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

[johngordon]

I can understand why some can see the value in it. At first, I really enjoyed it. For me, personally, after the novelty of saying "play Sugar Hill Gang" to Siri wore off, I found that I already owned all the back catalog I wanted and the new recommendations weren't making an impression on me. I then did some quick napkin math on my family of 5 AT&T users and realized that the data usage was very significant.

What irks me, and that doesn't mean it irks you, is that I can see what's going on here and it's not good for the consumer. An all you can eat buffet looks like a great value but after awhile you realize the business model and understand you're being led to believe it's a fantastic spread but really you're just overpaying for baked ziti because you don't like the other stuff that's being served. And there's no incentive for the cook to improve the quality of the offering because it's all about making a buck, just bringing in new lemmings who don't know the deal.

BJ

I don't think that's the best analogy.

If a restaurant has customers happy to pay for an all you can eat buffet, it might be happy to do that and not worry too much about the quality.

But all sorts of bands start making music because they love to make music and will want to make the best music they can.

Its not as though the industry is going to say to all the bands, "hey, guys, don't bother writing any decent songs, just write rubbish ones, because we have everyone hooked on this streaming subscription model now", in the same way that a restaurant owner can control the quality of the food in that one restaurant.

 

[mike1726]

I'd go to a different restaurant mate, especially if there bringing out empty dishes..... No seriously though I think it's good value for money. I did see someone talking though about how much data they'd used, in that scenario I would use it on my home wifi & download it use my unlimited data package rather than eating into my 20gb worth of data. It works great just streaming though through my Apple TV.

 

[zhenya]

Remember that we're talking about art here. The very best performers and bands we love are truly artists. Van Gogh and Rembrandt wouldn't sign up for Apple Museum. And after awhile all the mediocre art would be mixed in with the masterpieces and it would just turn into an endless screensaver of mediocrity.

Oh sheesh. So you are saying that a great author's work is diminished because it's available to read for free from my public library?

 

[johngordon]

Not obsessed with this, but we can see it starting already. Spotify trying to lock up exclusive deals, Tidal being run by very popular hip-hop artists, Taylor Swift choosing who she will allow to distribute her tracks. Two years from now, what if half the music you made offline and built playlists around are withdrawn? You're really going to be thankful that your $250 was worthwhile instead of the 250 AAC files you could have downloaded instead?

iTunes Radio + iTunes Downloads is the same thing as Apple Music except you get to keep the media. Simple as that.

BJ

Ignoring the fact that, for many, it would cost orders of magnitude more money to buy all those albums from iTunes.

If I pay subscription to hear a load of albums I would probably not have bought, then if they did mysteriously vanish from AM music, I'll lose them. But in the meantime I'll have been able to listen to them as much as I like, for much less money than buying them.

I fully understand that, it doesn't bother me, and I don't feel like I am being ripped off.

 

[triptolemus]

You're fighting a losing battle BJ. I agree with many of your points, but streaming services are here to stay and frankly, seem to be targeted at today's instant-gratification, always-on, thoughtless, mindless, selfie-taking, twitbook posting, hashtag speaking (!) morons. None of this will go away in our lifetimes. It will get worse before it gets better.

That said, my wife and I are enjoying Apple Music in a home environment (not streaming on phones/data)... while targeting old favorites from the late 60s, early 70s, (skip the 80s), and into the 90s... choosing some of those selections and seeing where AM takes us.

 

[Seekeroftruth]

Man... I have been loving this service. If for nothing else the artist discovery and playlists are great.

 

[johngordon]

Stop with the 'my dad said that in 1965' stuff already. My dad did too. Rock music was only 10 years old at the time. The benchmark before that were Crooners and Doo-Wop for cripesakes. Today its 60 years later and all the genres have been unearthed, from Soul to Disco to Punk to Rap to New Wave to Alternative to House to Hip-Hop to World Music to Electronic, there is no new ground to break there. My dad in 1965 didn't have this perspective like we do now. It's now down to the quality of the bands themselves, not the music type, not the genre.

Remember that we're talking about art here. The very best performers and bands we love are truly artists. Van Gogh and Rembrandt wouldn't sign up for Apple Museum. And after awhile all the mediocre art would be mixed in with the masterpieces and it would just turn into an endless screensaver of mediocrity.

BJ

We're talking about art now, as in Oasis?

Your Dad would never have said to you anything like "listen son, music just isn't what it was in my day, that Oasis band aren't a patch on the Beatles and the Stones."?

