[HN Gopher] Audiobooks on Spotify
___________________________________________________________________
Audiobooks on Spotify
Author : JadoJodo
Score : 119 points
Date : 2022-10-27 15:31 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (timetoplayfair.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (timetoplayfair.com)
| vkhetan_iit wrote:
| sdfhbdf wrote:
| Quoting from the page:
|
| > TLDR: Apple rules mandate a cumbersome Audiobooks purchasing
| process
|
| This is very much a lie. Apple's way is the easy way - use IAP.
| And it seems that like with facebook [1] they're trying to apply
| the rules evenly to everybody. Spotify religiously denies using
| Apple's In App Payments. The attempt to send emails on how to
| purchase audiobooks is their sneaky way of bypassing the rules.
| They now to try to blame the process they came up with themselves
| on Apple. But Spotify is to blame, for not following rules of App
| Store which demand IAP for "digital goods and services".
|
| However you feel about IAP if spotify has the courage it should
| challenge in court (like Epic) instead of a website that makes a
| very bad biased take on the situation.
|
| And we know Apple is not going to respond publicly.
|
| [1] Story about Facebook boosts being forced to IAP a few days
| ago
| fleddr wrote:
| Your argument is "they are the rules".
|
| I think the point is that the rules are anti-competitive, user-
| hostile, extractive.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Not GP, but I think the argument was: "IAP is easy and simple
| and secure and well-known, and should be used." Spotify is
| acting as if Apple is blocking them in many different ways,
| but all would be solved if Spotify would use IAP, which is
| super-simple for users, but doesn't make Spotify as much
| money.
| fleddr wrote:
| You're saying the exact same thing: follow the rules.
| Completely ignoring that those rules are insane.
| pwinnski wrote:
| "IAP is easy and simple and secure and well-known, and
| should be used."
|
| Is that better?
|
| I will _never_ use a purchase method on iOS that isn 't
| IAP. Never, and I'm not alone.
| fleddr wrote:
| Who cares if you prefer IAP? Use IAP then. The discussion
| is not that IAP is bad, the discussion is that it's the
| only option, hence no option. You can't even _talk_ of
| other options.
| threeseed wrote:
| You can make anything anti-competitive.
|
| Spotify doesn't offer an API to allow me to replace their
| payment system with mine where I would direct 100% of profits
| to artists. Because that is their revenue source.
| fleddr wrote:
| That makes absolutely no sense.
| syrrim wrote:
| The "rules applied evenly to everyone" means everyone but them
| loses 30% of all sales revenue.
| r2222 wrote:
| Yeah the App Store rules suck and that's all on Apple, but I find
| it a bit silly for Spotify to repeatedly act surprised about
| them. It's the same cycle: Spotify wants go around App Store
| rules - Apple says no - Spotify fires up the timetoplayfair dot
| com with slightly tweaked text to fit whatever issue they have
| this time.
| waboremo wrote:
| How else are they going to challenge the status quo? I'm
| confused by people acting shocked and appalled every time any
| other company brings up issues with the status quo.
|
| Spotify wants to get into Audiobooks, Apple won't let them,
| Spotify wants to make a social ruckus so people are aware of
| who to blame and to demand change.
|
| Before you consider the idea they should just quietly try to
| push regulation, consider without insane amounts of capital to
| go against the likes of Apple who will always have more, you
| need the public on your side. It does have an impact on
| regulation.
| threeseed wrote:
| Maybe Spotify should take the lead.
|
| Allow third party payment services and music stores in their
| app. With 0% cut of course.
| dmix wrote:
| Spotify is saying the cut should be 0% for Apple?
| threeseed wrote:
| The discussion hasn't been framed around what the
| percentage should be.
|
| It's been that Spotify disagrees with the entire model.
| dmix wrote:
| I wasn't seriously asking you. Obviously they don't
| expect to completely bypass paying Apple anything. Making
| extreme counter points doesn't help these debates.
|
| Spotify complaining about a "mandatory 30% tax" doesn't
| mean they want zero tax. The people who dismiss
| questioning heavily centralized systems as only wanting
| anarchy are being purposefully misleading. Just like
| every other time that happens.
| pwinnski wrote:
| > Apple won't let them
|
| Not true at all. Apple's rules haven't changed in ages,
| they've defended them against Epic in court, and Spotify knew
| what they were when they started down this road, just like
| they knew the last couple of times they've tried to argue
| with Apple publicly (they're 0-for-2 so far, last time I
| checked).
|
| Spotify can get into Audiobooks in multiple ways, they just
| don't like any of them. Apple isn't stopping them, they're
| just requiring their usual cut on IAP, and enforcing the
| usual rules. As usual.
| [deleted]
| r2222 wrote:
| Apple would definitely let them to get into audiobooks,
| Spotify just doesn't want to give them the cut. As a platform
| owner Spotify takes a cut from the artists, aren't they
| playing the same game as Apple?
|
| If they somehow get regulators to allow 3rd party payments on
| App Store, that would be a terrible thing for the users. I
| don't want to start giving out my credit card number to every
| random company I want to purchase content from.
|
| The UX issues Apple rules create are legit concerns though,
| but it just kinda feels they're used as a veil to get to the
| bottom line, which is to get around the IAP system. It's
| always about the money.
| waboremo wrote:
| Then don't. You wouldn't be forced to give over your credit
| card number to every random company. You're creating a
| situation that doesn't make any sense - somehow you trust
| them enough to provide you the service you want, but not
| enough to handle your credit card?
|
| Just as you're able to see through the fact that it's not
| just about UX - let's stop pretending the issue of 3rd
| party payments is about consumer 'safety'.
| r2222 wrote:
| The situation already exists on Mac for example and it's
| very inconvenient imo to have to buy everything from a
| different website, trying to keep up who charges what and
| when, keeping track of the license codes etc. I'm not a
| fan.
| [deleted]
| Arkanum wrote:
| I wonder if the decision in the US around Epic and external
| links[0] will benefit spotify in Europe or not (when it is
| eventually resolved).
|
| [0]:https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/8/22814147/epic-apple-
| app-s...
