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

[johngordon]

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

Let me just ask you again:

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.)

Yes or no?

 

[boltjames]

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.

+1

Free is the key word there. Apple Music bundles together a bunch of free services and charges for it. We get enough exposure to new music than ever before, YouTube, Pandora, iTunes Radio, 90 second previews, new music emerges on late night TV, TV series, movies, it's not 1980 where all you had to go by was a single FM station and a poster in the front window of Sears.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Not really no.

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

Here's what we know:

In a world where the average person only spends $12 a year on music and less than 2% of all iTunes users subscribe to a streaming service, Apple has released a new streaming service that makes sense only for the most hardcore of music listener. Such as yourself. So it makes sense that you think it's awesome. The other 98% of us will vote with our wallets, as we always do, and Apple Music will never be more than a niche product for a niche audience.

Pity because with a better pricing and feature structure it might have worked for most of us. I don't need the deep catalog and I don't need offline files. I like the better versions of iTunes Radio, would pay a nominal sum for that.

BJ

 

[johngordon]

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

Savvy? Do you even know what "patronise" means?

I get it - you are saying that music coming out today isn't as good as it was when you were young.

Just like about 90% of anyone your age in any other year.

 

[johngordon]

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

All of which makes a compelling point, if both of these things are true:

1. Music stopped in 2003.

2. Everyone has the same taste in music.

Unfortunately neither of these things are true.

You want us to believe that people who take music seriously have no interest in music post 2003.

 

[boltjames]

No.

Assumption 312 - that everyone was downloading everything from Napster 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?

The only person who would spend $120 on unlimited downloads today is the same person who went nuts when Napster and Limewire ruled the planet. Be they building collections illegally or via gluttonous iTunes usage, they have a huge back catalog so that offering from Apple leaves much to be desired.

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.

If you take the number of iTunes accounts and divide it by the number of paid Spotify accounts you get a very low number. Check my posts from yesterday. The math is all there.

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?

Bananas cost $1.25 per pound and music costs $1.00 per song. The pricing should suit all people if they want it to become something more than a niche product for a hardcore music consumer, someone who downloads so much they actually don't have time to listen to it all.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Let me just ask you again:

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?

Yes or no?

Yes. With iTunes Radio, if I hear a song I can download it into my Library and listen to it whenever I want.

This is no different than Apple Music Radio other than the payment model and the lack of actual ownership. Not sure why you keep hammering this point home as if it means something. At the smorgasbord you don't have to speak to a waiter and you can eat quickly. We get that. Some of us enjoy the dining experience.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

All of which makes a compelling point, if both of these things are true:

1. Music stopped in 2003.

2. Everyone has the same taste in music.

Unfortunately neither of these things are true.

You want us to believe that people who take music seriously have no interest in music post 2003.

No, not at all.

People who took music seriously in 2003 take it seriously here in 2015. But we're tired of all the iterations of the same theme and so few new bands worth paying attention to. So much so that even hardcore downloaders have converted to iTunes Radio and Pandora enthusiasts, two free services that do a better job than we can individually to program a party or a moment. That's before we even talk about the younger generations who don't even view music as an artform. They view it as something free and disposable. Which, today, is true.

BJ

 

[johngordon]

Yes. With iTunes Radio, if I hear a song I can download it into my Library and listen to it whenever I want.

This is no different than Apple Music Radio other than the payment model and the lack of actual ownership. Not sure why you keep hammering this point home as if it means something. At the smorgasbord you don't have to speak to a waiter and you can eat quickly. We get that. Some of us enjoy the dining experience.

BJ

Because my understanding is that iTunes Radio is a bit more limited, what with the ads and limited skipping.

That suggests to me that you can't download a bunch of albums and listen to them at will, as though they were any other albums in your library.

What dining experience - we're only talking about getting music onto a device so you can listen to it. So not sure where you're going with that analogy.

 

[johngordon]

No, not at all.

People who took music seriously in 2003 take it seriously here in 2015. But we're tired of all the iterations of the same theme and so few new bands worth paying attention to. So much so that even hardcore downloaders have converted to iTunes Radio and Pandora enthusiasts, two free services that do a better job than we can individually to program a party or a moment. That's before we even talk about the younger generations who don't even view music as an artform. They view it as something free and disposable. Which, today, is true.

