Well, That Was Quick - Bored Already, Not Going To Keep Apple Music

[Supermallet]

I think we can boil the argument down to this:

If you have a big existing collection and you feel that good music stopped or seriously decreased after you graduated college, Streaming services probably aren't for you.

If you don't have a big collection and/or you are constantly checking out new music because you realize the world didn't end when you got old, streaming services may be for you.

 

[boltjames]

But what do you even mean "the back catalogue of good stuff"?

This is the crux of your whole flawed argument - that "the good stuff" stopped 15-20 years ago.

Whilst you might think so (which in itself is ironic given that you are supposedly really cool and still love your music), to state something like that as some sort of definitive fact is utter nonsense.

Back Catalog: Anyone over the age of 34 already has all the old music they want because it was so easy to get from 1996-2002 and then when iTunes made it legit.

New Stuff: Not enough being produced to make a difference, at least in the Genre's that I frequent like Alternative, Rock, Pop, etc.

Flawed Argument: That would be yours, that more than 1.5% of iTunes users would want to pay $120 a year for a medium that right now they spend $12 on, and most spend $0 on.

Crux: People under the age of 35 care less and less about music as their ages go down. My 11 year old daughter hums a few songs and asks me to put a certain XM station on the car radio but she hasn't asked me to buy her a song, ever. My 14 year old son pulls down the albums that I purchase as we have a shared account and he likes my taste in music, again, has never asked me to buy him a song or artist he found on his own. My 17 year old son just bought a used BMW without Bluetooth or satellite and is happily rummaging through my 25,000 song collection to burn CDR's of tracks he likes because he heard them while playing Grand Theft Auto 5. That's the State Of The Union of music in 2015.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

But its completely unrealistic to expect AM to be priced according to the little that you feel you personally would get out of it.

Why can't you understand that?

Its like saying that you only go to the cinema once a year, therefore an unlimited card for the cinema should cost $20.

Utterly unrealistic.

Cinema has a business model that we have all accepted and isn't changing. Movie tickets cost $15, you pay as you go, you buy your popcorn, that's that. Most go to movies not to see the artistry but as an excuse to get a girl in the dark or get away from the kids for a few hours between diaper changes.

Music has a business model that we all have accepted and despite attempts to the contrary, isn't changing. Music is free over the airwaves, used to be FM, now includes Pandora, iTunes Radio, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. When you hear a song that you absolutely love, that's earned your respect, you buy it for a buck, play it for a week until you're sick of it, put it on a few playlists so it comes back to you down the road, and you move on.

This concept of "unlimited free music!" has existed since Westinghouse Radio appeared in 1920 and it continued through today in different forms. You buy only what you love. The concept of paying for unlimited music is a strange one. It's really just commercial free radio. At its essence, that's all Apple Music is too.

BJ

 

[Supermallet]

Back Catalog: Anyone over the age of 34 already has all the old music they want because it was so easy to get from 1996-2002 and then when iTunes made it legit.

New Stuff: Not enough being produced to make a difference, at least in the Genre's that I frequent like Alternative, Rock, Pop, etc.

Flawed Argument: That would be yours, that more than 1.5% of iTunes users would want to pay $120 a year for a medium that right now they spend $12 on, and most spend $0 on.

Crux: People under the age of 35 care less and less about music as their ages go down. My 11 year old daughter hums a few songs and asks me to put a certain XM station on the car radio but she hasn't asked me to buy her a song, ever. My 14 year old son pulls down the albums that I purchase as we have a shared account and he likes my taste in music, again, has never asked me to buy him a song or artist he found on his own. My 17 year old son just bought a used BMW without Bluetooth or satellite and is happily rummaging through my 25,000 song collection to burn CDR's of tracks he likes because he heard them while playing Grand Theft Auto 5. That's the State Of The Union of music in 2015.

BJ

That's the state of the union of your kids in 2015 and once again you've confused your specific circumstances with facts.

The plural of anecdote isn't data, so stop treating it like it is.

 

[boltjames]

But it sounds like you are happy to just listen to the tracks in the playlists.

But what about if you hear stuff you like, and want to go off and listen to whole albums by artists you hear?

That is the huge benefit of streaming that you don't seem to have grasped.

With AM, if I hear a song in a playlist, I can download the album its from into my library and listen to it whenever I want.