You talk a good talk, but if you are citing Oasis as some sort of musical high art, that no band in 2015 could hope to get close to, then its going to be difficult to take you too seriously.

I still want the two hours of my life back from seeing them headline Glastonbury a few years ago.

I still listen to a lot of new music which I think is excellent.

Thinking about it, I could take offence at you saying that all the new music I like is garbage.

Its just good old fashioned music snobbery.

 

[Arran]

Ignoring the fact that, for many, it would cost orders of magnitude more money to buy all those albums from iTunes.

That is true now, at startup. But in the long-run it would mean the record companies would be worse off. Can you really see that happening?

Wait a few years. The streaming services will add tiers and put all the good stuff in the highest priced tier. Folks will pay up because it would cost too much to start acquiring a permanent collection at that point.

It's what cable does now (ESPN, HBO). Even all you can eat restaurants do it (unlimited salad is included, but chicken is $2.50 extra, per serving)

 

[Supermallet]

BJ, seriously, just because AM doesn't make sense for you doesn't mean it's useless for everyone. Stop artificially limiting the use cases in an attempt to make it look like a bad value all around. you're really grasping at straws at this point.

 

[johngordon]

That is true now, at startup. But in the long-run it would mean the record companies would be worse off. Can you really see that happening?

Wait a few years. The streaming services will add tiers and put all the good stuff in the highest priced tier.

It's what cable does now (ESPN, HBO). Even all you can eat restaurants do it (unlimited salad is included, but chicken is $2.50 extra, per serving)

I don't think they're going to be able to put the cost of streaming up too much too quickly.

The best way streaming has of making more money is for it to become much more commonplace, with more people subscribing. Whether or not that will happen remans to be seen.

For people who listen to a lot of new music though, in all honesty there probably is room for manoeuvre. Right now, for me, $10 is a no-brainer steal.

 

[Arran]

I don't think they're going to be able to put the cost of streaming up too much too quickly.

I guess we'll see.

But once the new "streamers" swap their 128GB iPhone out for the much cheaper 16GB model, It's going to be harder to go back.

 

[johngordon]

I guess we'll see.

But once the new "streamers" swap their 128GB iPhone out for the much cheaper 16GB model, It's going to be harder to go back.

Given how difficult it currently seems to be to get people to even pay $10 a month, I can't see it even be $20 in a hurry.

 

[boltjames]

I don't think that's the best analogy.

If a restaurant has customers happy to pay for an all you can eat buffet, it might be happy to do that and not worry too much about the quality.

But all sorts of bands start making music because they love to make music and will want to make the best music they can.

Its not as though the industry is going to say to all the bands, "hey, guys, don't bother writing any decent songs, just write rubbish ones, because we have everyone hooked on this streaming subscription model now", in the same way that a restaurant owner can control the quality of the food in that one restaurant.

But that's not the new model.

See, when it's about selling records there has to be some accountability there, some investment, some quality there, has to be something that will last. People aren't going to spend $12.99 on an album that'll last a month and then be tossed into the pile with "Mr. Jaws".

The future state of music makes the artists nameless and faceless, the station/playlist you are streaming becomes the 'album' and the artist you are listening to becomes the 'song' and some are very good and most are just filler. When you pay in advance for music and the record companies get paid by playcounts it's all about what's hot and what's trendy and that's why today you listen to the Top 20 and all the songs sound like a hot pile of steaming girl pop garbage and none of the potentially good music bubbles up. Streaming makes artistry worse, not better. Profitability makes risk-taking lessen, not increase.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

Oh sheesh. So you are saying that a great author's work is diminished because it's available to read for free from my public library?

What I'm saying is that Van Gogh would have had pressure from his backers and stopped making masterworks and instead banged out a bunch of color-by-numbers quality pieces if that's what it took to make money on Apple Museum, the streaming artwork platform. Oh, but he'd get his own social media cue card in the color of his choosing so there's that.

Today's popular music, and thus the music that will proliferate Apple Music, is a TLC album from 1994 that's been repurposed 500 times. There is no artistry and with all-you-can-eat streaming there isn't an incentive for labels to encourage it.

BJ

 

[whsbuss]

Stop with the 'my dad said that in 1965' stuff already. My dad did too. Rock music was only 10 years old at the time. The benchmark before that were Crooners and Doo-Wop for cripesakes. Today its 60 years later and all the genres have been unearthed, from Soul to Disco to Punk to Rap to New Wave to Alternative to House to Hip-Hop to World Music to Electronic, there is no new ground to break there. My dad in 1965 didn't have this perspective like we do now. It's now down to the quality of the bands themselves, not the music type, not the genre.

