spotify.com/uk/family/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 20, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted March 20, 2019 3 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said: https://www.spotify.com/uk/family/ Thank-you ordered! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 got mine ordered, not sure what it does...guessing its like a google version of alexa which if im honest i've also got thanks some deal somewhere meaning i picked one up for £10, i never use it i take it i can do something like link my spotify to it and say "spotify play miley cyrus" and it will play a banger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 5 hours ago, villa4europe said: got mine ordered, not sure what it does...guessing its like a google version of alexa which if im honest i've also got thanks some deal somewhere meaning i picked one up for £10, i never use it i take it i can do something like link my spotify to it and say "spotify play miley cyrus" and it will play a banger Words to that effect and if its a track off her last album it will absolutely be, as you say, a banger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PompeyVillan Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 On 20/03/2019 at 22:57, villa4europe said: got mine ordered, not sure what it does...guessing its like a google version of alexa which if im honest i've also got thanks some deal somewhere meaning i picked one up for £10, i never use it i take it i can do something like link my spotify to it and say "spotify play miley cyrus" and it will play a banger Aye, it's a Google assistant more than a useful speaker. However the Google Home infrastructure is cool, you can hook up Google Chromecast audios to any audio output devices that you have, as well as Google home devices and group them together. You can activate these with your voice. For example, "Hey Google play Led Zeppelin on downstairs speakers." Then all the grouped devices will play music in sync, activated from this little pod thingy. It's cool because you don't need to shell out loads of money on new hardware if you already have decent speakers around, you just hook up a Chromecast audio. That's how I intend to use it, I was delighted to be able to get this because I'm doing up my house with this in mind. I'm just trying to figure out how to get a Google home attached speaker in the bathroom ceiling. I like the idea of casting audio books whilst on the crapper. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 12 hours ago, PompeyVillan said: That's how I intend to use it, I was delighted to be able to get this because I'm doing up my house with this in mind. I'm just trying to figure out how to get a Google home attached speaker in the bathroom ceiling. I like the idea of casting audio books whilst on the crapper. Watch your devices try to sell you senokot just after passing a hedgehog. Seen a few online listening devices given away free or virtually free. Obviously you can make your own minds up why they do this, and if you care? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 Bumping this thread, as I've just upgraded to the paid version of Spotify. I have a question - what's to stop you joining for a month, downloading thousands of albums, and then leaving? I assume that these are not regular mp3s, i.e. you can only play them on Spotify, but can you play them on the free version, or do they somehow get disabled? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, mjmooney said: Bumping this thread, as I've just upgraded to the paid version of Spotify. I have a question - what's to stop you joining for a month, downloading thousands of albums, and then leaving? I assume that these are not regular mp3s, i.e. you can only play them on Spotify, but can you play them on the free version, or do they somehow get disabled? You can only 'stream' songs through the app, once you get rid of the app you lose all your songs/playlists. An interrelated point, an advantage of premium is that you're able to listen to your playlists 'offline', this isn't something you can do on the free version. This is a huge advantage for premium IMO. Edited April 23, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 (edited) i got an invite really early on (might even have been for the beta) and had used premium for as long as i can remember. Love it. Best money ever spent. Edited April 23, 2019 by sne 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrDuck Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 3 hours ago, mjmooney said: Bumping this thread, as I've just upgraded to the paid version of Spotify. I have a question - what's to stop you joining for a month, downloading thousands of albums, and then leaving? I assume that these are not regular mp3s, i.e. you can only play them on Spotify, but can you play them on the free version, or do they somehow get disabled? All your downloads are encoded so that they can only be played through the Spotify app - although there are other apps that will play them, you generally need to still be logged in to Spotify for them to work. That said... if you're willing to part with about US$40, there are other apps out there like Sidify that offer to convert your spotify downloads into generic mp3s that you can use of any device. This is technically piracy of course... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said: You can only 'stream' songs through the app, once you get rid of the app you lose all your songs/playlists. An interrelated point, an advantage of premium is that you're able to listen to your playlists 'offline', this isn't something you can do on the free version. This is a huge advantage for premium IMO. So, if I ever revert to the free version, all my downloaded music becomes unplayable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 minutes ago, mjmooney said: So, if I ever revert to the free version, all my downloaded music becomes unplayable? No, however you won't be able to listen to your music offline (so it will drain your data and have issues associated with poor connection (buffering etc)) and you'll have to put up with ads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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