BJ

Who is this mythical "we" you have taken it upon yourself to be the spokesperson for?

And either way, why is this even relevant to the pricing of AM / Spotify? I understand that a streaming service might not be for you.

What I don't get is your repeated insistence that they should be priced based on the least amount anyone spends on music.

Or your complete inability to grasp that just because it might not be for you, it might well be a good option for someone else, without being a little offensive about it.

 

[Arran]

...it's not 1980 where all you had to go by was a single FM station and a poster in the front window of Sears.

Okay, that gave me a good chuckle. There really were albums that I bought, unheard, simply because the cover art was cool. No kidding. Found some cool stuff that way. And a few duds!

 

[boltjames]

Because my understanding is that iTunes Radio is a bit more limited, what with the ads and limited skipping.

That suggests to me that you can't download a bunch of albums and listen to them at will, as though they were any other albums in your library.

What dining experience - we're only talking about getting music onto a device so you can listen to it. So not sure where you're going with that analogy.

I like you John, but you make it sound like this one-click-offline feature is some breakthrough and something the rest of us can't get on iTunes Radio for free.

iTunes Radio you hit the 'buy' button right under the album art, put your finger on the home button for a scan, that's it. In Apple Music, you tap a button to expose a menu and then another button to take offline. Seems like the same damn thing to me. Just like everything else about Apple Music. Same damn thing. Just more expensive.

BJ

 

[Arran]

You are not Jack Sparrow.

Got a source for that?

Just kidding.

 

[johngordon]

I like you John, but you make it sound like this one-click-offline feature is some breakthrough and something the rest of us can't get on iTunes Radio for free.

iTunes Radio you hit the 'buy' button right under the album art, put your finger on the home button for a scan, that's it. In Apple Music, you tap a button to expose a menu and then another button to take offline. Seems like the same damn thing to me. Just like everything else about Apple Music. Same damn thing. Just more expensive.

BJ

Why would you buy anything? I thought you just said that you could listen again to anything you heard as part of iTunes Radio?

Here's the thing - its only more expensive if you are only interested in listening to less than one new album a month. I completely get that, and always have.

But for a lot of people it wouldn't be more expensive. I don't see any value in factoring in 400m who spend $0 on music.

And despite you trying to argue that that would put someone in the top 1% of people interested in music, that figure is clearly way out, unless you really think it would take the most extreme, hardcore music fanatic 140 years to match your 25,000 song library.

Is that really what you think?

 

[\-V-/]

Why would you buy anything? I thought you just said that you could listen again to anything you heard as part of iTunes Radio?

Here's the thing - its only more expensive if you are only interested in listening to less than one new album a month.

So for a lot of people it wouldn't be more expensive.

And despite you trying to argue that that would put someone in the top 1% of people interested in music, that figure is clearly way out, unless you really think it would take the most extreme, hardcore music fanatic 140 years to match your 25,000 song library.

Is that what you think?

It really doesn't matter what's he saying at all. The millions of [paying] streaming service subscribers say otherwise. There's only so many ways he can state his opinion before he realizes it's just that ... an opinion. He's stuck in his bubble of "the good ol' days" ...

 

[boltjames]

Who is this mythical "we" you have taken it upon yourself to be the spokesperson for?

The 98% of iTunes users who like downloading, do it infrequently, and will never subscribe to a streaming service. Or, another way to put it, the silent majority who aren't in this particular thread to speak for themselves.

And either way, why is this even relevant to the pricing of AM / Spotify? I understand that a streaming service might not be for you.

Relevant because Apple is launching this service to be a Big Deal and if they don't get the pricing right it never will be.

What I don't get is your repeated insistence that they should be priced based on the least amount anyone spends on music.

What we know to be true is that the average iTunes user is listening to more music than ever before but spends only $12 per year on the songs they truly must own.

Or your complete inability to grasp that just because it might not be for you, it might well be a good option for someone else, without being a little offensive about it.

Music is free. You get that, right? No one shut down FM radio, no one discontinued Pandora, Apple didn't drop iTunes Radio, no one stopped YouTube, you know this, yes?

