[HN Gopher] Spotify looked to ban white noise podcasts to become...
___________________________________________________________________
Spotify looked to ban white noise podcasts to become more
profitable
Author : cududa
Score : 134 points
Date : 2023-08-17 20:14 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| The payment model of "streams per play" has always felt wrong to
| me. Wouldn't a more rational be "how does this user's monthly fee
| get divided"?
|
| Let's say someone pays $10/month for Spotify. First Spotify takes
| their cut, let's call that $3 but whatever it is. There's $7
| left. If someone ONLY listens to Taylor Swift that month then she
| deserves the full $7. If someone listens to 50 artists for 20
| hours then those 50 artists can divide the $7.
|
| You can set the pool size and divide the pool a few ways. I've
| got ideas for how I think that should be done. But in any case
| I've always thought the division should be on a per-user basis
| rather than entire ecosystem.
| sbarre wrote:
| If they were smart they would just lean into this and add support
| for easily looping shorter tracks into some kind of "atmospheric
| listening" product.
|
| Surely that would bring down their bandwidth costs at the very
| least.
|
| There are tons of popular paid apps that do this kind of thing
| already, there's an obvious market for it.
|
| But I haven't found Spotify to be very smart recently, so they'll
| probably just keep complaining about it, or do something stupid
| like update their ToS to disallow this kind of thing.
| rchaud wrote:
| They'll probably just acquire calm.com which does exactly that.
| Nobody at Spotify is concerned with profitability.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Maybe like Netflix film grain, Spotify could generate the white
| noise locally and reduce bandwidth usage?
| Inityx wrote:
| Did you read the article?
| [deleted]
| arrowsmith wrote:
| > Netflix film grain
|
| TIL: https://www.slashcam.com/news/single/Netflix-removes-
| movie-n...
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| I despise this with every fiber in my body. _Intentionally_
| adding noise back to a picture?! What in heavens name for?
|
| Is there at least a way to turn it off?
| tux3 wrote:
| It's an intentional artistic choice, if you denoise people
| don't like it, because film noise is nostalgic and vinyl
| has a warmer sound, etc etc
|
| If you download the video file and play it back locally,
| you can change it or turn it off if you want, it's just a
| video filter
|
| You can even turn off deblocking if you want, get those
| crispy jpeg-like artifacts!
|
| It's all just post-processing, when it was previously
| hardcoded, which seems like a win, especially considering
| bandwidth gains
| grotorea wrote:
| Is it so different from adding lens flares?
| mh- wrote:
| Depends if the flare is excessive or not: my eyes see
| flares, adding lens flare can simulate that. My eyes
| don't see film grain.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Lens flare, as the name suggests, is a product of lenses,
| and the number, shape, and colour of flares is determined
| by the lenses in the film camera. Humans with normal
| vision rarely see lens flare, but it can be caused by
| astigmatism, LASIK, or other conditions.
|
| It also requires staring into a bright light, so don't do
| that.
| Swizec wrote:
| > It also requires staring into a bright light, so don't
| do that.
|
| I have astigmatism. Most modern headlights produce lens
| flares when driving at night. Street and traffic lights
| also. Doesn't need to be harmfully bright to flare, just
| brighter than the background.
| cakemuncher wrote:
| I'm pissed that they remove it from the first place. I want
| to watch a movie the way the filmmakers originally
| intended, not with Netflixs modifications.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| In practice, you are happy with all sorts of artefacts
| introduced by compression, and that's all this really is
| - a method of encoding data about what you are looking at
| in a smaller space.
|
| It's actually part of AV1
| https://norkin.org/research/film_grain/index.html
| bobsmooth wrote:
| The noise is added back in after decompression. The
| article explains it.
| wbl wrote:
| The thing is you can't. What the silver iodide did 100
| years ago is now coupled to complex chemical processes
| that affect the picture quality and sometimes serious
| choices in restoration (see Metropolis).
| pjc50 wrote:
| Film grain is horribly incompressible and 100% different
| randomly from frame to frame. It tends to be the first
| thing that vanishes from MPEG-compressed video.
|
| (and of course if your film is _shot_ on digital, then it
| was never there)
| Karellen wrote:
| Did the filmmakers really _intend_ for their films to
| have grain in them, or was it a feature forced upon them
| by the nature of their tools?
|
| If non-grainy film stock had been available for the same
| price, do you think filmmakers would have intentionally
| picked the grainy film instead? Every single time?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| To me it's less about what they wanted to achieve, and
| instead about what they actually achieved with what they
| had available.
|
| As an over-the-top example: Most people (that I know)
| would agree with George Lucas re-edits of Star Wars with
| newer CGI are worse than the original edits. The only
| reason to choose the newer edits are because they're
| released in HD and the original is not.
| darklycan51 wrote:
| I watch anime with a CRT filter on via MPV... it makes
| trash computer drawn anime have actual texture to it, it
| just feels better.
| andybak wrote:
| Noise can reduce the visibility of artifacts, generate
| apparent detail that is missing in actuality as well as
| being a signifier of particular styles or time periods.
|
| You'll be telling me that distortion pedals and valve amps
| are a bad idea next.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Film grain synthesis in AV1, what's being discussed here,
| is about _preserving_ the appearance of grain from the
| input but still reaping the compression benefits of
| denoising. This isn 't a "make movie more film-y" layer
| they're just slapping over a pristine source.
|
| Now the filmmakers may have done that in the first place,
| depending on how the movie was made. So for say, things
| made by Netflix themselves I'm sure they sometimes use fake
| digital film grain, but that's coming in at an earlier step
| in the process.
| [deleted]
| jncfhnb wrote:
| We do brown noise all night every night. White noise is too harsh
| imo.
| vvpan wrote:
| I wonder why they did not just add the feature if it is so
| desired? Feels like the code required and UI changes would be
| minimal.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| https://archive.ph/MaXIb
| [deleted]
| alphazard wrote:
| One man's artisanal white noise is another man's encrypted
| offsite backup.
| [deleted]
| inatreecrown2 wrote:
| how do you think he listens to them, is there any app that can
| play non audio (wav, mp3) files?
| KMnO4 wrote:
| cat file.bin | aplay
| klyrs wrote:
| Back in the day, we'd just cat /dev/random >
| /dev/dsp
|
| which was especially fun when 'who' said that there was only
| one TTY session active in the computer lab at night, and you
| were logged in from your dorm. Or so I'm told.
| amenghra wrote:
| That can be true of any file. One person's
| gif/pdf/html/whatever is another person's stegano-encrypted
| data...
| somat wrote:
| The technical problem is that noise compresses poorly. What is
| needed is a way to generate the noise as needed.
|
| Now people don't want just any noise, they want artisanal
| boutique noise. so all you need is a bpf style language artists
| can plug into your noise generator, then people can pick the
| superior custom noise algorithm.
|
| hashtag: only_half_joking
| john-radio wrote:
| There are a few white noise generator apps actually and I love
| them. https://asoftmurmur.com/
| jakdracula wrote:
| Oddly enough, there already are free and paid products that do
| exactly this- you can even add birds, insect noise and ambient
| sounds. Choose light rain, heavy rain, anything else in
| between. You can even choose the surface the rain is hitting-
| concrete, tin roof, etc.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| Do you have a name? I am interested (insect and bird toggle,
| surface select)
| jdechko wrote:
| On iOS, Rain Rain is my favorite. It's a free with
| limitations app, but I don't find the limitations too bad.
|
| But honestly, we have a HomePod mini that does 99.999% of
| the work in the house. The HomePod has half-a-dozen or so
| background noises including rain, ocean and white noises
| notatoad wrote:
| if you use iPhone, you can turn on "background sounds"
| under accessibility settings - no app required
| m0llusk wrote:
| The mandible chatter market is underserved.
| seydor wrote:
| all they need to do is to add an "autoloop" option to a track.
| people won't notice that it loops every minute or so
| p1mrx wrote:
| People will definitely notice the loop point if they're
| trying to sleep.
|
| My Android app (Chroma Doze, est. 2010) uses this algorithm
| to splice noise segments together: When
| adding two streams together, the perceived amplitude stays
| constant if x^2 + y^2 == 1 for amplitudes x, y.
| A useful identity is: sin(x)^2 + cos(x)^2 == 1.
| Thus, we can perform a constant-amplitude crossfade using:
| result = fade_out * cos(x) + fade_in * sin(x) for x
| in [0, pi/2] But we also need to prevent
| clipping. The maximum of sin(x) + cos(x) occurs at
| the midpoint, with a result of sqrt(2), or ~1.414.
| Thus, for a 16-bit output stream in the range +/-32767, we
| need to keep the individual streams below 32767 /
| sqrt(2), or ~23170.
| stavros wrote:
| Noise does compress poorly, but can you tell the difference
| between eight hours of a fan blowing, and two seconds of a fan
| blowing looped for eight hours?