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| No other company do I hate and love so much. I love their
| discovery algorithms and find new music through them so often. I
| look forward to my new Discover Weekly every Monday.
|
| But in every other way they drive me crazy. The UI is terrible
| and basic but I've learned to live with it. What I absolutely
| can't stand is inserting podcasts and audio books into the app
| with no option to opt-out.
|
| I get that they want to put these things in front of as many
| people as possible, but it's a shame that happens at the expense
| of those of us who don't want that cluttering up their libraries.
| Let me turn it off. Why can't I turn it off?
| Gigachad wrote:
| The Spotify UI is bad but it's not even close to as bad as
| Apple and YouTube music.
|
| I tried my best to like Yt music since it comes with YouTube
| premium but the service is simply unusable.
| mtoner23 wrote:
| the UI Is bad in comparison to what? its pretty easy to find
| whatever you want
| Jorchime wrote:
| I used to love the Discovery Weekly list as well. But since a
| couple of years, my account recommendations went into some
| strange niche solution and they recommend the same rubbish over
| and over again. I even get annoyed at certain genres that I
| used to mildly enjoy before.
|
| If you try to look for a solution, apparently the only way is
| to cancel the subscription, delete the account, resubscribe and
| start over ... I wish there was a way to reset the
| "intelligent" recommendations for an existing account.
|
| The only workaround I found: put a couple of similar and
| interesting songs into a playlist and let Spotify continue with
| recommendations.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Literally: they keep recommending variations of the same song
| over and over. And if I'm not mistaken, not even variations,
| but the same song over and over.
|
| Each time I mark it as "remove".
|
| I visit my Discover Weekly about once a month because there's
| almost never anything of value in there. I'd find more gems
| with a random list of 30 songs.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I've heard that their algorithm now prioritizes lower
| licensing cost songs even if their algos rank them as a lower
| possible match for you. It also seems like their curated
| playlists prioritize lower quality songs now too, so I try to
| find better user generated ones.
|
| Why does everything go from good to the lowest mediocrity
| companies can get away with?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Agreed. I actually switched to Apple Music because the
| recommendations had gotten so consistently bad/weird.
|
| I wonder if it's related to money somehow, if some artists
| are accepting a lower cut in exchange for being placed on
| these playlists more frequently.
| fleddr wrote:
| The funny thing is that they have many teams each doing a tiny
| part of the app's UI, and proudly advertise this model as a
| best practice:
|
| https://blog.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SpotifyScal...
|
| Baffling how you can have so many engineers working on a music
| player, and it ends up worse than Winamp or Mediaplayer from 25
| years ago.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| It's very hard to come up with a media player interface that
| is better than Winamp 25 years ago.
| mostlysimilar wrote:
| Software interfaces in general have regressed severely since
| the mid-2000s. Media players are a perfect example. There was
| 10x more functionality in Winamp or Windows Media Player than
| we get in Spotify or Apple Music today.
|
| What is going on? Why are things getting dumber? Are we just
| optimizing too hard for the lowest common denominator and the
| average user wants things to be dead simple?
|
| I don't want to believe software has to be this basic. As
| software has become mainstream I think we've created a self-
| reinforcing myth that it has to be simplistic for people to
| want it. I think we can afford to ask users to think for a
| couple of seconds about the interface they're using.
| eduction wrote:
| >There was 10x more functionality in Winamp or Windows
| Media Player than we get in Spotify or Apple Music today.
|
| Except for the extremely useful functionality of putting a
| large percentage of the world's music at your fingertips
| ready for instant listening. Spotify also makes curated
| playlists ("This Is _[Artist Name]__" playlists), artist
| pages that show their most popular tracks and
| discographies, offers professionally mixed playlists,
| social sharing of playlists, sharing of songs, and works on
| mobile, desktop, web, and tablets.
|
| It also lets you have a library made up of both local files
| and Spotify licensed files on the network. It has selective
| download of songs you want to listen to offline (even
| licensed songs). It has both regular playlists and ad hoc
| queues. You can make playlists public, share with certain
| friends, share with all friends, make them collaboratively
| editable or not.
|
| It's actually kind of a staggering achievement.
|
| I get that the player could be better, and maybe Winamp had
| some features it should steal, but let's appreciate that it
| has solved many, many problems that no one was addressing
| 20 years ago. (And I must say, I can't conceive how Winamp
| could have had 10x the functionality as Spotify or Apple
| Music - this seems quite an overstatement, as someone who
| used it c2000 and uses Spotify now. Maybe you meant it had
| more of the functionality that you care about (presuming
| you only care about listening to files you own and have
| downloaded).)
| stavros wrote:
| I agree with the GP. Yes, the infrastructure is great,
| but the client itself is trash. Winamp consumed 1% of my
| CPU twenty years ago, Spotify consumes 10% _now_. Not
| only do they mostly do the same thing, but Winamp did
| much more.
|
| This is a major, major regression, that we have machines
| thousands of times faster but the software is an order of
| magnitude slower and more resource-hungry than back then
| _on the much faster machines_.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > Are we just optimizing too hard for the lowest common
| denominator and the average user wants things to be dead
| simple?
|
| Yup, but note that things can be both simple and powerful.
| I think there's also for some reason the expectation that
| people want fewer features on mobile than on desktop
| devices.
| fleddr wrote:
| Same for Netflix. A basic UI like Popcorn time is all that
| most people need. Instead we get a situation where both the
| UI and content is randomized, constantly shuffled. The
| simplest of use cases are barely supported or completely
| missing.
|
| It's not just incompetence, they are intentional dark
| patterns. Netflix doesn't want you to structurally browse
| their catalog in easy ways as you might conclude that it
| falls short. So it throws random things at you, auto-
| playing videos, etc. Giving the inflated impression that
| there's always something interesting for you.
|
| Likewise, user reviews, an absolutely basic community
| feature, is simply not there. Because if it would be there,
| and assuming they are fair reviews, you could filter by
| rating. Which once again could reveal a lack of quality
| content. Best to mask that.
|
| It's sad to consider that the output of hundreds of
| engineers and some very high-tech data science leads to
| something a single engineer in mum's basement could do
| better.
| artdigital wrote:
| Could you, say, hike the price of all audiobooks by the Apple tax
| when buying through iAP? While offering a cheaper price outside?
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| You can but you're not allowed to inform the consumer about it.
| So it makes your product look overpriced and pisses off your
| customers.
|
| There are already apps doing this, like Youtube Premium ($16
| IAP, $12 on their website) and Dropbox ($12 IAP, $10 on their
| website).
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Hey. I _want_ my audiobooks on Spotify.
|
| This is purely a disinterested position, of course. In order to
| serve you better.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Audible-The-Big-
| Bucks/dp/B0BDBG5VNP/r...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-the-Future-A-
| Novel/dp/B09NZ...
| tremarley wrote:
| I use Spotify to listen to Music, Podcasts and Audiobooks
| already.
|
| I've longed for a audiobook library on there for ages.
|
| Hopefully this works out, and apple doesn't screw them over too
| bad.
| firloop wrote:
| As a consumer, I've actually come to prefer in app purchases. I
| love when a subscription is available on IAP because for
| something like a newspaper, I know that I can cancel it with a
| couple of taps instead of having to fill out some long retention
| form or call someone.
| sweetheart wrote:
| I think I feel similarly, to be honest. While I don't think I'd
| be less likely to buy something I wanted if an in-app purchase
| wasn't available, I've always been thankful when I realized I
| bought something or set up a subscription via Apple because I
| feel their incentive isn't to make managing that purchase
| difficult, so their UX for control over subscriptions has been
| great.
|
| Though, at face value, I do see the argument for giving folks
| the option to make the purchase how they want, which may mean
| doing it in the app but not using Apple's APIs. I dunno, I
| don't have strong feelings about any of this, so it always
| surprises me when companies try to make such a big deal of it.