Are you able to do that with iTunes Radio? (being able to buy it doesn't count, because that's no longer iTunes Radio, that's you buying it.)

For artists I already love, they come out with a new album, I buy it without even previewing it. So few of my favorite artists are making new LP's, it's a given I'll just pull them down.

For artists I discover, it's always started with a single song, if I really like it a lot I'll go to YouTube and see what other tracks they're performing live on late night TV shows. After that gate, I'll launch iTunes album previews and listen to snippets of all the songs. If more than 4 songs are equally compelling, I buy the whole album on the spot, listen to it in its entirety the next day in the car on the way to work and back.

There is no benefit in streaming whatsoever. It's just a delivery mechanism. I prefer to download and own vs. stream and rent. Apple Music as a platform has benefits, but that's related to stations and playlists that seem to be curated with a little more care than on iTunes Radio. I like it, I would pay for it, but not $120.

BJ

 

[shandyman]

What the artists get paid is an issue between them and their record companies who apparently don't value them very much.

The music industry has already collapsed; Apple Music is a last gasp to try to make a bad business model better by making it worse.

BJ

More over dramatic nonsense. No ounce of factual information in your post. You're great at creative writing. Ever thought about becoming an author?

 

[boltjames]

If I can listen to 30+ albums a year that would normally cost around $300, how exactly am I wasting my money with AM if it costs $120?

You are a special case, a 1%'er. Apple Music is terrific under two circumstance which I've said multiple times before:

1. Newb without a library or family into music.
2. Extremist who routinely spends more than $120 a year.

Apple Music is just a coupon for you, just a discount, just a promotion. Instead of paying as you go off the menu you have a smorgasbord. You're in the minority. You wind up with some interesting features and a fair-thee-well demeanor about taking songs offline, but you lose several artists who won't allow streaming (Beatles, Prince, Neil Young, many others). It's not some quantum leap here. It's not like the introduction of Cable TV, the iPhone, and other Earth shattering mind blowing technologies.

You've just gotten more music for less money. Congratulations. Burger King sent me a buy 1 Whopper get 1 free coupon too so I know how you're feeling.

BJ

 

[shandyman]

Ripping CDs is illegal in the UK??

Yup. As of 2 days ago. It was made legal about 9 months ago, but got overturned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...egal-again-after-high-court-overturns-new-law

It would be funny if boltjames lived in the U.K., between the fines/jail time for illegal downloads, illegal cd ripping and distribution of all of those (as giving family access counts as distribution), along with his using a mobile device when driving, will cost him a bucket load more than if he just had Apple Music

 

[shandyman]

Here, I'll say it in a way that perhaps you can understand:

Anyone in their 40s and 50s who was interested in music as an enthusiast already has thousands of songs and doesn't need any more.

Savvy?

BJ

Apart from that's a made up fact, based on your own situation.

 

[shandyman]

Back Catalog: Anyone over the age of 34 already has all the old music they want because it was so easy to get from 1996-2002 and then when iTunes made it legit.

New Stuff: Not enough being produced to make a difference, at least in the Genre's that I frequent like Alternative, Rock, Pop, etc.

Flawed Argument: That would be yours, that more than 1.5% of iTunes users would want to pay $120 a year for a medium that right now they spend $12 on, and most spend $0 on.

Crux: People under the age of 35 care less and less about music as their ages go down. My 11 year old daughter hums a few songs and asks me to put a certain XM station on the car radio but she hasn't asked me to buy her a song, ever. My 14 year old son pulls down the albums that I purchase as we have a shared account and he likes my taste in music, again, has never asked me to buy him a song or artist he found on his own. My 17 year old son just bought a used BMW without Bluetooth or satellite and is happily rummaging through my 25,000 song collection to burn CDR's of tracks he likes because he heard them while playing Grand Theft Auto 5. That's the State Of The Union of music in 2015.

BJ

Again, your posts are sweeping generalisations based on your own opinion. Not actually real facts for everyone.

It's your opinions about people under 35. I'm under 35 and I don't have all the back catalogue I want.

 

[boltjames]

Uh-huh.

That would be a much better point if this was a science lab, and once you had one song that sounded within a set of parameters, you had no interest in hearing any other song remotely close to those parameters.