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Given how well the brain recognizes patterns, I would venture
| to guess, "yes". Even 20min. looped would probably become
| familiar.
| [deleted]
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I wonder how much of the technical problem Spotify actually
| cares about. From the sound of the article, they really only
| cared about the cost of paying out ad revenue.
|
| Then again, if Spotify _really_ cared about saving bandwidth
| costs, they would have never gone to CDN from P2P.
| malfist wrote:
| Surely this user hostile behavior will have no repercussions.
| Enshitification must continue.
|
| After all, removing features your customers are using too much is
| a recipe for profit.
| PeterCorless wrote:
| Also picked up by engadget:
|
| https://www.engadget.com/spotify-almost-removed-white-noise-...
| hnbad wrote:
| Sounds less like Spotify is annoyed than record labels are
| annoyed. Spotify is being paid by its users regardless of what
| they decide to listen to.
|
| On YouTube one of my most-watched videos in terms of watchtime
| for a while was brown noise overlaid on a recording of ocean
| waves. The video was three hours long I think and monetized.
| YouTube probably doesn't care if that share of my YouTube Premium
| subscription money goes to the guy who uploaded that video, a
| professionally recorded studio production or some person doing
| vlogs in their bedroom. Why should Spotify?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| My guess is that it's far more likely that major labels start
| their own music streaming services, mimicking the
| Netflix/Hulu/Disney/HBO/Peacock etc explosion in video
| streaming.
|
| No idea if it would be a smart business decision by the labels,
| but they could definitely do it and Spotify would only be left
| with independent artists and labels who don't join the
| bandwagon.
|
| YouTube has no risk of this. There's no entity, or coalition of
| entities, capable of pulling content from YouTube that would
| create a noticeable dip in traffic.
| troupo wrote:
| > My guess is that it's far more likely that major labels
| start their own music streaming services
|
| They can't. Unlike movies, there's great value in back
| catalogs. If Die Hard isn't available on a movie streaming
| service you will likely not care. If Pink Floyd (or Beatles,
| or Aretha Franklin) isn't available on a music streaming
| service, a huge number of people will care.
|
| There are ~4 big companies that control 70-80% (by different
| estimations) of music. But individually they own different
| chunks. Sony can't start a streaming service if they don't
| have music owned by Warner etc.
| Macha wrote:
| It depends on if these users are paying for premium or not.
| Since the streams are described as having embedded ads, users
| probably aren't too worried about removing Spotify's own ads,
| and I doubt track skips or selecting specific tracks in the
| album are in demand by any primarily white noise users
| prmoustache wrote:
| I doubt anyone is listening to these from a free account with
| ads, that would defeat the purpose.
| Macha wrote:
| To me the embedded ads which the article identifies as the
| source of revenue for these white noise streams would also
| seem to defeat the point for me, but apparently that
| doesn't bother people so I don't see why spotify's ads
| would be different.
| seydor wrote:
| let alone it's not compressible
| ghusto wrote:
| > ... it concluded that shifting users away from white noise
| programming could net the company an additional $38 million in
| profit
|
| I don't think that's how ... well, _anything_ works. It's like
| saying "If got rid of the actual program on our TV channel and
| filled the whole spot with adverts, we could make three times as
| much money from adverts".
|
| They're not there to buy your product, they're there because
| there's a free thing they want. When that free thing goes away,
| so do they.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| grumblingdev wrote:
| I listen to so much of this stuff. It's super annoying. I just
| want 10hr mixes.
|
| I want an app that just does this and nothing else that is not
| terrible.
| lostlogin wrote:
| If you're on iOS, it's baked into the OS. Setting > Background
| Sounds.
|
| I wish it had a few more (eg rain without bird noises). Being
| able to add my own would be great.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| cat /dev/urandom | aplay
| xsmasher wrote:
| Noisily works in a browser or they have apps
| https://www.noisli.com/
| akeck wrote:
| We specifically use an app called White Noise for this type of
| thing. It has all the noise colors (I prefer pink noise), doesn't
| stream, and plays without ads.
| sdiupIGPWEfh wrote:
| Been listening to playlists of brown noise on Spotify lately
| while working, when I get tired of listening to actual music but
| still want some background noise. More indistinct and less
| distracting than other ambient sounds.
|
| The primary benefit to me of using Spotify for this is that I'm
| already set up to control music on my sound system from my phone.
| dathinab wrote:
| I think this representation is a bit misleading.
|
| They considered intervening with them, which by far doesn't mean
| banning them.
|
| To put it into context after their acquisition they had been
| pushing podcasts in general, white noise podcast accidentally
| profited from it, and a bit too much.
|
| Which is with what they considered intervening with.
|
| But banning them would have been the last step if others don't
| work.
|
| And even then you still would have white noise songs, just not
| podcasts. Or more likely podcast just not promoted, i.e. you need
| to more explicitly look for them.
|
| I.e. the chance for Spotify removing users access to white noise
| content was close to non-existing as far I can tell.
| lozenge wrote:
| Well yes, they could forbid publishing noise on the platform,
| and just offer their own white noise content for users to
| access.
| constantly wrote:
| What's your source on all of this?
| [deleted]
| hobom wrote:
| It's basically all present in the article
| Roark66 wrote:
| >"It can't be that an Ed Sheeran stream is worth exactly the same
| as a stream of rain falling on the roof," Warner Music Group CEO,
| Robert Kyncl
|
| Why not? You've already made millions in profit on Ed Sheeran's
| content. Once you've broke even on the cost of making the content
| delivering more of it costs exactly the same. Regardless if its
| music or sounds of rain falling on a roof.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| If Ed Sheeran's music was removed from spotify tomorrow it
| would significantly decrease the amount people listened, and
| presumably some people would stop subscribing.
|
| If any particular white noise album went away it would have no
| impact on revenue, people would just listen to a different one.
| braza wrote:
| > it would significantly decrease the amount people listened,
| and presumably some people would stop subscribing.
|
| Not sure about that.
|
| The main value proposition of Spotify is that is a audio
| marketplace that consolidates legacy music catalog via big
| labels (EMI, Roadrunner, Universal, etc) plus the Podcast
| platform sindication and in a certain stance discoverability.
|
| Everything keeping the friction in a minimum level.
|
| Of course Ed Sheeran is a big name, but I think it's
| debatable that, let's say the top 1% of his fan base in the
| Spotify user base would trade the huge amount of friction due
| to his catalog removal.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I think way more than 1% of fans would switch to Apple
| Music etc.
| braza wrote:
| Sorry to insist in this point, but as far as I know a big
| artist left the platform does not has a huge impact. For
| instance: Neil Young left the platform at Jan/22 and the
| user base had a constant growth.
|
| Another point that I forgot to mention: not all
| subscribers are equal to Spotify.
|
| A heavy user that listens Ed Sheeran is less desirable
| than a heavy user that listens a bunch of podcasts. On
| the former Spotify needs to collect and pay to the labels
| and for the latter the cost is marginal.
|
| If we're talking about one artist, eventually the
| platform natural growth will offset the effect of a
| single artist leaving. Platform and network effects is
| something strong.
|
| If you're talking about a "catalog removal", for
| instance, Universal removes all artists in their
| portfolio I am more than happy to agree that Spotify will
| suffer.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/26773/profitability-
| devel...
| rajnathani wrote:
| Well, people asleep listening to ads, should technically be great
| due to the continuous subconscious delivery of the ads.
| andix wrote:
| Spotify has a few awesome playlists with different noise colors.
| Those "songs" are probably licensed by Spotify and not paid per
| play.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| If music is just auditory wallpaper anyway, why distinguish?
| weinzierl wrote:
| I think the idea was born with _Sleepify_ [1] in 2014. (I love
| how Wikipedia classifies its genre a _silence_ ). This was kind
| of a stunt back then, receiving mainstream media attention and
| ultimately allowing the band behind it to finance a small tour.
|
| Of course, repeating this one-time creative feat is just boring
| and annoying and for Spotify it is just a slippery slope. If they
| forbid silence, people will upload white noise, if they forbid
| white noise people will just resort to some low effort AI
| generated sound. None of which is desirable for anyone.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepify
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sounds like there is a niche for an ad-supported white-noise
| podcasting platform?
| Havoc wrote:
| Just add a white noise generator and call it a day?