People will only pay for a song if it's special and they can't live without it. Overpaying for music you don't know you want is a ridiculous idea, it's counter to everything that's going on in the industry. It's a nice try to fleece the newbs though, and there are a legitimate handful of people like you who require more music every day than a porn site turns out new 19 year olds, so have at it and enjoy. It's a good option for you. It's just not for the 98% of us who like it the existing way and puts the onus on the record companies to get us excited before we pay them for anything.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Okay, that gave me a good chuckle. There really were albums that I bought, unheard, simply because the cover art was cool. No kidding. Found some cool stuff that way. And a few duds!

It's so true. I became a lifelong ELO fan because the cover of Out Of The Blue looked cooler than anything in Star Trek or Star Wars in a rack at Sam Goody Records on Long Island.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Why would you buy anything? I thought you just said that you could listen again to anything you heard as part of iTunes Radio?

I fly internationally quite a bit for work. I drive 2 hours daily. While XM or iTunes Radio allows me to listen to an unlimited amount of cool new/old music customized and randomized to my needs, every once in awhile you want to put on Boston's Peace Of Mind and drive 90 MPH in a German sportscar or listen to some Rachmaninoff at 30,000 feet.

And despite you trying to argue that that would put someone in the top 1% of people interested in music, that figure is clearly way out, unless you really think it would take the most extreme, hardcore music fanatic 140 years to match your 25,000 song library.

Is that really what you think?

I think that with the average user spending only $12 a year, if you spend $150+ in a year you are an outlier. And that's very cool. And that's very good. And Apple Music is perfect for you.

BJ

 

[johngordon]

The 98% of iTunes users who like downloading, do it infrequently, and will never subscribe to a streaming service. Or, another way to put it, the silent majority who aren't in this particular thread to speak for themselves.

Then they are lucky to have you.

Relevant because Apple is launching this service to be a Big Deal and if they don't get the pricing right it never will be.

Time will tell, although I suspect streaming will likely grow to some degree.

Just because someone doesn't think its worth buying an album for $12 doesn't mean they won't think that being able to listen to multiple albums a month for the same $12.

What we know to be true is that the average iTunes user is listening to more music than ever before but spends only $12 per year on the songs they truly must own.

Which, if nothing else, we know is skewed because it includes, according to you, 400m who spend $0.00. So it might be safe to assume that AM isn't for them, and so we should be able to take them out of the equation.

Music is free. You get that, right? No one shut down FM radio, no one discontinued Pandora, Apple didn't drop iTunes Radio, no one stopped YouTube, you know this, yes?

Sure - on the radio.

People will only pay for a song if it's special and they can't live without it. Overpaying for music you don't know you want is a ridiculous idea, it's counter to everything that's going on in the industry. It's a nice try to fleece the newbs though, and there are a legitimate handful of people like you who require more music every day than a porn site turns out new 19 year olds, so have at it and enjoy. It's a good option for you. It's just not for the 98% of us who like it the existing way and puts the onus on the record companies to get us excited before we pay them for anything.

BJ

In exactly what parallel universe is an average of 1-2 albums a month in any way, shape, or form extreme?

 

[johngordon]

I fly internationally quite a bit for work. I drive 2 hours daily. While XM or iTunes Radio allows me to listen to an unlimited amount of cool new/old music customized and randomized to my needs, every once in awhile you want to put on Boston's Peace Of Mind and drive 90 MPH in a German sportscar or listen to some Rachmaninoff at 30,000 feet.

Hmm. I'm still not convinced I've had a straight answer on exactly what you can and cannot do with iTunes Radio.

I think that with the average user spending only $12 a year, if you spend $150+ in a year you are an outlier. And that's very cool. And that's very good. And Apple Music is perfect for you.

BJ

If it would take me 140 years to amass a 25k song library, I'm not sure it makes me that much of an outlier.

I don't know how much you know about statistics, but I very much doubt this average would be slap bang in middle of a typical bell shaped graph showing a normal distribution.

Unless you think the lowest is 0, the average is 12, and the maximum is 24?

 

[boltjames]

Just because someone doesn't think its worth buying an album for $12 doesn't mean they won't think that being able to listen to multiple albums a month for the same $12.

Two different behaviors, completely different motivation:

Listening to random music in a genre you love is called "radio". And it's free.

Listening to a specific album by a band you love is called "purchasing". And it costs $12.