That's not really how music works for most people. I haven't, for example, decided that I don't need The Killers in my library because some of their stuff can sound a bit like other stuff from the 80s.

The very idea just seems bonkers.

Good lord. Let this cliche thing die already.

Remember when Elvis Presley burst on the scene and people called him "a white boy playing jungle music"? Remember when they burned Beatles albums in the midwest? New genres, breaking new ground, angering the prior generations because they couldn't relate. Elvis Presley sounded nothing like Benny Goodman, the Beatles sounded nothing like Percy Faith.

There is no angry grandpa because we still listen to those identical genres to this day. What once was very different and offensive to prior generations is now business as usual. Rock, Pop, Singer-Songwriter, Britpop, still going strong, in fact they represent about 90% of what most want from the music industry. My kids listen to the same genres I did and my dad did. We don't have a generation gap; we have a content gap. The whining we oldsters have about music today isn't about genres we find offensive. It's about bad product being released and ruining the genres we love.

Savvy?

BJ

 

[shandyman]

You are a special case, a 1%'er. Apple Music is terrific under two circumstance which I've said multiple times before:

1. Newb without a library or family into music.
2. Extremist who routinely spends more than $120 a year.

Apple Music is just a coupon for you, just a discount, just a promotion. Instead of paying as you go off the menu you have a smorgasbord. You're in the minority. You wind up with some interesting features and a fair-thee-well demeanor about taking songs offline, but you lose several artists who won't allow streaming (Beatles, Prince, Neil Young, many others). It's not some quantum leap here. It's not like the introduction of Cable TV, the iPhone, and other Earth shattering mind blowing technologies.

You've just gotten more music for less money. Congratulations. Burger King sent me a buy 1 Whopper get 1 free coupon too so I know how you're feeling.

BJ

How is he a 1%er. Every time he challenges you on that erroneous fact? You ignore it like the plague. He gave some bang on points and you clearly are avoiding, as it shoots your outlandish claims out the window.....

 

[boltjames]

So you amassed 25,000 songs over a 40 year period then? Roughly.

Which is the equivalent of about 50 albums a year.

Given that many people would easily have a library of at least double that, how exactly did you arrive at the conclusion that I would be in the most extreme 1% of hardcore music nuts with my 10,000 song library and 15-30 albums a year?

The simple fact is this: just because you don't hear much new stuff that you want to listen to does not mean that there isn't an abundance of new music that plenty of other people do want to listen to.

The idea that "all the good music has already been created" is just utter, utter nonsense.

Or actually, is it all the good music, apart from your Tame Impala album which snuck through the net?

It's funny that you dismiss the line about you just being like millions before bemoaning that "music just isn't as good as it used to be" as a cliche, but here you are saying exactly that!

Or are we to believe that anyone before you saying that was just uncool Dad of any other year....

...but when you say it, it carries some sort of definitive authority?

Anyone over the age of 35 who takes music seriously already has a huge collection into the tens of thousands of songs. They lived through Napster, moved to Limewire, ripped their friends CD's, got hard drive after hard drive of other peoples collections, eventually did it legit on iTunes post-2003. They have the back catalog they always wanted. They have more music sitting in drives and drawers than they know what to do with.

For everyone else, anyone in their 20's or early 30's, great, Apple Music is a smorgasbord, can quickly pay catch up and build a nice library, it's the Napster moment for those who weren't around the first time. For the rest of us, it's a very obvious money grab by record companies to trick my children into paying $120 a year for something that is already available to them and they're not falling for it.

BJ

 

[shandyman]

Good lord. Let this cliche thing die already.

So, because it's a valid point being made against you, you want to try and to disregard it?

Any time people make valid points, call you on your bs points, flat out lies, etc, you either ignore them, go on inane tangents, or just try and make personal insults or move the goal posts. Poor skills, poor.

 

[shandyman]

Anyone over the age of 35 who takes music seriously already has a huge collection into the tens of thousands of songs. They lived through Napster, moved to Limewire, ripped their friends CD's, got hard drive after hard drive of other peoples collections, eventually did it legit on iTunes post-2003. They have the back catalog they always wanted. They have more music sitting in drives and drawers than they know what to do with.

For everyone else, anyone in their 20's or early 30's, great, Apple Music is a smorgasbord, can quickly pay catch up and build a nice library, it's the Napster moment for those who weren't around the first time. For the rest of us, it's a very obvious money grab by record companies to trick my children into paying $120 a year for something that is already available to them and they're not falling for it.