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Missing the point a bit I think. (=
|
| Spotify isn't geared to handle people streaming 8+ hours of
| ASMR audio per day.
|
| Their model doesn't support having to pay artists for audio
| tracks people put on random shuffle while they sleep / game /
| study / work.
|
| "White noise" here I think just means tracks without talking.
|
| So mic scratching, inaudible whispers, tapping on random items,
| mouth sounds... all the stuff ASMR folks do.
|
| These folks figured out how to get Spotify to pay, with a bunch
| of new tracks every week that people are actively listening to,
| and Spotify doesn't want people doing that.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Walk_(TV_series)
| nolok wrote:
| Are you saying you believe the issue is 1. that people listen
| to spotify 6/7/8+ hours a day, or 2. that people listen to
| those tracks specifically ?
|
| If it's 2 then it makes no sense Spotify needs to pay either
| way, and if it's 1 then it makes no sense either, people
| didn't start listening to music in the background while
| working or studying or relaxing or cooking once white-noise-
| like feed appeared, they've been doing that since before I
| was born, so if spotify business model doesn't account for
| that model it is simply not viable.
|
| From the article, it seems the issue is another thing
| entirely : people listen to that while _sleeping_ , and that
| drives the value of advertisements down.
| troupo wrote:
| > Their model doesn't support having to pay artists for audio
| tracks people put on random shuffle while they sleep / game /
| study / work.
|
| That is literally Spotify's main use case
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Their model doesn't support having to pay artists for audio
| tracks people put on random shuffle while they sleep / game /
| study / work.
|
| ?! putting spotify on in the background of something else has
| to be more than 50% of their use. That's partly why the
| payouts are so low.
| copperx wrote:
| Does Spotify pay more if users stream the track in the
| foreground? Or what do you mean?
| archo wrote:
| https://archive.is/MaXIb
| adventured wrote:
| Brown noise is the way to go.
|
| White noise is too broad - and largely unnecessary - the higher
| frequencies are more likely to damage your hearing over time
| (particularly at any elevated loudness, ie if you're trying to
| drown out some loud noise to sleep). Brown noise will do a far
| superior job at blocking out snoring, thuds, etc.
|
| I don't know how people sleep with white noise, the highs are too
| screeching.
| amenghra wrote:
| In case you need it, a static page which will give you an
| infinite amount of white/pink/waterfall noise:
| https://www.quaxio.com/noise.html
|
| No tracking and no ads, ever.
|
| Uses WebAudio API. Based on the code from
| https://noisehack.com/generate-noise-web-audio-api/, but for some
| reason, the code wasn't working as-is in today's browsers. So
| tweaked things for a couple minutes.
| nomel wrote:
| I've used Spotify because I can adjust the EQ to get the tone I
| want. There's no system wide EQ on iPhone.
| maxander wrote:
| I'd recommend mynoise.net ; most of the sounds are for-pay
| but white noise and a few others are free, and it includes an
| equalizer (and some presets for pink noise and etc.)
|
| An app, though, not a website.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Another one is https://mynoise.net/, which has a neat mode
| where the sliders will very slowly move on their own, so you
| get slowly adjusting soundscapes.
|
| I don't know if it works offline though, and probably not when
| your phone is locked. They also published recordings on spotify
| though; some are an hour long, others you can probably download
| them and loop them though.
| https://open.spotify.com/artist/1gRJBUyCeihBrgcCtDdEfv?si=yL...
| rezonant wrote:
| Works fine in background and while locked on Android. Only
| works when the tab is visible on iOS.
| gumby wrote:
| Can it be used as a good source of random numbers or is the
| noise not truly "white"?
| amenghra wrote:
| It calls Math.random() which is NOT truly random.
| crypto.getRandomValues() is what you would use if you wanted
| truly random noise.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Under the hood it's just making calls to Math.random(), so
| the white noise generated is exactly as reliable a source of
| randomness as the system as the system could give you
| directly.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It's at at most as good of a source but almost certainly
| worse. Lots of entropy dropped and biases introduced.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Very fair point. Transforming the randomness to fit it
| into the audible spectrum would certainly have side
| effects
| yura wrote:
| >as reliable a source of randomness as the system as the
| system could give you directly
|
| Not sure what you mean by this. Which system?
| gumby wrote:
| I thought that was the point GP's comment is making, but
| a reply to a parallel comment to yours suggests
| otherwise.
| fragmede wrote:
| The combination of the operating system
| (Linux/MacOS/Windows) and the particular hardware it has
| access to. With different hardware, /dev/(u)random has
| different qualities of entropy.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The article describes shows playing "various noises like
| crashing waves or bird sounds on repeat." That is different
| from pure white noise.
| pmontra wrote:
| > entire episodes of white noise, seemingly aimed at listeners
| who are asleep.
|
| > Some podcasters are making as much as $18,000 a month through
| ads placed in these episodes
|
| > shifting users away from white noise programming could net the
| company an additional $38 million in profit
|
| I wonder what does Spotify think those people could listen to
| while sleeping, heavy metal? /s
|
| A problem could be that ads in those stream are wasted unless we
| discover that sleeping people can be influenced as awake ones. Is
| the sum of those wasted ads that's equal to $38 M?
| MrVandemar wrote:
| > A problem could be that ads in those stream are wasted unless
| we discover that sleeping people can be influenced as awake
| ones.
|
| "But old clothes are beastly," continued the untiring whisper.
| "We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than
| mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better ...'
| Phelinofist wrote:
| > I wonder what does Spotify think those people could listen to
| while sleeping, heavy metal? /s
|
| Honestly, there are days when I go to sleep with metal blasting
| from the ear buds. That can be calming depending on how the day
| went.
| allarm wrote:
| Some black metal bands are very calming and help me to relax
| and/or concentrate on whatever activity I am doing - Mgla
| comes to mind first.
| fluidcruft wrote:
| My guess would be the idea is to shift listeners from white
| noise that Spotify pays royalties for toward white noise that
| Spotify owns. The hidden factor is ads that don't actually play
| for Spotify subscribers. The general idea behind paying for an
| ad-free experience is that royalties and revenue are either
| paid by subscription fees or by advertisers. The free tier gets
| ads and the paid tier doesn't. If Spotify shifted users to
| content they don't pay royalties for, then users wouldn't
| notice the difference, but behind the scenes Spotify can claim
| the royalties and ad revenue for itself rather than pay them
| out to a third party.
|
| For example, if Spotify replaces the podcaster who makes $18k
| month in royalties with Spotify's own white noise podcast, then
| the immediate effect is that $18k/month doesn't leave Spotify's
| pockets.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| This feels like Amazon selling Amazon products on Amazon
| e-commerce site.
| fragmede wrote:
| Which is to bring up Peak Design, and that whole debacle.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/3/22311574/peak-design-
| video...