What you, and Apple Music, are trying to argue is for people to pay for radio. You can spin it any way you want, you can justify it financially, you can go round and round about features like For You and New and Offline but in the end an endless and random assortment of new and old songs in a specific genre is RADIO. And no one spends money for RADIO. We have had it for 90 years. And it's free.

Which, if nothing else, we know is skewed because it includes, according to you, 400m who spend $0.00. So it might be safe to assume that AM isn't for them, and so we should be able to take them out of the equation.

An average is an average. The people who say no and spend nothing are just as relevant as those who say yes and spend a lot. It's an average. It represents the entire iTunes public. It's extremely unskewed and it's the only way to look at it.

In exactly what parallel universe is an average of 1-2 albums a month in any way, shape, or form extreme?

In this universe, where 800 Million iTunes users only purchase 1 album a year, that's where.

Do this: Take everything you know and divide it by 12. Because you are 12x the typical iTunes user and your opinions are 12x more extreme.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Hmm. I'm still not convinced I've had a straight answer on exactly what you can and cannot do with iTunes Radio.

iTunes Radio is a portal of discovery that then requires two clicks to download song files into your Library.

Apple Music is a portal of discovery that then requires two clicks to download song files into your Library.

They are the same thing.

If it would take me 140 years to amass a 25k song library, I'm not sure it makes me that much of an outlier.

Your steady, average monthly consumption appears to be 12x the average. I only have 25,000 songs because an explosion of content found its way to me 15 years ago. Take out that 1 year, take out all the stuff I needed to convert from vinyl to digital anyway, you'll find that in a hot year I'll pull down 8 albums and in a lame year I'll pull down 0, average year must be 2-3 albums and that's it.

I don't know how much you know about statistics, but I very much doubt this average would be slap bang in middle of a typical bell shaped graph showing a normal distribution.

Unless you think the lowest is 0, the average is 12, and the maximum is 24?

Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Streaming is radio and people don't pay for radio. Radio is free. Radio is a promotional vehicle to sell a product. Radio is an advertisement, it's not the medium. Consumers have a fair deal with record labels. They release songs, they get played on the radio, radio stations sell advertising, consumers hear new material repeatedly. What we like we purchase. What we don't like we merely listen to. People don't pay for radio.

BJ

 

[shandyman]

Here's what we know:

In a world where the average person only spends $12 a year on music and less than 2% of all iTunes users subscribe to a streaming service, Apple has released a new streaming service that makes sense only for the most hardcore of music listener. Such as yourself. So it makes sense that you think it's awesome. The other 98% of us will vote with our wallets, as we always do, and Apple Music will never be more than a niche product for a niche audience.

Pity because with a better pricing and feature structure it might have worked for most of us. I don't need the deep catalog and I don't need offline files. I like the better versions of iTunes Radio, would pay a nominal sum for that.

BJ

Again with the false fact of $12 a year. That has already been proven to be an incorrect figure. Therefore, making your post invalid.

 

[shandyman]

The only person who would spend $120 on unlimited downloads today is the same person who went nuts when Napster and Limewire ruled the planet. Be they building collections illegally or via gluttonous iTunes usage, they have a huge back catalog so that offering from Apple leaves much to be desired.

Again, another sweeping generalisation with no facts to back it up. Your pushing assumptions based on you onto the rest of the world.

If you take the number of iTunes accounts and divide it by the number of paid Spotify accounts you get a very low number. Check my posts from yesterday. The math is all there.

Again, the total number of iTunes accounts is irrelevant. The more relevant would be total number of active iTunes accounts that buys music. Even then you'll have more accounts than is proper, as you'll have people with multiple accounts, but at least it'll be more relevant than what you're posting.

 

[shandyman]

No, not at all.

People who took music seriously in 2003 take it seriously here in 2015. But we're tired of all the iterations of the same theme and so few new bands worth paying attention to. So much so that even hardcore downloaders have converted to iTunes Radio and Pandora enthusiasts, two free services that do a better job than we can individually to program a party or a moment. That's before we even talk about the younger generations who don't even view music as an artform. They view it as something free and disposable. Which, today, is true.

BJ

Again, another post brought to us by boltjames - made up facts and sweeping generalisations by Waldorf & Stadler.