| Sure, it affects their bottom line, but let's not pretend like
| I should care about that.
| Aachen wrote:
| You must not be from here. Never once did I have trouble
| cancelling anything, maybe it's a Dutch or even a European
| thing? I keep hearing of "retention department"s and such.
| Completely foreign to me.
|
| Paying 30% more for all your subscriptions sounds like an
| interesting way of dealing with that problem.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| Are you also willing to pay the extra Apple tax for this
| convenience instead of expecting the subscription provider to
| eat those costs?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Depends on the product and the tax.
|
| Looks like I'm paying more via IAP for Youtube ($16 vs
| $12/mo) and Audible ($16 vs $8/mo ???) according to the
| prices listed on their website.
|
| Half of the services out there probably charge you extra just
| because you don't have to go through their scummy "cancel
| subscription" website pipeline. They probably lose millions
| on that along with the fact that I get an iOS notification
| when my IAP subscriptions renew.
|
| One crappy autorenewing service charging my credit card
| directly has cost me more than IAP taxes ever will. As far as
| I'm concerned, IAP saves me money and the status quo for
| rebilling in the USA only benefits the bad actors.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Especially when trying a new service, I rather pay slightly
| higher fee than risk dealing with scummy cancellation
| process. But I may switch payment method if I decide to
| keep the service longterm.
| throwaway277432 wrote:
| YouTube is very easy to cancel and not at all scummy, you
| just need to click one button and it works. Easy 4$ saved
| per month. I cancelled and then resubscribed at least 5
| times this year and it was never an issue (I'm trying to
| cut down on YouTube which is why I cancelled so many
| times).
| wavler wrote:
| I too mostly prefer subscribing to services via IAP, but I'd
| also like the option to do one-time purchases without the 30%
| markup.
|
| While you could argue enabling the purchase justifies this
| markup, forbidding the mention of alternative methods seems
| like an artificial constraint.
| jonplackett wrote:
| For subscriptions, 100% agree
|
| For buying one off products. Don't wan to be using in-app
| purchase.
|
| I seem to suddenly be able to buy audiobooks in audible now
| though? Or at least use my credits. When did that happen?
| corobo wrote:
| iOS will remind you you've got an active subscription going if
| you delete the relevant app too, that's a nice touch
| amykhar wrote:
| Exactly. It's not that Spotify can't do in app purchases. They
| just don't want to pay for the privilege.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Because they exist in a highly competitive market where Apple
| Music can provide in app purchases without paying the extra
| tax.
| fleddr wrote:
| Fine if you prefer that, but this is no reason for Apple to
| enforce it as the only allowed option.
| nerdjon wrote:
| If apple opens the floodgates allowing these purchases
| outside of this option, why would a company give apple's
| option to consumers?
|
| Apple enforcing it is the only reason as a consumer I don't
| have to deal with park patterns for many of the apps I use.
| Which is a good thing for consumers
| waboremo wrote:
| You mean Apple would have to be competitive regarding their
| own services for once? Actually have it make financial
| sense and provide a seamless experience for companies so
| they're encouraged to use it rather than forced? No... that
| can't be a good thing for consumers.
| amerkhalid wrote:
| Honestly, after getting screwed over by so many companies
| making one jump through so many hoops to cancel a
| subscription, I rather have Apple's way.
|
| Perhaps when law or credit card processors force
| companies to provide an easy way to cancel a service, as
| easy as it was to sign up for it, then I can worry about
| competition in IAP space.
| waboremo wrote:
| That already exists, if all hell breaks loose for some
| reason you can talk to your credit card company and
| request that subscription be stopped. Asking for a new
| card does the same. Chargebacks also exist and is
| actually a handy way to get your account removed entirely
| as lots of companies hate chargebacks.
|
| Also both Visa and Mastercard have their own rules that
| apply to subscription services, for example Visa requires
| services that allow signing up for a subscription to be
| easily cancelled online. So if you run into great issues
| there, call up Visa!
| nerdjon wrote:
| Are we talking about the same thing here?
|
| I am talking about payment services. Most companies will
| do everything they can to screw over the consumer.
| Especially once they have you in a subscription.
|
| As a consumer I would rather these companies be forced to
| not do shady practices and have to conform to a uniform
| way of purchases and subscriptions.
|
| I have been in too many meetings about "User Retention",
| if given the chance very few companies will choose to
| loose the ability to bash the user over the head with
| "are you sure you want to cancel" or "please call to
| cancel".
|
| Apple forces it.
|
| Edit:
|
| Put Another Way: Apple giving developer the choice of
| wether or not to use their system removes MY choice as a
| consumer to avoid scummy business practices (Which are
| often not on display until you no longer want to do
| business with them).
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple doesn't _have_ to charge 30% to also offer you
| convenient payment management APIs. They choose to, and
| they use it as a justification for their, as you say,
| "scummy business practices".
|
| You're right - you don't have a choice if you support
| scummy business practices with Apple. When you use an
| iProduct, Apple demands it. Every dime you spend on the
| App Store gets taxed by the richest company on Earth.
| waboremo wrote:
| Let's work with your assumptions, hopefully you can
| realize why they don't really make sense when it comes to
| consumer rights or healthy competition.
|
| So companies "will do everything they can to screw over
| the customer". Apparently excluding Apple for some reason
| who can never do wrong or suddenly start demanding apps
| charge subscriptions instead of a flat fee in the first
| place, but let's continue.
|
| Companies that have their own infrastructure to support
| their own payment systems will switch to it, but have to
| create a justification for consumers to switch as Apple
| isn't going to do that work for them. So maybe they cut
| the fee, maybe they throw in a bonus whatever. Some
| consumers switch, finding this new method acceptable.
|
| Then there will be other consumers, like you, who value
| Apple's system too highly to switch. If the above
| hypothetical company does not support both Apple and
| their own systems, this group of consumers will opt not
| to continue subscribing.
|
| Now tell me, how is this so bad? How are you unable to
| avoid scummy business practices?
| fleddr wrote:
| Simple solution: enforce IAP as an option whilst allowing
| alternatives. The other option would be to not tax 30% on
| value Apple did not produce.