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Amazon Basics, then?
| jollyllama wrote:
| >unless we discover that sleeping people can be influenced as
| awake ones
|
| Thanks, I didn't understand what the problem was before, and
| was thinking "if the white noises still has ads, who cares?"
|
| Anyway, Pandora has essentially "solved" this problem with the
| "are you still listening?" button that pops ups, so IDK why
| they don't just do that.
| nolok wrote:
| I still don't understand. If people like a background noise
| while sleeping, they will keep having one, be it chill /
| lounge / etc ... Music. The issue will remain the same.
| [deleted]
| mysterypie wrote:
| Are there any long-term effects on hearing or health caused by
| listening to white noise while sleeping? Or from the hum of an
| air conditioner, humidifier, or dehumidifier?
| konschubert wrote:
| No
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Just make a generator that plays on the device.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| I get why people might want white noise in their earbuds, but why
| would you want to stream it? You can easily download a multi-hour
| recording of, say, a waterfall, and just play it from your
| device.
|
| And who in heck would listen to white noise with ads? Wouldn't
| the ads completely destroy the intended effect of the noise?
|
| This is a phenomenon I really don't understand.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > You can easily download a multi-hour recording of, say, a
| waterfall, and just play it from your device.
|
| That's the thing, you can't, not easily. On mobile--especially
| iOS--it's frustratingly difficult to transfer and use normal
| files without an associated app.
| rchaud wrote:
| Sounds like what it was like to use an iPad to organize
| files, before the Files app in 2017(!)
|
| On Android, I use a YT client app to download a 320kbps M4A
| of the white noise file, and then play it on anything I
| want...music app, podcast app, audiobook app...they all work,
| just like they would on a computer
| prmoustache wrote:
| Isn't there a generic music app?
|
| I mean can't people just sync music to their iphone like they
| were doing with ipods in the past?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| On iOS, the "generic" music app became Apple Music. It is
| possible to use a local library but I suspect many/most
| people don't even know that, Apple _really_ pushes you
| towards their subscription streaming service.
| mhh__ wrote:
| You literally (unless they've changed it?) cannot edit a file
| extension on an iPad
| copperx wrote:
| > This is a phenomenon I really don't understand.
|
| It's status signaling.
|
| Anybody can send pseudorandom numbers to their audio device,
| but some people are rich enough to do it on a thousand dollar
| device, using a paid subscription to download megabytes of
| pseudorandom data over mobile data, storing it on expensive
| flash to achieve the same result.
|
| Don't judge it through a rational lens. It's primitive status
| signaling.
| rchaud wrote:
| I don't think that's it. If this conversation was being had a
| decade ago, more people would be saying "download an MP3,
| keep it forever".
|
| The younger generation grew up with Spotify having everything
| available for a subscription. We grew up with OG Napster,
| which really did have everything.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Convenience, "it's there". Tons of people use youtube to listen
| to music even though there's dedicated music apps. Loads more
| people consume Reddit via computer voices reading them out on
| Tiktok while a random recording of a GTA race or Subway Surfers
| plays. Others watch Tiktok videos on Reddit.
|
| I don't have an answer, but I'm fine with not understanding.
| Let people have things for their own reasons.
| copperx wrote:
| > I don't have an answer, but I'm fine with not
| understanding. Let people have things for their own reasons.
|
| This way of thinking creates things such as Electron.
| mahathu wrote:
| For reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwBEqV9OBTe/
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I actually have used white noise sometimes, and it also used my
| data, and I was absolutely unaware of white noise generators,
| so I guess one possible answer to your question is people like
| me :(
| deanCommie wrote:
| I can offer a couple of explanations.
|
| 1) UX is better through a streaming client. It'll be named
| cleanly, it'll have a nice thumbnail. Whereas a downloaded file
| would be named white_noise_128bit_v3.mp3 and would be in a
| Downloads folder with 10,000 screenshots and memes, and every
| time you try to open it you have to find it.
|
| 2) All-in integration with everything in one client: Here's my
| white noise in my history next to my favourite banger, next to
| my last podcast. Tonight, as I go to bed I decide I want to
| listen to....one of those. They're all there in one place.
|
| 3) Discoverability UX. Go to Streamer app. Search White Noise.
| Press Play. Done.
|
| vs.
|
| Go to Browser. Search White Noise. Scroll through pages of
| results of links about white noise, articles, listicles. Search
| again for White Noise Mp3 Download. Click top result. Get
| inundated with ads and links that LOOK like they should be a
| download, but actually take you to an ad network. Finally find
| the download link. It opens in an in- browser player instead of
| a download. Give up.
|
| It's honestly to the point that most of our parents or
| grandparents can't even get there.
|
| 4) Oh also repeat the same but for audio players. Are there
| good local audio players? That aren't inundated with ads? And
| each with worse playback UX than Spotify/etc? Most phones now
| come pre-loaded with Spotify or YoutubeMusic or AppleMusic.
| Good luck figuring out what is a good local audio player.
| copperx wrote:
| You do know that white noise can be generated really easily,
| right?
|
| Tap on white noise app, press play.
|
| You don't have to worry about having downloading the track so
| it's available when you hop on a plane, or having internet,
| or using mobile data.
|
| Plus, most white apps have an equalizer to tailor the
| spectrum and several noise generators. You might like brown
| noise more in certain situations.
| krisoft wrote:
| > I get why people might want white noise in their earbuds, but
| why would you want to stream it?
|
| Most likely because they already use spotify. They are familiar
| with the interface and is their go to spot when they want to
| listen to something. So when they want to listen to white noise
| they use what they already know.
| alexchantavy wrote:
| Convenience of just going to the Spotify app and not needing to
| think about finding/vetting another app or source. I don't know
| many people outside of HN-types who download instead of stream
| media anymore.
| lionkor wrote:
| ...it sucks that people listen to white noise when they could be
| listening to the newest hits instead? Yeah, sure, but they wont?
| If you get rid of the white noise, they go back to youtube or
| whatever. If you push people to other content, they wont click or
| theyll skip it if what they want is white noise.
|
| Youve got a massive platform, incredibly successful, loved and
| used by so many, and you go "ah darn, i really hate that my users
| on my platform choose to spend their time on content that isnt as
| profitable as other content on my plaftorm"???
|
| Jesus christ thats daft. Serve the users what they want and they
| will stay with you forever.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| OK, here's the story:
|
| Spotify pays content creators based on how many ads are played.
|
| A white/brown/pink/etc. noise track/podcast is likely to be
| hours long, so that listeners can have it play long enough to
| fall asleep. Once asleep, the listener is still technically
| "listening" to the track/podcast, including the ads that
| Spotify then must pay the content creator for. With tens or
| hundreds of millions of listeners each listening to hours of
| content, this cost adds up.
|
| Spotify has its own white/brown/pink/etc. noise tracks that it
| doesn't need to pay anyone for. Those are what Spotify would
| like to see its users stream, because it could save them - by
| their own calculation - $38 million.
|
| Beyond that, the giant media corporations whining about the
| fact that money is going somewhere other than their own
| accounts is... par for the course. Really, this entire
| situation speaks to the absurdity of the industry itself and
| its own greed.
| shreyshnaccount wrote:
| Funny how every industry is criticized for being too greedy
| when the set up of incentives really doesn't leave any other
| option. It's existence vs being greedy and people (and firms)
| do what's obvious. If we want a music industry that isn't
| greedy it needs to be listener and musician owned.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| The entire system is greed demanded by law. It's well past
| time for copyright to fail as a business model, but instead
| we have it propped up on legal scaffolding (read: threats).
| ZunarJ5 wrote:
| Can confirm, I have favourite rain noise playlists on both
| applications. If one goes, cya.
| afavour wrote:
| FTA it's a little more nuanced than that. People are listening
| to white noise _podcasts_ when regular white noise is available
| at a cheaper licensing cost.
|
| It feels like a UI challenge as much as anything else, I can't
| imagine many users specifically want a podcast. Part of me
| feels like Spotify deserves it though, they've been trying to
| shove podcasts into users ears for ages now and I don't want
| them. Turns out if you shove podcasts in front of people
| they'll choose them. Price they pay.
| hunson_abadeer wrote:
| > People are listening to white noise podcasts when regular
| white noise is available at a cheaper licensing cost.
|
| There is something incredibly surreal about this statement.
| afavour wrote:
| Heh, true. Presumably it's also available at absolutely
| _no_ cost... just not in top podcast searches?
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Further, this seems like such a freaking simple fix. Provide
| first party white noise.
| jaxelr wrote:
| Crazy to think that iOs does and it barely gets noticed.
| AverageDude wrote:
| TIL
| veave wrote:
| It's tremendously hidden. Of course it barely gets noticed.
|
| There are so many hidden gems in accessibility settings, at
| this point it should be called advanced settings instead.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| No it isn't, on ios 16.6 it's not even 10 clicks to get
| to the granular options. Are you on an older version?