BJ

Again, this is not data. This is personal anecdotal information.

I don't have the back catalog I wanted. I only got into AC/DC, when I was 33 and, thanks to Apple Music, I now have access to more albums, without paying a butt ton. By your reckoning, I should have had that when I was 21.

People can be into music and not have everything they want. People's tastes change, at any age. You don't just stop learning and liking new genres at 30.

 

[shandyman]

Anyone over the age of 35 who takes music seriously already has a huge collection into the tens of thousands of songs. They lived through Napster, moved to Limewire, ripped their friends CD's, got hard drive after hard drive of other peoples collections, eventually did it legit on iTunes post-2003. They have the back catalog they always wanted. They have more music sitting in drives and drawers than they know what to do with.

By your rules, This person is a 1%er. So for that 1%er, Apple Music is not really for them.

Not everyone used limewire or napster. I know serious music fans that never used that. They abhorred illegal downloads.

I also know serious music fans that didn't care about legality, but just didn't download.

Again, you're pushing your personal experiences as universal factual data. Which is wrong. Doing that, basically makes any of your points worthless and irrelevant.

The majority of people are not like that.

 

[Arran]

I think we can boil the argument down to this:

If you have a big existing collection and you feel that good music stopped or seriously decreased after you graduated college, Streaming services probably aren't for you.

If you don't have a big collection and/or you are constantly checking out new music because you realize the world didn't end when you got old, streaming services may be for you.

I have a big collection AND I'm constantly checking out new music, but I can do all that for free. Simplest way is click the <Preview All button> in iTunes. That provides about 12 tracks * 90 seconds per track = 18 minutes listening from any album on iTunes. Repeat if not sure. Enough for me to make a buying decision.

 

[shandyman]

I have a big collection AND I'm constantly checking out new music, but I can do all that for free. Simplest way is click the <Preview All button> in iTunes. That provides about 12 tracks * 90 seconds per track = 18 minutes listening from any album on iTunes. Repeat if not sure. Enough for me to make a buying decision.

That's good for you. No one really has an issue with people that like doing that. The issue is boltjames making sweeping remarks saying that Apple Music is a ripoff for everyone, because he said so. He cannot accept that the majority of people are not actually being ripped off by streaming and that his personal experience is my the same thing as factual data for everyone. He's the Kim Jong Un of anti-streaming....

 

[johngordon]

Here, I'll say it in a way that perhaps you can understand:

Anyone in their 40s and 50s who was interested in music as an enthusiast already has thousands of songs and doesn't need any more.

Savvy?

BJ

Not really no.

Mainly because you still insist on making sweeping generalisations and assumptions based on your own views.

 

[Supermallet]

I have a big collection AND I'm constantly checking out new music, but I can do all that for free. Simplest way is click the <Preview All button> in iTunes. That provides about 12 tracks * 90 seconds per track = 18 minutes listening from any album on iTunes. Repeat if not sure. Enough for me to make a buying decision.

That's why I said a streaming service MAY be for you, not definitely is for you. I understand the confusion though, several people here have acted as if their personal opinion were immutable fact for the entire world.

 

[johngordon]

Back Catalog: Anyone over the age of 34 already has all the old music they want because it was so easy to get from 1996-2002 and then when iTunes made it legit.

No.

Assumption 312 - that everyone was downloading everything from Napster etc.

New Stuff: Not enough being produced to make a difference, at least in the Genre's that I frequent like Alternative, Rock, Pop, etc.

How many times? Just because you have no interest in new music doesn't mean that no-one else has.

Seriously - why do you have so much trouble accepting that?

Flawed Argument: That would be yours, that more than 1.5% of iTunes users would want to pay $120 a year for a medium that right now they spend $12 on, and most spend $0 on.

Hold_on_a_minute.

Where are you even getting these figures from?

Your $12 a year average already needs to be taken with a big pinch of salt. But now you are saying 400m iTunes users spend $0 on music? For people who spend $0 on music probably won't be interested in spending $120 on AM. Why is that even relevant?

I don't think I said anything about 1.5%, but I would imagine there would be more than 1.5% of people who are interested in music who would be interested enough to consider $120 pretty good value.