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple does produce value though.
|
| They built the platform that allowed Spotify to even
| exist.
|
| And then they built the distribution channel that
| directed customers to Spotify.
|
| No different to Spotify itself.
| nerdjon wrote:
| This is 100% how I feel.
|
| Too many of these companies have dark patterns for canceling
| your subscription (or hoping you forget you have one) that I
| actively stay away from most services that I can't just use an
| IAP with. This is largely thanks to all of this being
| consolidated in a single UI where with just a couple clicks
| (without ever needing to open the app and dealing with their
| marketing or 20 questions) I can cancel a subscription.
|
| Apple will email me when a yearly subscription is about to
| bill, clearly telling me how I can manage or cancel it (again
| outside of the app).
|
| I understand why businesses may not like this, but as a
| consumer I value this heavily (and yes I do find myself annoyed
| by what I often hear also being in the tech industry).
|
| At the same time for individual digital purchases I don't want
| to give every company my credit card. I would much rather that
| go through Apple.
|
| I understand the concern about the "30% cut" but I wish these
| companies would also realize that I (and I assume many others)
| spend more money though my phone because I can do it through
| Apple where otherwise you would not be getting my money in the
| first place. So its 70% or nothing from me. Especially when
| there are alternatives that will be more than happy to take
| that money from me.
|
| That doesn't mean that I don't use my credit card in some
| places. But those are for physical items. Likely at stores that
| already have my credit card in the first place.
|
| At the end of the day, it is Spotify that is choosing to make
| customers jump through hoops. They chose to enter this market
| knowing that this will be an issue (if they did not expect this
| issue... honestly fire whoever decided to go into this market).
| yawnr wrote:
| Good grief, that URL.
|
| These companies are ridiculous. Leave us out of your corporate
| drama.
| daveidol wrote:
| I disagree. This "corporate drama" really does impact users, as
| well as developers (most of the HN crowd).
| photoGrant wrote:
| To be fair the corporate drama is usually dressed up as
| contorted consumer opinion drivel. The true reasons for most
| of these moves behind the scenes aren't as altruistic as
| these folks like to let on!
| JadoJodo wrote:
| Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other
| arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda
| tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly
| related industry.
|
| I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My
| podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS
| standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a
| subscription cost bump because Spotify has not decided they want
| to offer podcasts when I'm only paying for the music.
| [deleted]
| Aachen wrote:
| No, I don't at all mind them trying to break the monopoly on
| audio books that is Amazon. (You can get them from the original
| publisher (not author/narrator) for 35 bucks, or 10 from
| Amazon. I'm willing to pay a premium for avoiding Amazon but I
| love audio books and I'm not as rich as Bezos.)
|
| Podcasts was never a monopoly, but they're trying to make it
| one with the exclusive shows. That's what I hate. I have
| Spotify premium for music, so I could listen to those, but I
| unsubscribed from those podcasts immediately when they became
| exclusive. There's plenty more.
|
| TV, I didn't know Spotify was trying to do, but same logic
| applies there.
| eduction wrote:
| >My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of
| the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard.
|
| I know a lot of people will disagree, but I think Spotify did a
| good job of handling the problem of "premium" podcasts.
|
| There's no way to make a "premium" podcast (one you charge
| people to access) that is fully compatible with the original
| open vision of podcasting. You can either pervert the original
| RSS enclosures system by using obscure / personalized URLs for
| individual subscribers (a leaky abstraction that both
| discourages open sharing of feed URLs and fails to properly
| close off access) or you can pervert it by wrapping files in
| DRM (Apple's approach in the Apple Podcasters Program).
|
| Instead of perverting the RSS feeds, Spotify opted to pervert
| (slightly) the term "podcast" to not strictly mean "in an RSS
| feed and listenable on any client." I think this was inevitable
| and arguably had already happened and is far better than
| corrupting the open ecosystem. It also happens to be far easier
| from a UX perspective to tell someone to just use the Spotify
| app.
|
| For all the people upset at Spotify, consider the
| counterfactual: Why would they tell people to listen to their
| premium podcasts by copying a custom premium URL and pasting it
| into some random client (which 99% of the time on iPhones will
| be controlled by their bully Apple)? It is much clearer, easier
| for the user, and better for Spotify's premium creators (who
| don't want to lose listeners to a complex setup system) to just
| tell them "Listen to Spotify podcasts by downloading the
| Spotify app".
|
| Under Spotify's system, some podcasters rake in Spotify money
| they wouldn't otherwise get, growing the premium ecosystem,
| while the open ecosystem remains robust and not polluted with
| more DRM and URL hacks. Keeping closed systems clearly closed
| and separate is much better IMO than trying to awkwardly jam it
| into the open ecosystem, undermining what makes that ecosystem
| great.
| ctoth wrote:
| What's wrong with HTTP basic auth for this use case?
|
| https://subscriber-id:subscriber-token@podcast.host/feed.rss
|
| In what way does this "pollute" or "pervert" the open
| standard? Apple and Spotify are companies, not people, this
| is not high school, Apple is not "bully"ing Spotify, they
| have a business relationship.
|
| In general your comment is loaded with emotional language
| that seems to muddle the issue rather than clarifying.
| eduction wrote:
| I didn't consider HTTP basic auth as part of the open
| ecosystem because it's not, as far as I know, widely
| supported by clients. Is it? Maybe my assumption was wrong.
|
| But it's also not part of the original "open" podcast
| vision because it is closed by definition, on an access
| level, and opens the door to tracking. Wouldn't most users
| in the open ecosystem be confused by an auth prompt?
| Wouldn't it be better for the open ecosystem if this sort
| of essentially closed feed just be cleanly inside Spotify
| (or whoever else's app)? This is my thinking, although I
| appreciate that opinions can differ.
|
| I agree my language like "pervert" and "corrupt" can read
| as emotional, but I deployed it because I was trying to
| argue against the people who criticize Spotify using
| similar language, not to criticize anyone or raise
| emotions. If anything I'm trying to praise Spotify here.
| Elidrake42 wrote:
| As someone with a few Patreon feeds, yes it is widely
| supported, and the few that don't support it do support
| URL parameters so a token works fine as well.
| eduction wrote:
| I Patreon (verb?) two podcasts and for both it was just a
| custom URL, I don't recall an option to use a password
| though maybe I missed the option.
| fasouto wrote:
| I am a paying customer and for some reason they show me an
| popup ad every time I open the app...
|
| It's extremely annoying.
| [deleted]
| collegeburner wrote:
| i mean there's not actually that much $ in a commodified
| streaming service. royalties eat most of it and artists still
| aren't paid that much. so branching out is spotify's only hope
| of finding a high-margin area of business.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| Yes, as far as I concerned Spotify was basically perfect in
| like 2012, and most all of the features added (and _REMOVED_)
| since then have made the app experience worse. I want to listen
| to music. That's it. Anything that gets in the way of me doing
| this is a net bad afaic.
|
| I'm still particularly offended by their near deprecation of
| support for local files. When I first got into Spotify the
| seamless integration with my local music library was a huge
| selling point. At some point, the app tried to help me by
| "linking" my meticulously organized concert playlists with
| studio versions of the songs... I have not been inspired to
| give that feature more time since.
|
| I feel like I get closer to just getting an mp3 player again
| every day.
| kbenson wrote:
| Honestly, I think the perfect music app that never existed is
| Pandora with the ability to play specific songs. I always
| found Pandora to a have a much better recommendation system
| and was actually happier and didn't play specific songs, just
| stations.
|
| The only thing that made me switch was the Spotify family
| plan and multiple children asking for it. I've been unhappy
| with it for years, but can't bring myself to pay for two
| separate music subscription services, and also can't bring
| myself to listen to adds.
| corobo wrote:
| Silly as it is I _really_ miss song previews.