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| I tested right now and it's 5: Settings -> Accessibility
| -> Audio/Visual -> Background Sounds ->
| on/off/sounds/etc.
|
| It may be the number of items that are part of why people
| consider these settings "hidden". The "Accessiblity" menu
| is now 23 items long, and the main Settings menu is 53
| Apple items plus over 100 application items.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Well yes, when there are thousands of possible
| configurations to accomodate the vast majority of
| potential users, and to keep confusion to a minimum by
| assigning a unique place in the UI to every possible
| option, it has to be spread out a lot.
|
| Even the most buried possible setting in iOS is 9 clicks
| or less, and for the bigger features usually a lot less
| as you've demonstrated, hence it's not correct to call it
| 'hidden'.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| That's assuming the correct path is taken every time. If
| I didn't know where the white noise tool was, I wouldn't
| even think to check the settings for a noise generator.
| But if I did, it would go
|
| Settings then Sounds & Haptics. 16 options, none seem to
| match. Maybe "personalized spatial audio?" Oh no,that's
| saying I need special headphones.
|
| OK it's not under Sounds. Maybe it's in the Focus
| section? That's what I would use white noise for, focus.
| 6 options. Maybe it's under "Work Focus" or "Sleep
| Focus"? No.
|
| General? 15 options, all with sub-menus but none seem
| relevant.
|
| Control Center? Probably not... That seems safe to
| ignore. Except if I selected the "Hearing" option in
| Control Center settings, that actually gives me access to
| the background noise generator in control-center. But
| that doesn't seem obvious to me at all.
|
| OK next is Display & Brightness and Home Screen. Probably
| safe to skip. Which then brings us to Accessibility.
| Again, it doesn't feel likely to me that it's in here,
| but no other choice in the settings feels correct, except
| maybe the Music app? Nope nothing there.
|
| I check accessibility. I look past 18 options and see
| "Hearing" again, might as well tap that option. Even
| "Background Sounds" doesn't match what I'm looking for
| mentally, "White Noise". So it's likely my eyes miss it
| when I scan the list of options.
|
| IMO it's an app. So make it an app, not an accessibility
| setting.
|
| It's still hidden, just in a breadth of options instead
| of depth. A needle hidden in a 1 acre lot covered 1cm
| high in hay is more hidden than a needle in a 10 ft cube
| haystack.
| OGWhales wrote:
| I feel as though accessibility is not a spot most people
| would think to check for that.
| IshKebab wrote:
| 10 clicks _is_ tremendously hidden.
| glimshe wrote:
| Random numbers with a brand would the ultimate excess of
| Capitalism.
| notatoad wrote:
| it seems likely that's the "plan that never came to fruition"
| mentioned in the article.
| runjake wrote:
| They do.
|
| https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWUZ5bk6qqDSy?si=.
| ..
|
| As well as for other colors, such as brown noise.
|
| https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4hpot8sYudB?si=.
| ..
| tough wrote:
| There was this band who was making money by asking their fans
| to listen to their white noise playlist 24/7
| Iulioh wrote:
| iirc it was a blank track so literally no sound and it was
| supposed to be for founding a tour
| skidd0 wrote:
| Vulfpeck's Sleepify album. The tracks were silent so you
| could play them in the background. They used the proceeds
| to fund a free tour for their fans.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That cuts to how much of a mess spotify payouts are in
| general, where the subscription revenue pool is paid out
| based on global listens, and the people with fewer hours of
| use don't control which artists get most of their money.
| But as far as I'm aware the big labels don't like the idea
| of changing that.
| selfawareMammal wrote:
| You can afford that when you have a monopoly.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Spotify has been doing everything in its power to make sure
| it never becomes a monopoly; it regularly infuriates and
| sends users running for YouTube, Amazon Music, Apple Music,
| Google Music, Tidal, Sirius (dare I say; their successfully
| competing competitors)
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Is Spotify a monopoly? They're competing with all the tech
| giants: Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, not to mention
| good old fashioned piracy.
| lionkor wrote:
| Yandex Music, too, which is surprisingly good
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Spotify does not have a monopoly.
| javajosh wrote:
| Let me humbly suggest that people use actual files for their
| noise needs. The two apps that work in tandem are syncthing and
| vlc. Syncthing gets the file from a desktop to your phone. VLC
| lets you play the file on your phone. (Getting a file to your
| desktop is another tool, but that depends on your source. For
| generating noise Audacity works great! But you can also rip CDs,
| and so on.)
|
| It feels very wholesome about playing a simple file, rather than
| streaming it. This is apart from the considerable simplicity and
| robustness of the solution. You can be on airplane mode and it
| will work. You can use VLC player features to speed up, slow
| down, or loop it. You can build up a play list rather than using
| search all the time. My phone sips power compared to streaming
| music. It also doesn't use your network bandwidth, which is nice.
|
| Note: you could also build your own noise tracks on your phone
| with a mobile DAW. I like https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio-
| mobile/ - it's $15 but quite powerful.
| prmoustache wrote:
| ...or just downloading fron youtube with newpipe. I guess even
| a browser is enough using an invidious instance.
|
| Also kdeconnect works great as well to transfer files from
| computer to phone and vice-versa.
| midnitewarrior wrote:
| Spotify needs to license https://mynoise.net and include their
| dozens of soundscapes into the Spotify client.
|
| The captured audio soundscapes are high quality, engineered,
| mixable audio from many relaxing and peaceful natural and
| artificial environments.
|
| Tossing a few million dollars towards the MyNoise people for
| something that's currently donor-ware would be amazing for the
| creators as well as opening up the ambient soundscapes to
| millions of people.
|
| Spotify gets royalty-free audio that takes up very little
| bandwidth.
| bob1029 wrote:
| It is amusing to me watching the effects of capitalism take hold
| over something as simple as literal noise. I used to use a
| website for this purpose but then they started getting super
| weird with popups and "please donate" click-thrus.
|
| I decided to write my own noise generator. It's not hard. If you
| have access to OpenAI (or a semester's worth of DSP education),
| you could write one in a few hours.
| parineum wrote:
| Capitalism has literally nothing to do with it. This is just
| people reacting to market incentives. Capitalism requires
| (free) markets but markets aren't Capitalism.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Hosting a website costs money, has nothing to do with
| capitalism.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > capitalism take hold over something as simple as literal
| noise
|
| Scapegoating "capitalism" doesn't strike me as sufficiently
| nuanced thinking.
|
| For instance, Tidal, has playlists dedicated to things like
| rain sounds e.g.
| https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/5ed2512d-b27b-4d0c-845d-3f...
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Also the environmental aspects. Powering and provisioning
| hardware in CDNs to encode and stream random numbers... pretty
| dumb.
| mhh__ wrote:
| If I were Spotify I would include some noise generators and
| clever sample based waterfall noises in the subscription. People
| pay money for this already, it's free* market share.
|
| In fact it's actually built into the iPad.
|
| *Obviously it takes time to develop but it would take one smart
| guy a day so if your team struggles it's on you.
| deanc wrote:
| I can give some insight to this. If you search for white/brown
| etc. noise on spotify for songs you won't find longer tracks. I
| use these while travelling if I'm having troubles sleeping in a
| room where there's noise, or on a plane. Airpods in, lie back and
| it blocks out more noise. The problem with the albums of white
| noise are they fade between different kinds of noise which
| usually only lasts a few mins - this is enough to break the
| effect. I can only presume there is a limit on song length for
| albums, because there are white noise podcasts which are 10 hours
| long - which is exactly what I need for my use-case.
| prepend wrote:
| The iPhone has generated white noise since iOS 2015 [0]. How
| difference is the effect of the Spotify lists you use vs ios'
| white/brown/green noise?
|
| [0] https://www.rd.com/article/iphone-white-noise/
| tuatoru wrote:
| You just have to look in the bottom drawer of the locked
| filing cabinet marked "tax returns", in the sub-basement room
| with a sign on the door saying "beware of the tiger".
| [deleted]
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| There are bands with songs over an hour long on Spotify.
| Distrokid (the most popular service for independent artists to
| get on Spotify et al) has no maximum length for song uploads.
|
| I think the real reason is Spotify pays you per "song played"
| not per minute played. If I listen to Dopesmoker by Sleep,
| which is an hour long, then I listen to a 60 second white noise
| clip, both artists get paid an equal amount.