That's only the equivalent of one album a month.

Crux: People under the age of 35 care less and less about music as their ages go down. My 11 year old daughter hums a few songs and asks me to put a certain XM station on the car radio but she hasn't asked me to buy her a song, ever. My 14 year old son pulls down the albums that I purchase as we have a shared account and he likes my taste in music, again, has never asked me to buy him a song or artist he found on his own. My 17 year old son just bought a used BMW without Bluetooth or satellite and is happily rummaging through my 25,000 song collection to burn CDR's of tracks he likes because he heard them while playing Grand Theft Auto 5. That's the State Of The Union of music in 2015.

BJ

I have no problem in agreeing that for a lot of people their interest in music declines as they get older.

What I still don't understand is why that is relevant to the pricing of AM or Spotify. Why on earth should they be priced at a price point that suits the people least likely to want to use it?

As for your kids - I would say all of that is incredibly unusual.

 

[johngordon]

Cinema has a business model that we have all accepted and isn't changing. Movie tickets cost $15, you pay as you go, you buy your popcorn, that's that. Most go to movies not to see the artistry but as an excuse to get a girl in the dark or get away from the kids for a few hours between diaper changes.

Music has a business model that we all have accepted and despite attempts to the contrary, isn't changing. Music is free over the airwaves, used to be FM, now includes Pandora, iTunes Radio, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook. When you hear a song that you absolutely love, that's earned your respect, you buy it for a buck, play it for a week until you're sick of it, put it on a few playlists so it comes back to you down the road, and you move on.

This concept of "unlimited free music!" has existed since Westinghouse Radio appeared in 1920 and it continued through today in different forms. You buy only what you love. The concept of paying for unlimited music is a strange one. It's really just commercial free radio. At its essence, that's all Apple Music is too.

BJ

Well, we have unlimited cards for cinemas in the UK.

And using your logic you would price them at about $20-30 per year.

Good job on more sweeping generalisations about why people go to the cinema though.

 

[kenyatta7002]

I want AM to scrobble to Last.FM. This is the main issue that will keep me from keeping an individual subscription. My wife & daughter simply like our family subscription to Rdio better.

 

[johngordon]

You are a special case, a 1%'er. Apple Music is terrific under two circumstance which I've said multiple times before:

1. Newb without a library or family into music.
2. Extremist who routinely spends more than $120 a year.

Apple Music is just a coupon for you, just a discount, just a promotion. Instead of paying as you go off the menu you have a smorgasbord. You're in the minority. You wind up with some interesting features and a fair-thee-well demeanor about taking songs offline, but you lose several artists who won't allow streaming (Beatles, Prince, Neil Young, many others). It's not some quantum leap here. It's not like the introduction of Cable TV, the iPhone, and other Earth shattering mind blowing technologies.

You've just gotten more music for less money. Congratulations. Burger King sent me a buy 1 Whopper get 1 free coupon too so I know how you're feeling.

BJ

We've been through this - your numbers just don't stack up!

You are seriously trying to argue that I am a special case, an extremist....

Because I might be interested in listening to more than 12 albums a year?

It would take me nearly 140 years to amass your 25,000 song library at that rate.

So if I'm in the most extreme 1% where does that put you?

You keep ignoring this point.

How do I lose those artists? I have just double checked, and it seems I still have a huge amount of Prince in my library. It didn't magically delete itself when I signed up for AM.

Great story about BK - presumably you won't use it, because they're ripping you off, and you'd prefer to pay for your two Whoppers at full price.

 

[\-V-/]

Anyone over the age of 35 who takes music seriously already has a huge collection into the tens of thousands of songs. They lived through Napster, moved to Limewire, ripped their friends CD's, got hard drive after hard drive of other peoples collections, eventually did it legit on iTunes post-2003. They have the back catalog they always wanted. They have more music sitting in drives and drawers than they know what to do with.

For everyone else, anyone in their 20's or early 30's, great, Apple Music is a smorgasbord, can quickly pay catch up and build a nice library, it's the Napster moment for those who weren't around the first time. For the rest of us, it's a very obvious money grab by record companies to trick my children into paying $120 a year for something that is already available to them and they're not falling for it.

BJ

It's like all your posts are just a huge collection of sweeping generalizations. We should compile a book and have MacRumors publish it.