|
| Used to be if you long pressed a song (iOS anyway) it would
| jump in a little and play for as long as you held it, going
| back to the music you were listening to when you let go.
|
| Great for checking you've found the song you were thinking of
| and impromptu remixes to make friends laugh.
|
| Annoyingly it was removed for "low engagement rate"[0]. I
| mean yeah, I found it by accident lmao. Maybe tell people
| about it?
|
| [0] https://community.spotify.com/t5/iOS-iPhone-iPad/Touch-
| Previ...
| Aachen wrote:
| I never knew they had it, but now that you mention it... I
| miss it also. When you just want to get an impression of
| the song without listening to the whole thing front to
| back, yeah very often I'd make use of this.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into
| other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)?
|
| > I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My
| podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the
| RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard
|
| 100%. I will never touch Spotify Podcasts for that reason and
| that a number of the podcasts I listen to have specifically
| talked about Spotify's shitty/scummy practices around podcasts
| (like grabbing their audio and hosting it on Spotify's servers
| which cuts off the only traffic/demographics info that podcasts
| currently have access to). Anyone with half a brain would take
| one look at what Spotify is doing and run in the opposite
| direction. They don't care about the open nature of podcasts
| and they want to lure people in then put a wall up around them.
| If a podcast is only on Spotify it's immediately a podcast I
| don't care about because those podcast creators don't give a
| shit about the medium of podcasts, no self-respecting podcaster
| would walk into that lions den.
|
| With this new move into audiobooks I need to seriously
| reconsider using Spotify. I've enjoyed using it (and paying for
| it) since launch but I'm sick of their gross moves and whiny-
| baby attitude (also after getting access to APIs refusing to
| implement them, really shows how full of shit their claims
| are). Maybe I need to look into 3rd-party Apple Music players
| since the AM app is some of the worst UI/UX for a music app.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _They don 't care about the open nature of podcasts and
| they want to lure people in then put a wall up around them._
|
| This is key. "Podcasts" and "podcasting" were created to
| refer to an open medium, but Spotify's intentional adoption
| and perversion of those words to refer to their proprietary
| platform has worked brilliantly. We're further down the
| embrace/extend/extinguish path than most people realize.
| eduction wrote:
| Do you think there should be podcast that are paywalled, or
| are you against that on principle?
|
| And if you support paywalled podcasts, what, in your mind,
| would be the correct way for Spotify to implement them?
|
| (I'm genuinely curious your answer, but to lay my cards and
| biases on the table: I prefer paid podcasts to the ad
| supported ones; I'm tired of hearing all the Casper and
| Squarespace ads woven into the content. And I have trouble
| imagining a typical Spotify listener (interested in, say,
| Joe Rogan podcast) properly moving a personalized premium
| RSS feed into another client without a ton of chaos and
| confusion.)
| joshstrange wrote:
| > Do you think there should be podcast that are
| paywalled, or are you against that on principle?
|
| I have zero issue in paywalled podcasts, in fact I pay
| about $35/mo across various podcasts. Every single one of
| those gives me a special RSS feed with a token in the
| URL. There is no need for a service/platform to support
| this, it works perfectly today. A few of those podcasts
| are from Patreon and they have support for this built in
| (not that the "tech" behind this is groundbreaking). I
| almost always pay if it's an option because I abhor ads
| in every form.
|
| I don't listen to many "mass market" podcasts, I think
| the largest podcast I listen to regularly (aside from
| some NPR ones I occasionally listen to) is ATP
| (Accidental Tech Podcast, which probably pales in
| comparison to the "Serials" and similar) and they offer a
| subscription ($8/mo).
| pwinnski wrote:
| As ctoth said in cousin comment, HTTP Basic Auth seems to
| work well for content like that:
|
| https://subscriber-id:subscriber-
| token@podcast.host/feed.rss
|
| It's open, no proprietary client required.
|
| I, for one, am not totally against the idea of paid-
| subscription-only podcasts, though I hope they don't
| completely push out free podcasts.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Thank you for this comment. I was listening to Podcasts on
| Spotify think it would help get those podcasts attention.
| I'll switch away from doing that now.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Spotify is a horrible podcast player. The audio engine doesn't
| have nuanced speed control or remove silence like other
| dedicated podcast apps. I also find the podcast UI is terrible
| for managing shows and play list.
|
| And then there's the bugs that don't get fixed for a long time.
| Last year they had one where every time a podcast was
| interrupted by a notification or something it would start over
| from the start.
|
| Lastly spotify podcasts that are exclusive are not, by
| definition, a podcast because they don't have a valid rss feed.
| You might refer to them as shows but calling them podcasts
| ignores how podcasts are supposed to work in an open
| interoperable system.
|
| And of course there's zero chance they will embrace podcast 2.0
| features; https://podnews.net/podcast/i4ji5
| https://podcastindex.org/podcast/value4value
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Spotify isn't even a good music player...
| tpxl wrote:
| > are not, by definition, a podcast because they don't have a
| valid rss feed
|
| Does a podcast need to have a rss feed? All I see in
| definitions is that its an audio format made available over
| the internet.
|
| > And of course there's zero chance they will embrace podcast
| 2.0 features
|
| What is Podcasting 2.0? All I see is a bunch of people doing
| podcasting differently, namely adding ads and crypto.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Yes it needs an RSS feed. Otherwise it's just an mp3 file.
| tpxl wrote:
| So a podcast with an ATOM feed isn't a podcast? It needs
| a feed, sure, but not necessarily RSS.
| ihuman wrote:
| That depends on the service or app. Some accept both, and
| some only take RSS. Apple Podcasts used to accept Atom
| feeds, but they don't anymore for new podcasts. All the
| feeds
|
| Edit: do you know any podcasts that use an atom feed?
| None of the 80 feeds in my podcast app are atom feeds.
| tpxl wrote:
| The underlying protocol is an implementation detail.
|
| I don't know any atom feed podcasts (and can't find any),
| but I can find references to people using (or trying to
| use) atom for podcasts.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I've been casual into podcasting and listening to the
| developers create Podcasting 2.0 and I haven't heard
| anyone talking about atom feeds. I think podcasting has
| firmly settled on rss.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Does a podcast need to have a rss feed?_
|
| Canonically, yes. RSS is how podcasts are distributed, and
| why any podcast app can play any podcast.
|
| However, Spotify marketing has bastardized words like
| "podcast" and "podcasting" by using them to refer to their
| closed, proprietary platform. That strategy is working
| brilliantly, and so the future of podcasting is probably
| proprietary platforms on one side, and bullshit "2.0"/Web3
| stuff on the other.
| soneil wrote:
| It's pretty much embrace, extend ..
|
| They're benefiting from the open ecosystem whilst
| simultaneously damaging it.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Agree with the first part, but how are they damaging it?
| Everything they are building is open far as I know.
| Aachen wrote:
| Can I listen to paid shows in antennapod? Can I buy their
| podcasts from someone else the way I can get music or
| books from different stores?