| Loughla wrote:
| I don't use spotify but I wondered how a length limit would
| work for some esoteric bands. Shpongle is another one with
| extremely long songs that wouldn't work if they were chopped
| up.
| boredemployee wrote:
| I never thought I'd read about Shpongle in HN.
| exsf0859 wrote:
| Shpongle albums are split up into normal-sized tracks. Most
| CD players, media players, and streaming services support
| gapless playback of albums, at least for subscribers. When
| a Shpongle album is played with gapless playback enabled,
| it sounds like one long song.
|
| I don't have a Spotify link handy, but here's a YouTube
| Music example:
|
| https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l_K6GgImOp-
| 3...
| causality0 wrote:
| Why would someone stream ten hours of white noise when they
| could download a 500KB loop and play it forever?
| copperx wrote:
| Downloading 500KB of pseudorandom numbers is insane. Just
| generate them on the fly.
| mdasen wrote:
| It might be that Spotify pays per song rather than per minute.
| Songs have been getting shorter in length because longer songs
| mean less money for artists.
|
| If you have 10 6 minute songs, someone can only listen to 10
| songs in an hour. If you have 20 3 minute songs, someone can
| listen to double the number of songs in an hour. If you're
| creating an album of white noise and trying to make the most
| money from Spotify, you don't want to create a long "song".
| jacurtis wrote:
| Yeah thats the same argument for movies being shorter as
| well.
|
| Thats why a lot of movies have crept down to 80-90 mins. It
| allows theaters to fit a whole extra showing into the day,
| which means more box office revenue. Only the big hits are
| generally allowed by the studios to be longer (like a
| Christopher Nolan or James Cameron movie for example).
|
| Because the same thing is true for movies. A theater ticket
| is going to be $10 regardless of whether the movie is 75 mins
| or 180 mins. Might as well squeeze more showings out.
| aio2 wrote:
| There's a 10 hour white noise video on Youtube, you can use
| that.
| jjulius wrote:
| Spotify doesn't keep the screen on for ten hours.
| gnicholas wrote:
| You can actually play YouTube videos on iPhones with the
| screen off. Just start the video, sleep the phone, and then
| restart it by tapping the screen and then tapping play, or
| by squeezing your AirPods.
| [deleted]
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Set the track to loop and turn on the crossfade setting.
| murray-buttchin wrote:
| It's stuff like this that resulted in a sort of death by a
| thousand paper cuts for me with streaming services. I was fed
| up enough to put a lot of effort into getting my music library
| onto a NAS and serving it through plexamp. I now have a
| seamlessly loopable 10 minute long white/pink noise flac file I
| can play from anywhere and am not beholden to platform lock-in
| (at least not in the same way as Spotify where my library
| cannot be taken to another platform, at least not easily). It
| takes some upfront work and a bit of a hobbyist's attitude
| towards it but it is extremely rewarding to not be beholden to
| a platform and to own your own music library.
| mozman wrote:
| Do you have your flac posted for download anywhere? I'm not
| skilled at editing and I can hear the loop restart with every
| attempt I've made thus far.
| rolph wrote:
| for a few bucks, you can roll your own:
|
| https://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/raqs/raq-
| issue-154...
|
| https://circuitdigest.com/electronic-circuits/simple-
| white-n...
| moltar wrote:
| You can buy perfectly loopable white noise tracks on iTunes for
| $0.99. Permanently yours. Don't need internet. Looping feature
| built in into the music app. As a bonus I have a Shortcuts home
| icon that plays it in a loop and sets focus mode to sleep.
| copperx wrote:
| Why would anybody buy something that can be substituted with
| cat /dev/urandom > /dev/audio?
|
| There are thousands of free apps that do exactly that.
|
| Streaming white noise from Spotify or iTunes seems, to me,
| incredibly crazy.
| Our_Benefactors wrote:
| I'll answer you seriously: it's easier to pay $.99 for an
| mp3 of exactly what you want than spending 30 minutes
| finangling free software tools.
| copperx wrote:
| Download white noise generator app, press play.
| beltsazar wrote:
| > If you search for white/brown etc. noise on spotify for songs
| you won't find longer tracks.
|
| I noticed it too recently, but it's not always this way. A few
| years ago I could find white noise songs with hours of
| duration.
| flatline wrote:
| I recently found one on Spotify that is 10 hours long.
|
| If you find a shorter one just put the track on repeat and up
| the cross-fade to like 3s.
| paradox460 wrote:
| Can I ask why you don't use a dedicated app to generate the
| noise on demand?
| jacurtis wrote:
| I think the argument is that they already have spotify
| downloaded and are probably already using it. So why NOT use
| it? Why bother with a dedicated app?
|
| Spotify is also probably more feature-filled than the average
| crap app thrown on the appstore for quick money as a
| whitenoise maker. For example the ability to download or send
| to speakers (like Sonos, Alexa, for example). Plus Spotify
| has greater selection of noises (yes there are MANY different
| types of white noise). Plus you can easily switch to your
| other podcasts and songs when you want.
|
| I for one am an avid whitenoise listener on spotify
| throughout the day. I will listen to one type of whitenoise
| in the morning, then listen to a podcast episode, switch to a
| different type of white noise for a while, then some ambient
| noises, maybe some actual music around lunchtime, some more
| soft whitenoise after lunch to focus, another podcast at the
| end of the day. Doing it all in Spotify has value. Could I
| switch apps if I had to...? Sure. But a fully-featured music
| app is a natural place for long tracks of audio, so it makes
| sense to have it all together.
| deanc wrote:
| I can just hit download on a podcast on Spotify and have it
| ready for trips.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| How is that more convenient than opening an app and
| pressing a button?
|
| Or having some noise mp3/AACs loaded into your phone's
| music app?
| oktoberpaard wrote:
| It can be toggled on and off in the pull down menu,
| wherever you are. It also detects when something else is
| playing and can lower the volume to a configurable level
| (or turn off completely). Other than that I can't think
| of any, but I like it well enough that I don't use an
| app. I especially like the rain sound, which also happens
| to drown out voices very well when combined with ANC.
| semiquaver wrote:
| iOS has a white noise generator built in with several types
| of noise as well as nature sounds.
| https://www.theverge.com/23131327/how-to-iphone-white-
| noise-...
| avidiax wrote:
| For Android users, the Google Assistant can produce white
| noise, shore sounds, etc.
|
| You should probably use an app though. Noise doesn't
| compress well, which means that you can get strange
| artifacts when it is compressed from the server to you,
| and then from your phone to a BT device. An app playing
| from hardwired or internal speakers is best.
|
| There is a good app called Chroma Doze. It lets you tune
| the noise to the exact spectrum needed for your
| situation. It also blends the noise very well so that
| there is no loop heard. Plenty of apps/devices think that
| 3-4 seconds of noise looped is enough, but one you hear
| it, you can't unhear the loop.
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.pmarks.
| chr...
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Wow I didn't know that, thanks! Now I just need a way to
| create an app icon for random iOS settings.
| callalex wrote:
| It is accessible through Control Center (the pull-down
| screen with radio toggles and brightness and stuff)
| prepend wrote:
| There is one already, it looks like a little ear. I get
| to it by swiping up and it's next to the remote,
| flashlight, and calculator app icons.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Try the built-in Shortcuts app. It can create pseudo-apps
| out of many iOS settings and toggles.
| [deleted]
| hlandau wrote:
| >"It can't be that an Ed Sheeran stream is worth exactly the same
| as a stream of rain falling on the roof," Warner Music Group CEO,
| Robert Kyncl told Music Business Worldwide earlier this year.
|
| Why not?
| branon wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. How out of touch are these people?
| hnbad wrote:
| Heck, this is the market doing its thing, isn't it? You can't
| say you want capitalism and then complain because the market
| demonstrates as much demand for the sound of rain falling on a
| roof as for a particular singer-songwriter. I think WMG is just
| annoyed the person who uploaded the rain noise doesn't have to
| pay royalties to the rain and keeps the entire cut.
|
| I'm sure WMG also thinks WMG's contribution to Ed Sheeran's
| music on the platform is worth the millions they get paid as
| middlemen. At least the rain is contributing something by
| making a noise.