Remember that we're talking about art here. The very best performers and bands we love are truly artists. Van Gogh and Rembrandt wouldn't sign up for Apple Museum. And after awhile all the mediocre art would be mixed in with the masterpieces and it would just turn into an endless screensaver of mediocrity.

BJ

I think we should stop giving opinions. Do what you thinks is best - no need to get it validated here.

 

[boltjames]

We're talking about art now, as in Oasis?

Your Dad would never have said to you anything like "listen son, music just isn't what it was in my day, that Oasis band aren't a patch on the Beatles and the Stones."?

You talk a good talk, but if you are citing Oasis as some sort of musical high art, that no band in 2015 could hope to get close to, then its going to be difficult to take you too seriously.

I still want the two hours of my life back from seeing them headline Glastonbury a few years ago.

I still listen to a lot of new music which I think is excellent.

Thinking about it, I could take offence at you saying that all the new music I like is garbage.

Its just good old fashioned music snobbery.

No, LOL, Oasis is not the pinnacle of music-as-art. They were just a fun band for their time.

I'm not criticizing you and your listening habits personally, I'm talking about everyone in the music listening ecosystem. Think of it this way:

If there are 40 Genres of music.
And only 3 appeal to you.
And there are only 3 artists in each that are actively making relevant music.
And they only release 1 album every-other-year.
And only 3 of the 12 tracks on that awaited 1 album are decent.

Why pay a fixed fee to pay for them in perpetuity? $150 a year to listen to the songs I already owned or already rejected plus the new handful of tracks from a favorite artist and the odd new track that emerges from nowhere is a lot of coin and data for the rough equivalent of listening to the free iTunes Radio "Indie" and "New On iTunes" stations. Pandora, iTunes Radio, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, there are a ton of ways to discover new bands that don't require an upfront payment and the unfortunate enabling of the record industry to degrade the state of music further than they already have (if that's even possible) by a playcount driven model.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

You're fighting a losing battle BJ. I agree with many of your points, but streaming services are here to stay and frankly, seem to be targeted at today's instant-gratification, always-on, thoughtless, mindless, selfie-taking, twitbook posting, hashtag speaking (!) morons. None of this will go away in our lifetimes. It will get worse before it gets better.

That said, my wife and I are enjoying Apple Music in a home environment (not streaming on phones/data)... while targeting old favorites from the late 60s, early 70s, (skip the 80s), and into the 90s... choosing some of those selections and seeing where AM takes us.

View attachment 567705

I get it, but what I think I really want is a hybrid-streaming service:

$120 a year commitment but I get to download and keep 100 of the songs I like each year.

This way, Apple gets more money than they usually do each year but I have the protection of knowing that if a record company pulls out or an artist goes exclusive elsewhere, those cuts that I discovered in 2015 are still safely in my library for 2016. It's the best of Spotify (deep library) and the best of iTunes (ownership) it gives the record companies what they want (more revenue) and it prevents the threat of discontinuance.

BJ

 

[johngordon]

No, LOL, Oasis is not the pinnacle of music-as-art. They were just a fun band for their time.

I'm not criticizing you and your listening habits personally, I'm talking about everyone in the music listening ecosystem.

Well, if you are saying that "all music made today is awful", and I have said that I like a lot of new music, then you're saying that all the new music I listen to is awful, so you kind of are criticising my taste.

Think of it this way:

If there are 40 Genres of music.
And only 3 appeal to you.
And there are only 3 artists in each that are actively making relevant music.
And they only release 1 album every-other-year.
And only 3 of the 12 tracks on that awaited 1 album are decent.

That just tells me that person has unusually high standards, or a pretty narrow taste in music.

Going by those figures, that's only about what - 15 decent songs a year?

Why pay a fixed fee to pay for them in perpetuity? $150 a year to listen to the songs I already owned or already rejected plus the new handful of tracks from a favorite artist and the odd new track that emerges from nowhere is a lot of coin and data for the rough equivalent of listening to the free iTunes Radio "Indie" and "New On iTunes" stations. Pandora, iTunes Radio, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, there are a ton of ways to discover new bands that don't require an upfront payment and the unfortunate enabling of the record industry to degrade the state of music further than they already have (if that's even possible) by a playcount driven model.

BJ

In that case, streaming probably isn't for that person.

But you are still projecting that view onto everyone else.

I can't imagine in a million years hearing that few good albums / tracks over a 12 month period.