| Maxburn wrote:
| I see the future of podcasting with a much brighter
| future than proprietary. Talk to the developers behind
| Podcasting 2.0 and see if they can change your mind;
| https://podcastindex.social/about
| Maxburn wrote:
| Podcasting 2.0 is mostly about removing ads, shifting to a
| direct streaming monetary support model via crypto. The
| bonus with this model is once advertisers are removed free
| speech is no longer a problem. Also a big focus on
| decentralization in order to prevent censorship.
| WesleyLivesay wrote:
| I'm not sure there is anything in podcasting 2.0 about
| removing ads. I don't think the distribution protocol can
| do anything about ads that are baked into the mp3s on the
| hosting side.
| Maxburn wrote:
| You are correct, not forcing this on anyone. They are
| offering a solid alternative to ads with the streaming
| sats model. It's more in line with the principal of value
| for value.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > The bonus with this model is once advertisers are
| removed free speech is no longer a problem.
|
| How is it a problem now? RSS feeds already can't be taken
| down by angry third-parties, and offer perfectly usable
| decentralization. Advertising is entirely an at-will
| process for podcast hosts, so they can choose whether or
| not they want to shackle themselves to a third-party that
| might object to the content they spread. Connecting your
| podcast to a crypto wallet doesn't fix that, and it's
| nothing you couldn't do with preexisting XML syntax.
|
| Even if Spotify adopted Podcasting 2.0, why would users
| care? Even as a technical guy, I want nothing to do with
| a crypto-adjacent monetization model. Podcasting 1.0
| already solved these problems years ago, there's a good
| reason the major podcast players are wary of this
| "upgrade".
| Maxburn wrote:
| If you accept money from an advertiser and say something
| they don't like they can threaten to pull funding. Sort
| of like how none of the us "news" media will say anything
| against pharma, sponsored by phizer!
|
| Direct support of shows by listeners is a much more
| honest relationship and liberating for podcasters but
| there is nothing in PC2.0 saying you have to use these
| features, it is simply enabling an alternate funding
| model. If you don't get the value for value principal in
| the first place it's not going to make sense though.
| smoldesu wrote:
| How is direct support limited in a traditional podcasting
| model, though? Nobody is forced to accept advertisements
| for their podcast. If you do, that comes with a risk that
| someone will stop paying you. With traditional podcasts
| you can still embed Paypal accounts/Bitcoin wallets if
| that's what you want.
|
| I just fail to see how Podcasting 2.0 is a significant
| change over Podcasting 1.0. Everything you've listed
| already exists in RSS.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Paypal deplatforms people. They also don't have a way to
| stream revenue as you play.
|
| I'm not a great ambassador for it but they are building
| the infrastructure to accomplish the streaming payments,
| boosts, cross platform chat, podping to get immediate
| notifications and reduce wasted polling, and a whole
| bunch of standardized metadata.
|
| By the way the streaming payments also have value splits
| to support the show hosts, app used to play it, hosting
| platform, a guest that happens to be on that episode,
| etc, etc. Whatever they want. It's really impressive and
| no way can paypal match this.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Paypal deplatforms people. They also don't have a way
| to stream revenue as you play.
|
| Then don't use them. PayPal is not intrinsically linked
| to Podcast 1.0, it's just an example of how you can use
| any payment (including crypto) without upgrading to
| Podcasting 2.0 or whatever. Adding YouTube style feature
| is _something_ , but personally seems like a lot of
| hubbub for little payoff.
|
| None of this strikes me as an upgrade over RSS, even
| still. XML trumps the Blockchain for this sorta stuff.
| krono wrote:
| Those podcast recommendations (i.e. advertisements) that appear
| as image tiles in their apps are annoying but avoidable.
|
| Recently they have started inserting random podcast episodes
| into my "Release Radar" playlists. Not happy with this
| development to put it lightly.
| willhinsa wrote:
| Ugh. How do these companies so thoroughly not understand
| their own raison d'etre?
| conductr wrote:
| > their own raison d'etre
|
| It's growth, that's why they exist, searching for growth
| prepend wrote:
| They understand that they make more money this way even if
| it pisses off customers.
|
| They've calculated that the customers who drop because of
| it is outweighed by the higher profits from playing
| podcasts.
| counttheforks wrote:
| I remember when they would prominently advertise Jordan
| Peterson right on the home page of their app. No other
| podcasts, just him over and over again while I've never
| used their app for anything other than music.
|
| I contacted their support to ask how to remove these
| advertisements from the product I paid for, and they told
| me that this was impossible.
|
| Impossible is a strong word, and installing
| https://github.com/spicetify proved that it was, in fact,
| possible to remove the ads for podcasts from their
| product.
| cush wrote:
| > Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into
| other arenas
|
| Branching into audio books is the obvious next move. It's not
| like Netflix attempting to make games. If you think that's bad,
| take a look at Disney
| [deleted]
| techsupporter wrote:
| > I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to
| gobble up any slightly related industry.
|
| Vertical (acquiring as many steps in the supply chain to a
| business' core business as it can) and horizontal (acquiring as
| many related or semi-related functions as it can) integration
| has been the name of the game for as long as businesses were a
| thing.
|
| One example I like to use is Temple-Inland, that started as a
| company that made boxes, was acquired into a company that made
| paper, bought another company that did forestry management,
| which turned into "we should have a real estate investment
| arm", and resulted in the country's third-largest mortgage
| lender in the early 80s.
|
| We can be kinda tired of it all we want to but this is one of
| those competing interests between customers[0] and companies:
| the customer wants maximum flexibility for the lowest cost with
| the broadest range of features; the company wants the fewest
| costs for the most income with the highest amount of lock-in.
| Integration tilts the balance towards the companies so they
| will always pursue it.
|
| 0 - As an aside, I don't like calling people "consumers". We
| are customers; we "consume" service offerings, but (likely) we
| do so with intent.
| jo6gwb wrote:
| In many cases, the word consumer connotes a legal definition
| that is different than customer.
|
| For example, see the definition from Reg P: Consumer means an
| individual who obtains or has obtained a financial product or
| service from you that is to be used primarily for personal,
| family, or household purposes, or that individual's legal
| representative.
|
| A customer may be an individual or a business.
|
| Source: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-
| policy/regulations/101...
| kenjackson wrote:
| Isn't it the case with almost every subscription service that
| there are aspects of it that you don't make use of? I feel like
| every subscription I have, from cellular to cable to Netflix,
| there's stuff I don't use that is part of the subscription.
| E.g., I don't watch horror movies, but apparently Netflix is
| still making them. Maybe I should take issue with it, but it
| just feels so mundane to me.
| pwinnski wrote:
| You're talking about genres, which is a different scenario.
|
| This is more like Netflix raising prices for streaming
| subscribers to fund a new video-game studio. The fact that
| _some_ people might enjoy both doesn 't make them anything
| like the same thing.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I think it's just levels of granularity. Podcasts and music
| are both audio entertainment. It's like Netflix adding TV
| shows to their lineup of movies.
|
| But the broader point is simply that in subscriptions to
| services you usually pay for some aspect of the service
| that you don't use and never have any intent to use -- and
| you can partition off that aspect of the service in a
| simple way (at least simple to you).
| stronglikedan wrote:
| It's fine if they branch out, but they abuse their users with
| popups, and by not being able to hide these extra features. I
| just want to listen to music without having to repeatedly tell
| them that's all I want to do.