| alphazard wrote:
| Right, the white noise is timeless; eventually it could be
| worth more.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _"...an Ed Sheeran stream is worth exactly the same as a
| stream of rain falling on the roof... -- Warner CEO "_
|
| you know, I've been making this argument to point out monopoly
| pricing for a long time: how come when I go to a theater, all
| the movie tickets are the same price? films cost a different
| amount to make, and some of them are good while others are
| stinkers. In any other business with a range of products like
| that, sellers compete on price. Movies are price-fixing-ed.
| bombcar wrote:
| They charge less for earlier shows. So the thing they're
| selling isn't the movie, but the seat. And they do get more
| expensive _if the theaters are selling out_.
| foota wrote:
| I wonder how this works between the theater and the studio. I
| think some movies are different prices to show, but maybe
| studios have some control over ticket price as well?
|
| Edit: this article has some discussion
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-
| do-...
| djur wrote:
| Poorly attended movies lose screens more quickly and move to
| cheaper venues (second-chance theaters, video/streaming)
| faster. Theaters want to get consistent usage of their
| screens if possible -- offering cheaper seats for cheaper
| movies would be counterproductive.
| thrashh wrote:
| Well when you value low effort content and high effort content
| equally, you discourage people from making high effort content
| when they can make money by just recording their roof.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I doubt musicians are putting their songs on Spotify for that
| juicy .0007 per play. Only a few make any real money on
| Spotify.
| kristianp wrote:
| Lol, so the only people making serious money most of the
| time are Distrokid and Spotify.
| somehnguy wrote:
| I don't think people will stop making music or podcasts
| because a tiny sliver of low effort content makes money.
| There is a cap on how many people can make money by uploading
| white noise since it's so generic. Plus for a lot of people
| the money isn't even the primary motivator behind their high
| effort/quality content.
| treprinum wrote:
| I suspect it's from people with long covid with sudden onset of
| tinnitus trying to find some relief during the sleep. I had to
| do that for a few months if I wanted to have any sleep at all
| before my neurological symptoms subsided. It looks like Warner
| has no idea about it.
| majormajor wrote:
| That Spotify has some issues distinguishing how to pay their
| providers between the two and has turned into a much more
| lucrative place to put your white noise than anywhere else is
| specifically a Spotify quirk, not the consumer market telling a
| music CEO that music is worth less than noise.
|
| The honestly pretty obvious answer to "why can't Ed Sheerhan's
| song be worth exactly the same as rain" is that the market
| demonstrates that there are lots of other places to get _free_
| rain noises or white noise or what have you while far fewer
| non-ad-or-subscription-supported on-demand song playment
| options.
| bozhark wrote:
| Ed Sheeran is also just as free
| devit wrote:
| I guess their issue might be that if people listen to white
| noise 8 hours while asleep every night and Spotify distributes
| their monthly fee weighted by time listened, then a lot of
| their fee will go to the white noise for sleep and thus the
| total fee distributed to their daytime music would be
| unexpectedly significantly reduced.
|
| The easy fix would be to cap track time weight, although that
| is susceptible to an attack of splitting the white noise in
| many parts and publishing a playlist.
|
| I guess a possibility could be to somehow compute "song
| variety" (i.e. entropy in a model where the decoder can
| generate noise/randomness) and weight by that, but not sure if
| the available lossy codecs are good enough to do that.
| gregw2 wrote:
| I hate to say it but certain advertisers might pay _more_ for
| ads that play while people are sleeping (ie placement during
| 8 hour tracks of white noise).
|
| This is not a $38m-in-costs crisis for Spotify, this is a
| revenue opportunity!
|
| ...
|
| 60 seconds of web seaching later... Sigh. Apparently this
| sort of marketer manipulation started over three years ago
| unfortunately: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a3
| 6719140/sleep-... and
| https://www.science.org/content/article/are-advertisers-
| comi...
|
| ... things that make you say: "There oughta be a law..."
| gmerc wrote:
| I think this is why google really wants to control the
| brower. Once AI is cheap and on every device, the user has
| the ability to use it to filter all inbound. Trivial for a
| local LLM to strip hate speech from a twitter html
| regardless how much Elon wants you to force you to see it.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Most people don't even use an adblocker, despite how easy
| it is. I think you will have a hard time trying to get a
| substantial number of people to install a filter for
| opinions you/they don't like.
| gmerc wrote:
| You may want to actually look at the adblock usage. It's
| massive unless artificially disabled. Enough for Facebook
| and Youtube to fight it with escalating countermeasures
| csydas wrote:
| I agree with your interpretation, but I'd like to also offer
| another way to view this phenomenon that Spotify's higher
| execs also missed: Spotify is lucky and has found a way to
| monetize a feature that is readily and freely available
| elsewhere, and they should just be happy to get a bit of
| profit for it.
|
| I would take the opposite approach and figure out how to
| maximize the return on the white noise without changing
| anything for the users; that is, focus on reducing the cost
| to deliver white noise, work on guidelines for the white
| noise presenters on how you're going to monetize this without
| disrupting the fad, etc.
|
| From my perspective, I just can't see how trying to do
| something special with this fad does anything but immediately
| kill the fad. There are even FOSS white noise apps, and it
| won't take long for users to find a free alternative if
| Spotify messes with the recipe here. I sincerely doubt anyone
| is going to get Spotify exclusively for the white noise nor
| that white noise will somehow be a gateway into further
| Spotify use; I just don't see that the persons who want white
| noise would use that as an entry point into the service, it's
| the other way around, with current satisfied users finding
| out they can also use Spotify to get white noise.
|
| Basically I see this as a happy accident for Spotify that
| will break if they try to press on it too much. They should
| treat this like a beneficial fad, and just figure out how to
| deliver it with the least resource cost, and just enjoy the
| extra revenue. I don't think it's really going to draw people
| in except if they play the "yeah, this is legit, we're just
| gonna get out of your way as much as possible here. enjoy our
| ads", and ride that money until it dries up.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The entropy in white noise is maximal, if it's really white
| noise.
|
| One sample of white noise is indistinguishable from another;
| so if Spotify can identify white noise, then they can dedup,
| i.e. serve the same sample for every request for white-noise
| track.
|
| What I find annoying is that people are wasting bandwidth
| uploading and downloading an undifferentiated hiss. White
| noise is trivial to generate locally, without consuming any
| bandwidth.
|
| [Edit] Real white noise has the same energy at _every_
| frequency; the total energy in white noise is effectively
| infinite. Practical "white noise" is low-pass-filtered,
| which means it's no longer real white noise.
|
| I wonder if these samples are really pink noise, and Spotify
| is talking nonsense?
| klyrs wrote:
| A finite-length sample of the most perfect white noise will
| not attain maximum entropy. You mention a lowpass filter --
| that's accomplished through the sampling frequency. But
| your proposal is an effective lowpass filter, as any
| frequency longer than the sample length will clipped to
| exactly the sample length -- which you'll be able to hear
| as a distinct rhythm if it's a sub-audible frequency, or a
| tone if it's shorter.
|
| Taken to the extreme, you're looping a single datum:
| https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/random_number.png
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dathinab wrote:
| because it's about ad money and maybe paying to promote a
| podcast (idk. if that is a thing)
|
| white noise content is the best example of "user most likely
| doesn't active listen" so an ad on it isn't worth much
|
| for other podcasts you would assume people listen (through yes
| they might not, but Spotify has no practical way of knowing
| that), so ads are worth more
|
| Additionally the ad industry values that their ad is associated
| with "premium content" (whatever that means) and while white
| noise is "highly valuable for the consumer needing it" it's not
| "premium content" as it doesn't has much content. I mean it's
| literally noise, well fine tuned noise you could call art, but
| still noise. So highly valuable but not premium.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| I'd imagine he'd think differently if he owned the rights to
| it.
| 000ooo000 wrote:
| Imagine being CEO and _just not getting it_
| Beldin wrote:
| Because the value of playing recorded music of an artist some
| folks enjoy enjoy is microscopic compared to the value of
| helping people to sleep better. Probably also true for
| individual listeners, but definitely for society as a whole.
|
| Probably not the CEO's point though.
| earthnail wrote:
| Well, realistically though - and I know your comment was
| rather sarcastic, but still - some people pay tons of money
| to go to a live concert, but nobody ever paid for a white
| noise concert.
