Why didn't Apple just purchase Spotify?

[SDAVE]

I would think this would be a better solution for them. They could have easily purchased it. Maybe they've tried to no avail?

I don't think FCC would butt in for this since there were also other competitors on the market.

Spotify is feature rich and has at least 5 years of a headstart. Their desktop and web player are top notch and light weight. Sure maybe the "curation" service isn't as good as Apple's algorithm, but for very picky users such as myself, the "What friends are playing" is a great way to discover music through friends who have similar taste in music.

 

[Julien]

I would think this would be a better solution for them. They could have easily purchased it. Maybe they've tried to no avail?

I don't think FCC would butt in for this since there were also other competitors on the market.

Spotify is feature rich and has at least 5 years of a headstart. Their desktop and web player are top notch and light weight. Sure maybe the "curation" service isn't as good as Apple's algorithm, but for very picky users such as myself, the "What friends are playing" is a great way to discover music through friends who have similar taste in music.

Many reason but the European Trade Union would block (Spotify is a Swedish company), hamper and launch countless investigations and fines on Apple.

 

[SDAVE]

Many reason but the European Trade Union would block (Spotify is a Swedish company), hamper and launch countless investigations and fines on Apple.

Isn't tidal owned by Aspiro which is also a Swedish company?

 

[Julien]

Isn't tidal owned by Aspiro which is also a Swedish company?

It was bought by Jay-Z consortium (Project Panther).

 

[SDAVE]

It was bought by Jay-Z consortium (Project Panther).

I don't think this is the only reason. Do you have a source?

 

[Julien]

I don't think this is the only reason. Do you have a source?

...Aspiro was purchased by Project Panther Ltd. (owned by Jay Z) for SEK 466 million (USD $56.2 million) in January 2015. Before acquiring Aspiro, Jay Z stated in an interview with Billboard that he was willing to partner with other streaming services to carry out his vision. "We talked to every single service and we explored all the options," stated Jay Z, "But at the end of the day, we figured if we're going to shape this thing the way we see it, then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us, not an easier one, mind you," he concluded.

On April 16, 2015 it came to public attention that Tidal are closing its origin Aspiro offices in Stockholm, terminating the employment for all Swedish employees, including the current CEO Andy Chen. The company refused to comment on closing the offices, but confirmed that Andy Chen had been replaced as CEO by Peter Tonstad....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_(service)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/b...uys-the-music-streaming-firm-aspiro.html?_r=0

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/30/7950317/Jay-z-buys-tidal-wimp-aspiro-to-take-on-spotify

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6457952/jay-z-streaming-aspiro-wimp-tidal-purchase-price

 

[SDAVE]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_(service)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/14/b...uys-the-music-streaming-firm-aspiro.html?_r=0

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/30/7950317/Jay-z-buys-tidal-wimp-aspiro-to-take-on-spotify

http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6457952/jay-z-streaming-aspiro-wimp-tidal-purchase-price

No I know that, I am talking about this comment:

Many reason but the European Trade Union would block (Spotify is a Swedish company), hamper and launch countless investigations and fines on Apple.

 

[flur]

Honestly I'm pretty thankful they didn't buy Spotify, because they still would have tried to integrate it with iCloud Music Library, so we'd still have all those awful bugs but we wouldn't have the current incarnation of Spotify to use instead.

 

[CaTOAGU]

Perhaps Spotify didn't want to sell.

 

[SDAVE]

Honestly I'm pretty thankful they didn't buy Spotify, because they still would have tried to integrate it with iCloud Music Library, so we'd still have all those awful bugs but we wouldn't have the current incarnation of Spotify to use instead.

Haha, good one.

I just don't get it, though. The iCloud "Merge" function is not great. The App is funky, it's too cumbersome. Too many buttons to click through.

I just want to make simple playlists

Perhaps Spotify didn't want to sell.

Maybe. But Apple is known to do things themselves when they wanted. Ie, when google maps contract ran out they didn't want to renew and they just did it themselves through TomTom. They failed miserably at first, but it's fairly ok now. Still not as good as Google Maps though.

 

[whsbuss]

Perhaps Spotify didn't want to sell.

Perhaps Apple didn't want to buy them.

 

[flur]

Perhaps Apple didn't want to buy them.

LOL, that's the question. Why didn't Apple buy them?

 

[SDAVE]

Perhaps the sky is blue.

 

[CaTOAGU]

Perhaps Apple didn't want to buy them.

No I don't really think they did.

LOL, that's the question. Why didn't Apple buy them?

For a start Spotify although established isnt profitable, it's also a tenth the size of iTunes and that's if you include free subscribers, if you only include paid its far less than that. From a business perspective it doesn't make all that much sense.