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| I have no issue with it business-wise -- if they don't, they'll
| eventually die because a podcast/audiobook app expands into
| music.
|
| I just have a major issue with it UX-wise. I wish podcasts and
| audiobooks were their own separate apps. I've totally given up
| even trying to understand Spotify's UX anymore. I always
| eventually manage to play what I want through some combo of
| scroll/filter/search/history but I just feel like I never know
| what's going to appear anywhere this time.
|
| And as long as I'm wishing... how about an app just for
| classical music too! Composer+performer just can't be
| satisfactorily shoehorned into a single "artist" field no
| matter how hard you try. Same as tracks aren't works -- a
| symphony might be anywhere from 3 to 40 tracks. (Keep classical
| music accessible in the main app for casual listeners, and
| because the line between classical and pop is blurry in some
| cases -- but just add a dedicated app designed for classical
| alone.)
| techsupporter wrote:
| > While I'm wishing, I've always wished they'd separate
| classical music into its own app too...
|
| For what it's worth, a lot of Spotify's customers agree with
| you and have made third-party apps that try to do this. (I
| only know they exist but not how good they are since
| classical music is not my thing. But I kind of understand
| where classical music fans are coming from since a lot of
| electronic music, especially earlier works, is "mangled" in
| the same way.)
|
| The two I know off the top of my head are Concertmaster and
| Tempso, if that helps.
| ggrelet wrote:
| Do you know anything similar for electronic music ?
| elefantastisch wrote:
| Idagio is a great alternative for classical.
| [deleted]
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| ATM I use podcasts more time than music, and I like their
| implementation fairly.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts.
|
| Yep, and I _really_ wish they 'd stop promoting absolute turds
| like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson at me. I have no interest in
| listening to them.
| prepend wrote:
| Not yet, but if you see 20,000 more ads you might have
| interest.
|
| Spotify is willing to try.
| counttheforks wrote:
| The worst part is that they are showing these ads to paying
| customers.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| The only thing that'll make me do is badger the folks at
| Tidal and other streaming co's to create a proper
| alternative to Spotify Connect that works on my Yamaha
| hardware.
| nsteel wrote:
| What is wrong with Tidal Connect
| (https://tidal.com/Connect) ? Honest question, have never
| used it. Don't you need to badger Yamaha to support it in
| your old hardware? But even if the old hardware was
| getting updates, Yamaha don't seem to be a partner
| (https://tidal.com/supported-devices?filter=tidal-
| connect).
|
| You can cheaply add Tidal Connect support to an old amp
| with a LinkPlay-based product e.g.
| https://www.arylic.com/products/up2stream-pro-receiver-
| board
| wollsmoth wrote:
| I think they have to get some kind of exclusive content. Either
| they somehow start recording hits and start a war with other
| streaming services for popular tracks or they have podcasts
| which I guess are sort of supposed to be like the catalog that
| video streaming services are trying to build.
| hardtke wrote:
| Exclusive content is the only way they (or any streaming
| service) can become profitable. With recorded music, they
| have to pay a revenue share to the artists and Spotify's
| percentage does not increase as they grow. With exclusive
| content, however, they pay once and as the audience grows the
| additional listeners are pure profit. So, the goal is to
| increase the percentage of owned content consumed on the
| platform and give less of the subscription fees to the record
| labels.
|
| The exclusive tracks model does not work for music artists
| because they want ubiquitous distribution. Music is unlike
| video in that people consume the same content over and over
| again, and also unlike video in that the artists make the big
| bucks off of live performances.
|
| This is why SiriusXM can pay Howard Stern $100M per year and
| still be wildly profitable. It reduces their dependence on
| royalty incurring content.
| [deleted]
| solarkraft wrote:
| Absolutely. But it's not really an expansion - they're trying
| to get people off of music and onto podcasts because those are
| cheaper for them to serve (so more like an attempt at not
| having to raise the subscription price).
|
| I guess the idea is that all types of audio content have some
| commonality and somebody who's considering listening to music
| could also listen to a podcast instead. I don't think this
| overlap happens for me very often, but maybe it's more often
| than I think and often enough for them to be worth it.
|
| I'll still boycott their podcasts because they're attempting to
| make proprietary what is currently free.
| pelasaco wrote:
| i don't have a problem at all with that. I consume everything
| on spotify. However what bothers me is Spotify playing victim
| here, when we know that if Spotify was in Apple's position,
| they would probably do the same.
| djcannabiz wrote:
| I personally find the podcasts kinda nice but there should
| really be a way to turn them off entirely. Soulseek + foobar is
| allways an option.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| I ended up switching to Qobuz for this exact reason. I have
| nothing against podcasts, but what I wanted from Spotify was a
| great music app, and it's clear that that's no longer what they
| want to be.
|
| (I also suspect that podcasts and audiobooks are more lucrative
| for Spotify than music is, since long-form content likely has a
| lower royalties/minute rate than music does)
| greggh wrote:
| I subscribe to Spotify to listen to podcasts, and occasionally
| music.
| [deleted]
| dangrie158 wrote:
| Don't know about the US market but in Germany there were many
| audio books available in Spotify already that you could access
| via the normal premium subscription. Few days after I read about
| the launch of purchasable audio books in the US all of those
| vanished so I canceled my subscription and got Apple Music via
| Apple one which was a little cheaper for the whole family when
| adding the extra iCloud storage I needed anyway. Happy with the
| decision so far. I just had to move all my playlists to Apple
| Music which was easy due to a random online tool I found
| [deleted]
| jjice wrote:
| As someone who uses Spotify every day, I hate it. I hate their
| expanding markets while constantly making the app more bloated,
| slow, and less intuitive. Really, you're going to fill my
| recommended page with podcasts you've paid a ton of money for
| exclusivity instead of showing me recommended music that's
| relevant to me, like they used to? Audiobooks aren't going to
| make my music experience any better either. Can't wait for a new,
| slower UI update in 3 months and for them to take away lyrics
| _again_.
|
| I'm a bit salty here and that's a bit of a rant, but I just want
| to stream music and they make it progressively harder.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > for them to take away lyrics _again_
|
| Disclaimer: I work at Spotify, but I can't speak directly for
| the teams handling this.
|
| So. Lyrics, and _any text that accompanies audio in general_
| (for example, if you try to show audiobook text while it 's
| playing, or audio transcript of a podcast, or...) is a legal
| minefield.
|
| So, if some text that accompanies audio disappears... it's
| likely for legal/licensing reasons, not because devs are
| incompetent.
