Comments on: This is not the iCloud I was looking for

By: Mike_Selves

Mike_Selves — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 18:05:58 +0000

The subscription services seem like a no-brainer but I suppose it will take a while for people to get to see Paul’s point about “owning” music. That’s proven to be an illusion. The subscription concept pays artists more fairly in that it involves what people are actually listening to. As long as folks are uploading and downloading files, there will be piracy. For those who want the highest quality recordings, I’m sure luxury services will come into play, streaming higher quality music for a premium.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:17:01 +0000

Yeah, 320k is decent, but still not enough to have it replace my actual music library. Plus, Spotify isn’t in the US yet unless I someone get ahold of a foreign debit card :)

By: Oscar

Oscar — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:40:43 +0000

Ops! Sure, @Wild Pottok: it is OGG 9and I knew it!). Me silly…

By: Wild Pottok

Wild Pottok — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:53:00 +0000

Actually, Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis format
http://www.spotify.com/se/help/faq/tech/codec-quality/

By: Manish Naik

Manish Naik — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:46:26 +0000

Paul – Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. There’s definitely a natural tension developing between cloud services and streaming/subscription services. For those customers that do want to take advantage of the cloud services, one thing I think most people are underestimating is the time it takes to prepare large CD collections for the cloud. It takes on average about 5 minutes to rip a CD through iTunes (and the net result is a compressed file). So someone with 300 CDs (which isn’t a large collection for anyone over 40!) would have to spend 25 hours ripping their collection to be able to get it to the cloud. That’s a major hurdle most people won’t bother with.

(shameless plug here) – I work for a company that will actually do this service for you (RipDigital http://www.ripdigital.com). We take entire CD collections, rip them, and hand check the meta data. Not only that, we can rip CDs to lossless format so you can have high quality files – but still take advantage of Apples’ iCloud service since it’s based on matching meta data.

Everyone says they just rip their collection one weekend but who wants to spend hours and hours staring at iTunes work through the ripping? We’ve made the process so simple and cheap, it’s better to outsource it!

Personally I think that both models will be able to exist – Cloud services as well as subscription services. It all depends on whether those subscription services can create interfaces that are easy to use, elegant, and work just as if you owned all the music. I really think the user experience is what is going to drive adoption of subscription based services. Pandora is great to discover new music but the fact is, sometimes I just want to listen to U2′s War in it’s entirety!

By: Oscar

Oscar — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:33:05 +0000

@Ed, with a Spotify premium you get MP3 at 320kbps, and the streaming experience (I live in Mexico, not in the old Europe) is very good!

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:53:24 +0000

Aaron – the labels (at least in theory) represent the artists – music subscription services give lots of money to the labels for the right to stream music to their customers. I think the appeal of music subscription service is so high people that many more people will be drawn into paying for music than they do today with the current model. The overall pool of money spent on music will be bigger which means more money for artists.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:47:47 +0000

Param – Thanks for the articles, interesting reading. Here in the U.S. For the cost of a good meal I can an unlimited 3G data plan, so it seems the economics are much better here, then where you are. Most subscription services allow you to cache a large number of tracks so you can listen to music even when you are not online.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:42:01 +0000

Ed – Unfortunately, you are in the minority. The vast majority of music listeners have chosen convenience over fidelity. Earbuds and low bit rate Mp3s win because they are easy.

By: Param Arunachalam

Param Arunachalam — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:41:44 +0000

It doesn’t have to be Streaming vs Downloaded. I’d like to have both options. I would stream for discovery and download songs I really like. Why? a) I don’t buy that music on the cloud is available “anywhere, anytime”. Downloaded music on a media player (ahem, iPod) has far better availability.http://www.mavrix.in/2011/04/why-music-on-the-cloud-does-not-make-sense/; b) I don’t know about the other countries, but in India the economics does not work. http://www.mavrix.in/2011/05/3g-cost-in-india-will-burst-music-cloud-bubble/; c) I like the perks of owning music. http://www.mavrix.in/2011/03/why-streaming-music-is-not-the-same-as-owning-it/