Spotify

Even with double the subscribers, Spotify says Apple will always have some edge owning the app store – TechCrunch

“Apple, for example, charges apps a percentage of revenue for subscriptions processed through the App Store. Apple Music, meanwhile, will always deliver Apple 100% of the subscription revenue that it receives from subscribers (sans record fees and all that kind of stuff, of course). Apple, too, has a direct integration with its iOS devices and also a huge amount of brand recognition even though Spotify is a massive service.”

Yes, but Apple has an even bigger advantage: they don’t need to make a profit from Apple Music. They make their money selling hardware, and Spotify only has their music streaming activity. This isn’t to say that Apple will lose money on Apple Music, or continue to do so (it’s possible that Apple Music is not yet profitable), but that Apple doesn’t have to worry about its investors getting antsy about profit or loss in what is a small part of their activity. Apple is clearly betting on content being a major profit center, with their focus on creating new video content, but they can well afford to wait this out.

Apple is playing the long game; Spotify only has one game they can play, and that’s profit and loss.

Source: Even with double the subscribers, Spotify says Apple will always have some edge owning the app store | TechCrunch

The 10,000 Track Limit: Why I Switched from Spotify to Apple Music – TidBITS

Say what you will about the deluge of subscriptions, but I like subscribing to a streaming music service so I can explore music without the stress of having to decide if I want to buy any particular track.

[…]

but the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I ran headfirst into Spotify’s 10,000 track limit. You read that right — despite the fact that Spotify is a streaming service that contains over 30 million tracks, you cannot add more than 10,000 to your collection. This utterly arbitrary limit was a true deal-breaker.

I had no idea that Spotify had a 10,000-track limit. We groaned back in the day when iTunes Match was launched with a 25,000-track limit, and we sighed with relief when that was increased, both for iTunes Match and Apple Music – to 100,000 tracks. Naturally, it’s a bit different, since Apple’s services let you upload your own library. But since with Spotify you don’t use any of their server space, why have such a low limit?

Someone at Apple told me a few years ago that the average user has a library of a few thousand tracks. But, again, this is a combination of their own music and music they’ve added from Apple Music. With a service like this, which allows you to listen to millions of tracks, how can they limit your collection to 10,000?

Source: The 10,000 Track Limit: Why I Switched from Spotify to Apple Music – TidBITS

Spotify Starts Dipping Toes in the Lossless Water; is Apple Next?

Reports suggest that Spotify is A/B testing a new lossless option on some users. A small group of Spotify users have been presented with an option to add lossless streaming to their subscription for an additional $5 or $10 a month. This would be the biggest lossless streaming service, if Spotify did go in that direction. But does this make any sense?

While a number of niche streaming services, and Tidal, offer lossless streaming, this higher-quality offering doesn’t seem to interest many people, and rightly so. It uses more data, and unless you’re listening on a very good stereo, you’re unlikely to hear the difference between Spotify’s 320 kbps MP3 and lossless, which is the same quality as CDs. (Want to find out? Test yourself.)

But as streaming services become commodified, and have little to differentiate them other than a handful of exclusives, they need some way to stay relevant. Spotify will certainly roll this out in the near future, but I don’t expect lossless streaming to be met with much success. If you listen to music on earbuds, or even Beats headphones, or if you often listen on a tiny Bluetooth speaker, paying for lossless would just be a waste. Some people will welcome this, but not enough to make a difference.

The next question is whether Apple will follow this lead. Apple Music is, after a rocky start, now relatively stable, and easy enough to use, and it’s now humming along, slowly adding new subscribers. But there is a ceiling to the number of people willing to pay $10 a month for music, and Apple Music will start hitting that soon. While lots of people like music, not many care enough to want to pay for it. So if Apple adds lossless streaming to their offer, it would either be to catch up with Spotify (if Spotify does indeed launch their lossless offer), or, if they do it first, to position themselves as a higher-end service.

But, again, not enough people care about lossless music. Just like Spotify’s 320 kbps MP3 files, Apple’s 256 kbps AAC files are good enough for the vast majority of listeners. I think Apple will eventually offer lossless streaming, but it will be hard to sell it.