From a technological perspective I'm not convinced either. Spotify is being held up now as a paragon of virtue but it's not without its problems either and then Apple would have to integrate it into their ecosystem.

Finally there's licensing, are Spotify's streaming licenses transferable, probably not, they usually aren't AFAIK. And if they aren't Apple would have to start from Stratch negotiating them, which they had to anyway.

 

[flur]

From a business perspective it doesn't make all that much sense.

From a business perspective, buying your biggest competitor, especially if they're still small (aka affordable) and they have tech you have not yet built yourself, pretty much always makes sense.

 

[CaTOAGU]

From a business perspective, buying your biggest competitor, especially if they're still small (aka affordable) and they have tech you have not yet built yourself, pretty much always makes sense.

If they're small yes, not necessarily if they're consistently loss making. And they don't really have any tech that Apple doesn't have or couldn't build itself. As I said its not like their service is without its own problems.

 

[skwood]

What's more likely is that they will try to poach staff away from Spotify, Deezer etc. to get the service running better

 

[navaira]

For a start Spotify although established isnt profitable, it's also a tenth the size of iTunes and that's if you include free subscribers, if you only include paid its far less than that. From a business perspective it doesn't make all that much sense.

From a technological perspective I'm not convinced either. Spotify is being held up now as a paragon of virtue but it's not without its problems either and then Apple would have to integrate it into their ecosystem.

That all makes sense except Apple bought Beats instead. Was that profitable? Did it have more users than Spotify? Was it easier to integrate into iTunes than Spotify would be? (Serious questions, I don't have a clue.)

 

[SDAVE]

That all makes sense except Apple bought Beats instead. Was that profitable? Did it have more users than Spotify? Was it easier to integrate into iTunes than Spotify would be? (Serious questions, I don't have a clue.)

The Beats purchase added more prestige for Apple. It was a smart purchase.

 

[navaira]

The Beats purchase added more prestige for Apple.

As in street cred?

(I'm not being sarcastic, I don't get it.)

 

[Tech198]

Perhaps the sky is blue.

The sky is blue


Perhaps Apple knew they could do better, as one reason why they acquitted Beats.

If Apple did purchase Spotify, they would have changed how it operated, just like any businesses buy-out. so Probably starting from the ground up seemed better.

 

[SDAVE]

As in street cred?

(I'm not being sarcastic, I don't get it.)

Yeah - also access to a large "urban" market with sponsors like basketball stars, rappers, etc. which is more important than something like an audiophile market. It's a marketing gimmick. Beats' products are extremely average technically, it's more of an image.

The Beats curation service Apple brought over to Music is not bad at all actually. I just don't use it because I have my own sources where I discover new music.

 

[zhenya]

Beats seemed to be a more natural cultural fit with Apple, and frankly, there is nothing that Spotify offers that they didn't get from the Beats acquisition, plus they got all of Beats' high-margin hardware sales essentially gratis. The music suggestion methods that Beats had developed, and Apple has now integrated into Apple Music were far better on Beats than anything Spotify has ever had.

And it's not like Spotify's UI is anything to write home about. It has been a mishmash of design choices different on every platform for years. It has gotten incrementally better over years, but partially we've also just gotten used to it. What people like now is how simple it is - but on the other hand, Spotify only needs to do a tiny portion of what Apple Music is attempting. FWIW, I've been a Spotify, Beats, and now Apple Music subscriber since nearly day 1 of each service.

 

[navaira]

That's why I am still giving Apple Music benefit of the doubt -- they have until September 30 to fix all the problems as far as I am concerned. If they manage, my Spotify Premium subscription might bite the dust. If they don't, I'll stick with a service that had years to iron the kinks. I've only been a paid Spotify member for, what, two years maybe? So, indeed, they had about five years of development before I first used it. But I am not going to pay 9.99 a month for five years hoping Apple fix everything.

Indeed, Spotify doesn't do all that AM is *trying* to do. But I don't know whether that's a bad thing. I'd rather have a limited service that works than something that tries to be everything for everyone and fails.

I do agree on Beats as a brand giving certain cred, except I am not sure whether the urban crowd proudly displaying their Beats gear is even aware of the fact that Apple own Beats. I never used the streaming service so I have no clue whether Apple improved on it, made it worse or actually even used it at all.

 

[CaTOAGU]

That all makes sense except Apple bought Beats instead. Was that profitable? Did it have more users than Spotify? Was it easier to integrate into iTunes than Spotify would be? (Serious questions, I don't have a clue.)

Beats was definitely profitable yes. It may or may not have been easier to integrate but I think Beats overall was a more worthwhile purchase.