 

[mike1726]

Let's put it this way, when was the last time you bought a cd. Even if I do get CDs there normally bought for me & I put them straight into iTunes Match to download a digital copy. In fact I gave away one of my stereo systems a few weeks ago as it had sat in the corner of my bedroom for a couple of years untouched.

 

[johngordon]

I get it, but what I think I really want is a hybrid-streaming service:

$120 a year commitment but I get to download and keep 100 of the songs I like each year.

This way, Apple gets more money than they usually do each year but I have the protection of knowing that if a record company pulls out or an artist goes exclusive elsewhere, those cuts that I discovered in 2015 are still safely in my library for 2016. It's the best of Spotify (deep library) and the best of iTunes (ownership) it gives the record companies what they want (more revenue) and it prevents the threat of discontinuance.

BJ

If $10 for streaming is already a bit of a bargain for a lot of people, throwing in 10 albums to own might be going a bit far.

That would be getting the entire streaming service essentially for free, which I think is totally unrealistic.

 

[boltjames]

BJ, seriously, just because AM doesn't make sense for you doesn't mean it's useless for everyone. Stop artificially limiting the use cases in an attempt to make it look like a bad value all around. you're really grasping at straws at this point.

The average iTunes user spends $12 a year on music. There's a reason why. Most of it is not good enough to keep. You, and several others, sound like hardcore music consumers and so this service seems to make great sense for you. That's cool.

If people want to sign up for a $120 commitment and give Apple a tenfold increase for what they can get for free, more power to them, I've wasted more money on hot dogs at a single football game to be honest.

BJ

 

[triptolemus]

This way, Apple gets more money than they usually do each year but I have the protection of knowing that if a record company pulls out or an artist goes exclusive elsewhere, those cuts that I discovered in 2015 are still safely in my library for 2016. It's the best of Spotify (deep library) and the best of iTunes (ownership) it gives the record companies what they want (more revenue) and it prevents the threat of discontinuance.

Great - but you're not going to ink those kind of deals with the record labels at the current subscription rate. Its a good idea, in theory, and one I believe was probably considered and rejected based on the price point it would require.

Plus, you're not locked in for any period (currently). When the listener starts noticing their relevant artists and labels dropping off then subscriptions will drop off along with them -- and they don't want that.

And -- if you're really into the old school 1997 CD ripping (CDex anyone?) and Winamp days (as I was) you'd route the audio into another recording source and save as 128kbps MP3s... sounds like fun!

 

[johngordon]

The average iTunes user spends $12 a year on music. There's a reason why. Most of it is not good enough to keep. You, and several others, sound like hardcore music consumers and so this service seems to make great sense for you. That's cool.

If people want to sign up for a $120 commitment and give Apple a tenfold increase for what they can get for free, more power to them, I've wasted more money on hot dogs at a single football game to be honest.

BJ

Then its not for them.

I don't think one album a month = hardcore.

 

[boltjames]

I don't think they're going to be able to put the cost of streaming up too much too quickly.

The best way streaming has of making more money is for it to become much more commonplace, with more people subscribing. Whether or not that will happen remans to be seen.

It's Cable TV, JG. All the answers are right there. Just look to Cable TV.

First they promise you channels like HBO with access to deep catalogs of 'thousands of movies!'. Then they gradually thin out the offerings. Then other channels lock up exclusives. Then each channel makes its own unique content. Then each channel goes out of its way to push subscribers into their ecosystem and away from others. And then one channel strikes it big with The Sopranos. So everyone runs away from Showtime over to HBO. And then that gets tired and everyone runs over to Showtime for Dexter. And in the end you have a fragmented offering and a fragmented userbase. Want to hear Beyonce? Not on Apple Music you're not. Want to hear the new Death Cab? Exclusive to Spotify. U2? Only on Apple Music.

Get ready to spend $120 x 3 if you truly want access to every old and new song ever made. That's where we're heading. iTunes, amazingly, was the one place to go for everything. Now you watch, that's going to get stuck in the maelstrom of these new streaming services. All it's going to take is for the new Jay-Z album to be made exclusively available only through streaming and only on Tidal.

BJ

 

[boltjames]

If $10 for streaming is already a bit of a bargain for a lot of people, throwing in 10 albums to own might be going a bit far.

That would be getting the entire streaming service essentially for free, which I think is totally unrealistic.

It's all about revenue. It's not about free or not. It's about how much people spend now and how much more you can get.

The typical household spends $12 a year through iTunes. So if Apple can figure out a way to get $120 from those households they'll do it in a second because it takes an investment and an infrastructure and a platform they already have and makes it scale very quickly.

BJ