Remember when Apple touted 128 kbps AAC files as “CD quality?” Then iTunes Plus files (256 kbps) as “high-quality AAC format?” Well, you can’t go on saying that one is CD quality, and the other is better, but, wait, lossless is really CD quality.

This said, if Apple started selling lossless files in the iTunes Store, I think this would make a difference. They would sell more music to the limited number of people who still buy music, because lossless files truly are CD quality, and anyone who still buys a lot of music would prefer having lossless files (even if they can’t hear the difference; they’re better as archival files).

As for high-resolution streaming, I think we’re still not going to see that on any massive scale for a while. There simply is no need.

Now, add Spotify to the list of platforms that are opening up their user data to targeted advertising: Yesterday, Spotify announced the global rollout of programmatic buying, which will means third-party companies will have access to the 70 million fans who use Spotify’s free, ad-supported streaming across 59 territories and regions around the world, from the U.S. and the U.K. to the South Pacific.

As Spotify points out in its press release about this development, companies will be able to target Spotify users not just by their age, gender, language and geography — but also by the genres and playlists they choose to listen to. And those companies will be able to look for specific wedges of the audience that they think are the best matches for the products and services they’re selling, in 15- and 30-second chunks of time.

Apple wouldn’t do this.

Source: Spotify Is Now Letting Other Companies Check Out Your Tunes — And You – NPR

Spotify Amends Privacy Policy, Clearing Up Confusion, and Using Clearer Language

Spotify ruffled some feathers a couple of weeks ago when they introduced a new privacy policy. Some of the language was obfuscatory, and the internet got the fantods.

But to Spotify’s credit, the founder Daniel Ek quickly came out and apologized, and Spotify has published a new, clearer privacy policy.

This is actually the way privacy policies should be written. Spotify tells you what data it’s collecting, and why. For example, they say things like:

* Technical and sensor information necessary to operate Spotify. This includes the type of browser and device you use, data from the touchscreen, and information from your device’s accelerometer and gyroscope sensors. This enables you to control Spotify and allows us to do simple things like rotate videos and recommend music based on whether you’re sitting still or running.

So, kudos to Spotify for clearing this up. I hope other companies start using a more clear approach to their privacy policy in the future.

Update: Well, as Doug points out in the comments, Spotify is spamming Foo Fighters fans… I guess it was too good to be true; thinking that a company would actually treat its users honestly. As Daniel Ek would say, “Um, ok.”

Spotify’s New Privacy Policy Is Downright Invasive (But They’re Sorry)

Update: Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has apologized for being invasive. They’re going to try to figure out how to word all this better.

It looks like Spotify is trying to give users a good reason to switch to Apple Music. As first reported in Forbes, Spotify’s new privacy policy is particularly invasive. Here are some of the more egregious sections:

3.3 Information Stored on Your Mobile Device
With your permission, we may collect information stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files. Local law may require that you seek the consent of your contacts to provide their personal information to Spotify, which may use that information for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.

3.4 Location and sensor information
Depending on the type of device that you use to interact with the Service and your settings, we may also collect information about your location based on, for example, your phone’s GPS location or other forms of locating mobile devices (e.g., Bluetooth). We may also collect sensor data (e.g., data about the speed of your movements, such as whether you are running, walking, or in transit).

Spotify seems to want to peer into much of your personal data: contacts, photos, media files. To be fair, this section doesn’t mean that it’s going to scan your entire device; it may simply mean that it will need permission to access your contacts to allow you to search for users based on their email addresses, or that it needs access to your photos to allow you to choose a photo for your profile. However, the privacy policy does not specify this, and it would be a good idea for Spotify to make such things clearer. And media files? Well, it can play back files that you’ve synced to your device, so there’s nothing invasive about that.

The sensor data – your pace – is needed for Spotify’s new feature of playlists that match your running speed. The location data is a bit more worrisome; I really don’t want Spotify to track where I am.