|
| That said, as an incompetent dev myself, features may disappear
| due to incompetence, too :)
| jjice wrote:
| Oh I bet it gets tricky on the legal front. I was more
| referring to the entire feature being removed like 5 or 6
| years ago I think, but I imagine there was an issue with the
| partnership with Genius or whoever the original lyric
| supplier was.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| w0m wrote:
| spotify podcasts are kind of garbage imo; player just doesn't
| handle it well moving between or around episodes and music
| depending on what I'm doing.
| [deleted]
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| As a musician who earns less than half a penny per stream from
| Spotify, it is really hard to for me to take this sob story
| seriously.
| endofreach wrote:
| A friend of mine has the issue that spotify still charges him,
| even though he has no account anymore (and no access to the email
| address used for the non-existing account). There is no more
| information in the charge other than it is charged by spotify.
| They do not offer phone support and respond with useless
| questions. The only way he seems he has left is to let a lawyer
| handle it...
|
| Next time he should just let it be handled by apple, with a
| click, for free.
| jagaerglad wrote:
| Cheaper and quicker than a lawyer would be to cancel his bank
| card and order a new one
| damontal wrote:
| Why would i buy a full price audiobook through Spotify when I can
| just use Audible?
| tremarley wrote:
| I've tried to us Spotify for music. And Audible for audiobooks.
| But it's not enjoyable using seperate apps
|
| I tend to only finish my audiobooks when they're on Spotify.
| JimA wrote:
| Regardless of the passionate feelings against Spotify, it's hard
| to dispute their basic premise that Apple is deliberately
| creating a bad user experience just to preserve their walled
| content garden.
|
| The same thing applies to not being able to buy a book using the
| Amazon app. It's ridiculous and there is no valid argument
| against it other than greed. Not a fan of overregulation, but in
| this area I can't wait for Apple to be reined in.
| threeseed wrote:
| Spotify could just implement IAP. It's simple and has a great
| user experience.
|
| Seems like this is more about Spotify wanting to benefit from
| the channel without paying for it.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, there should be a law that hardware that the user paid for
| cannot be tethered by the manufacturer. Otherwise it is a
| service, not a product.
| prepend wrote:
| Do you know what I hate? Spotify having my credit card.
|
| There's a very low chance I ever buy an audiobook if they
| integrate with apple's purchase flow. There's a zero chance if
| they had their own flow that pops up and asks me for a credit
| card. And a separate system to update numbers, cancel stuff, etc
| etc
|
| I get that Spotify wants more money. I'm sure publishers hated
| selling audiobooks to Barnes & Noble and them taking 50% of the
| retail price.
| counttheforks wrote:
| Thanks to 3-D Secure it doesn't really matter who has your
| credit card details. Relying on the secrecy of a few numbers is
| silly anyway.
| prepend wrote:
| I'm not concerned about the security of my cars. I'm
| concerned about entering it again and Spotify charging me for
| stuff.
| plorg wrote:
| I think Apple is being abusively extractive here.
|
| I also believe that Spotify's audiobook play will be bad for
| consumers and worse for artists.
| nomel wrote:
| > I also believe that Spotify's audiobook play will be bad for
| consumers and worse for artists.
|
| Could you expand on this?
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple has been crystal clear since day one that they want a
| percentage of payments being facilitated through their
| platform.
|
| For them they are a channel and channels have costs.
| tremarley wrote:
| I've been using Spotify for audiobooks for a few years. It's a
| lot easier to use than the alternatives in my opinion.
| xamdam wrote:
| I love apple products but I hate this stuff. They're cynically
| kneecapping competition and hurting consumer choice, like they're
| not rich enough already. Would class action be a to do thing
| here?
| daveidol wrote:
| Agreed. It's too difficult to move off of iPhone/Apple
| products, but I really want to do something to force them to
| stop with the anticompetative BS.
| scblock wrote:
| Corporate propaganda. Hardly "the full story".
| SighMagi wrote:
| Time for Spotify to "Play Fair" with musicians.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Oh, look, a huge company that pays artists a pittance[0] is
| pretending to be on the side of the artists (writers in this
| case) in their fight against mean old Apple. Is this like when
| they complained about Apple not letting them do Siri, but then
| never implemented Siri support? Or maybe it's like when they
| complained about Apple not letting them make a watch app, when
| the APIs were already available?
|
| Nah, it's about Spotify wanting more money, and trying to pretend
| it's David vs Goliath it's not.
|
| 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k9-UIg52xg
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Does it save position now on an audiobook? For example if you
| listen to music inbetween?
|
| Cause if not, it's still useless
| nomel wrote:
| It does for podcasts.
| galoisscobi wrote:
| Last time they complained about Apple not supporting Siri
| integration. Then when Apple added support for that, Spotify
| never added HomePod Siri support.
|
| The idea has ~5k votes and 137 pages of comments on their forum
| and yet no action from Spotify.
|
| https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Implement-Na...
| fergbrain wrote:
| I dropped Spotify and went to Apple Music because of this.
| prepend wrote:
| I dropped Spotify and went to Apple Music because for $20 I
| get music, 200GB cloud, and tv vs $15 for Spotify.
| graydsl wrote:
| Just came here to write that! Because of that and because I am
| not a fan of the convoluted UI, I switched to YT Music.
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| bgentry wrote:
| Spotify also still doesn't support AirPlay 2, nearly 4.5 years
| after it was launched:
| https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/25/spotify-still-doesnt-su...
|
| I really don't want to switch to Apple Music (it's not a great
| app either) but I'm really tired of dealing with playback
| issues due to the lack of buffered AirPlay 2 playback. If you
| try out a proper AirPlay 2 supporting app like Overcast or
| Apple Music, it's a dramatically better experience.
|
| I also want nothing to do with Spotify's podcasts or audio
| books. And their macOS Chromium desktop app has also languished
| for years.
| hrbf wrote:
| While Apple Music is annoying to use, the Spotify app is even
| worse for me. Audio quality is also markedly worse -- I have
| verified my hunch with a double-blind side-by-side test.
| Spotify is now way too expensive for what they offer and the
| only noteworthy integration they offer is Sonos.
|
| I'm entirely with you that even if I was a Spotify
| subscriber, I don't want their podcasts and audiobooks. In
| separate apps, optimized for use-case, covered by the same
| subscription, maybe. Forcing all those fundamentally
| different media formats through one UI and funnel is just
| wrong.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| These features would all help with putting money directly in
| their pocket. I imagine they would be prioritized.
| freedomben wrote:
| Spotify: I want so badly to love you, and (FWIW) I'm very much on
| your side battling the giants like Apple. But, I'm so bothered by
| your approach to podcasts (the lock-in and proprietary of a
| previously open standard) that I can't muster much enthusiasm to
| defend you. It makes me think that since you're on the "bad" side
| of the podcasts issue when it's in your business interests, that
| you're only fighting on the "good" side of OP issue because it's
| in your business interests, and that destroys trust. Do you
| really think your approach to podcasts is better for anyone other
| than Spotify?
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