Spotify also wants to monetize you. And that’s what’s invasive.

3.8 Spotify service providers and partners
We may also receive information about you from our service providers and partners, which we use to personalise your Spotify experience, to measure ad quality and responses to ads, and to display ads that are more likely to be relevant to you.

5.2.1 Marketing and advertising
We may share information with advertising partners in order to send you promotional communications about Spotify or to show you more tailored content, including relevant advertising for products and services that may be of interest to you, and to understand how users interact with advertisements. The information we share is in a de-identified format (for example, through the use of hashing) that does not personally identify you.

So they want to spam you.

Finally, they want to use and share your payment data, even with companies that may be outside the country you live in, and even if it is, according to local law, information that is not allowed to be shared:

BY ACCEPTING THE PRIVACY POLICY, YOU EXPRESSLY AUTHORISE SPOTIFY TO USE AND SHARE WITH OTHER COMPANIES IN THE SPOTIFY GROUP, AS WELL AS CERTAIN TRUSTED BUSINESS PARTNERS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS, WHICH MAY BE LOCATED OUTSIDE OF THE COUNTRY OF YOUR RESIDENCE (INCLUDING COUNTRIES WHICH DO NOT PROVIDE THE SAME LEVEL OF PROTECTION FOR THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA AS THE COUNTRY OF YOUR RESIDENCE), THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY YOU TO SPOTIFY, EVEN IF SUCH INFORMATION IS COVERED BY LOCAL BANKING SECRECY LAWS. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE TO THE IMPORTANCE OF SHARING SUCH INFORMATION FOR THE PROVISION OF THE SPOTIFY SERVICE AND ALSO AGREE THAT, BY ACCEPTING THIS PRIVACY POLICY, WHERE APPLICABLE AND TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YOU EXPRESSLY WAIVE YOUR RIGHTS UNDER SUCH BANK SECRECY LAWS WITH REGARD TO SPOTIFY, ANY COMPANY IN THE SPOTIFY GROUP, AND ANY TRUSTED BUSINESS PARTNERS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS, WHICH MAY BE LOCATED OUTSIDE YOUR COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE. THIS CONSENT IS GIVEN FOR THE DURATION OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH SPOTIFY.

(Sorry for the all caps; that’s how it appears in Spotify’s privacy policy.)

Finally, Spotify reserves the right to sell your personal data:

5.2.5 Other sharing

In addition to the above, we may also share your information with third parties for these limited purposes:

to allow a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets;

Most people will simply ignore this. But if you do care about privacy, it might be time to check out that free Apple Music trial.

Why Not Use Spotify?

Over the weekend, Dave Mark of The Loop, was asking, on Twitter, about what people think of Spotify. He did an experiment, comparing it to Apple Music, asking So why don’t you just use Spotify?.

Dave’s article is insightful. He starts off with my biggest gripe about Spotify:

Spotify’s interface is complex and confusing…

But continues to say that it’s “no more so than Apple Music.” My biggest complaint about Spotify is one that’s really easy to fix: their white-on-black interface is very hard to read. It may be cool among young people with good eyes, but it’s a FU to anyone whose eyesight isn’t perfect. I find it hard to navigate, hard to read, and uninviting, and this both on the desktop and on mobile.

Dave says:

Spotify allows you to follow curated, active playlists. Apple Music has a similar feature, described here.

Spotify does this much better, and Apple will need to emulate them. What you can do on Spotify that you can’t do on Apple Music is follow playlists that anyone creates. Sure, you can follow mine if I share them with you, but you can’t search for playlists or users and add their playlists to your library (or, in Spotify, the hard-to-use sidebar). This gives Spotify a big advantage, especially if you’re interested in obscure music. There are lots of users who share their eclectic tastes.

Dave points out other areas where Apple comes out ahead, such as the price of a family plan. But he concludes:

Bottom line, Apple Music has a distinct home field advantage. If Apple can find a way to unify the iOS and Mac universes, sand off the rough edges from both interfaces […], this is their ball game to lose.

Yep. If.