|
| So I think it _is_ reasonable to say that pop music is worth
| more. Let alone the fact that it takes tons more work to
| create.
| gorlilla wrote:
| But I like the way you think much better...
| IshKebab wrote:
| People aren't paying Spotify for white noise. They're just
| using it for white noise because it's convenient and they
| already have it.
|
| This is frankly very very obvious.
| [deleted]
| moogly wrote:
| I know which one I would rather listen to.
| Animats wrote:
| I can understand listening to white noise. But listening to white
| noise _with ads_? People actually do that?
| [deleted]
| laserbeam wrote:
| I don't know if this case per se is the same, but people have
| tried to game spotify monetization in the favor of certain
| artists before. For example a band released a sleeping album
| with only silent tracks and asked their fans to listen to it
| over night, so they'd get higher stream counts. Fans did that
| at little cost. The album was eventually banned. This just
| might be similar. I wouldn't assume any humans actually hear
| the white noise or the ads.
| [deleted]
| themodelplumber wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaw1yyy wrote:
| we can tell you're using chatGPT.
|
| Please don't.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| [flagged]
| thfuran wrote:
| No, I would guess they said said that because of the
| paragraph after paragraph of blathering.
| janandonly wrote:
| If we wanted to know what chatgpt thought we would just
| ask it directly.
|
| Here on HN, we share human ideas instead, wrong
| capitalisation and everything...
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I love this comment. Would it be OK if I quoted this in
| my profile?
| superb_dev wrote:
| Your take is so bizarre, so corporate, it's hard to
| imagine a human spending time to write it.
|
| "We" seems pretty appropriate, given everyone replying
| seems to agree
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > bizarre
|
| Best compliment so far. In my professional circles it
| might even be kind of boring or let's say, logically
| evident, to a lot of very experienced or intelligent
| people.
|
| Corporate, eh, I mean I'm sure some stereotypical evil
| corporate people from a '90s movie would act as if they
| totally love it & get why ads are amazing...in that sense
| it might be pretty on the nose...
|
| But these days I think the old adbusters take is kind of
| out of touch...anti-ad by itself isn't really nuanced
| enough for tractability in public discourse these days.
|
| The comments are all hand-written, no LLM etc. Let's say
| artisanal, organic, ok I'll stop there
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > "We" seems pretty appropriate, given everyone replying
| seems to agree
|
| I guess it would be worth it to weigh in on this myself.
| I am simply not seeing what everyone else is seeing.
| Would you mind elaborating on what makes this so obvious?
| alphager wrote:
| In this parallel comment, the first paragraph doesn't
| make any sense and seems like LLM-output:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37192872
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Why doesn't the first paragraph make any sense?
|
| > Best compliment so far. In my professional circles it
| might even be kind of boring or let's say, logically
| evident, to a lot of very experienced or intelligent
| people.
|
| I mean I'm reading it to myself and the words make sense.
| Do you mean something else, like you personally can't
| imagine such a professional circle existing?
| cobertos wrote:
| I would disagree. I watch ASMR videos on YouTube that
| sometimes contain ads. No only does the volume mismatch tend
| to be startling, but they're normally just ideologically
| startling and unwanted.
|
| ASMR videos about sponsored products are weirdly the opposite
| for me though. They always feel so blatant, but for some
| reason it increases the ASMR, just knowing that the person in
| the video is trying to sell my something.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Do you see the difference in viewpoints?
|
| You are disagreeing based on your subjective experience.
|
| I am saying there are others out there who _are not like
| you at all_, while also validating the fact that there are
| people who _are like you_. And also pointing out specific
| differences.
|
| It's not helpful to rely on the Be Like Me lens for others
| in these cases, it's nothing new and really drags down
| discussions IMO.
| cobertos wrote:
| I do. And my comment related your comment back to the OP
| comment of this thread. Ads _inside of white noise
| podcasts_ being the thing I disagree with. Not ads in
| general. That's what the article itself is about as well.
|
| You don't know me...
|
| And if anything, your word choice and tone is extremely
| abrasive and drags down discussion. You could do better.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I, I, me...is it really that abrasive to ask people to
| elevate to a more objective view, in context?
|
| Or is everyone really aching _that bad_ to be understood
| as individuals, that they would ignore any urging to
| address the topic in the same spirit in which it's
| presented? Could always be...
| cobertos wrote:
| What is wrong here?
|
| Is not a view informed by real experiences a more useful
| one than pure objectivity? Take the real experiences,
| subtract emotional weight/bias (as best as possible),
| disclaimer it with "based on real view" or however and I
| think that's a relatively well-formed useful piece of
| knowledge to disseminate. It is not an axiom, but a data
| point.
|
| In this situation particularly, a white noise podcast is
| meant purely for the emotional pleasure of the listener.
| Subjective experience is _the_ optimizing factor. Ads
| interrupt that and are better placed where someone wants
| to be engaged in that way. This does not contradict that
| there is a _general_ necessity for ads. It's a refutation
| of this particular placement.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Did an ad ChatGPT write this? It has that content marketing
| feel.
| [deleted]
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Argue the merits then. Argue the viewpoint. What I've
| learned from ChatGPT critiques like this is:
|
| - You yourself don't have experience in this area or any
| insights to share
|
| - You HAVE used ChatGPT though, and are more comfortable
| making conspiracy-style, blanket meta-commentary
|
| Therefore: You decide to dodge the relevant particulars,
| and critique the writing from that angle.
|
| Please stick to the content, let me know where ChatGPT got
| it wrong, even.
|
| Actually, even better, keep refreshing its replies until it
| lands on a fishing metaphor to explain why someone might
| enjoy ads!
|
| (To clarify, none of my comments are written by ChatGPT or
| any other LLM. Some of you are misunderstanding this
| comment.)
| pjc50 wrote:
| > - You yourself don't have experience in this area or
| any insights to share
|
| > - You HAVE used ChatGPT though
|
| We can tell that you have no experience or insights, and
| that you've used chatgpt; if I wished to continue the
| joke I'd paste your statement into chatgpt and get it to
| argue back with you. Would that be in any way worthwhile?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| [flagged]
| superb_dev wrote:
| So that comment _was_ written by ChatGPT? You accuse them
| of not having any insight but you yourself have so little
| insight you let ChatGPT write your internet comments for
| you
| themodelplumber wrote:
| [flagged]
| mpalmer wrote:
| You got it wrong, by cobbling together chatbot responses
| into something that is barely coherent and not
| particularly engaging. Don't expect substantive replies
| to a screed you've partially outsourced to a model.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > let me know where ChatGPT got it wrong, even.
|
| Just ask ChatGPT, it will tell you. Since you won't write
| your own comments, why should we bother to write real
| responses?
|
| ChatGPT says that comment has: Ambiguous Opening, Use of
| "Social Bell Curve, Overly Complex Sentences, Poor
| Assumptions, Subjectivity, Conflation of Idea,
| Stereotypin, Confrontational Tone, No Clear Conclusion.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| [flagged]
| jmptr wrote:
| This guy doesn't accept feedback, so it probably wasn't
| for this guy.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Keep spamming "this guy" everywhere, I think we found the
| hole in your ability to reason
| jmptr wrote:
| Says the guy hitting refresh on HN every 15 minutes.
| Bruh, get a life. Addiction is real.
| bravura wrote:
| Look. You and siblings are arguably bullying and mocking
| this commentator at this point. It doesn't make you look
| so elegant either. Do you mind stopping?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, this guy is getting hammered for using ChatGPT but
| it's just how he talks: (comments pre-ChatGPT-existing)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32311984
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32321262
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32349700
|
| Haha, poor guy.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Here, I'll help you: It's not how I talk. It's how I
| edit.
|
| If you correct things toward the "I'm not looking to be
| rough and hurt feelings, let's patch this up" side, for
| example, it turns out that sometimes you will magically
| turn into an AI.
|
| This magic is of course more believable, the more
| casually the reader themselves composes their own
| brilliant comments.
|
| And I mean, I get that you're def not a details person,
| but those comments you linked are, no cap, quality work
| fam.
|
| (The first drafts though, those are often just as bad as
| your own history, I mean you should see 'em...)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Haha, I'm not insulting you. We all have our style.
|
| I'm more sympathizing that you're getting dragged over
| the coals for using AI when you're clearly not (you can't
| have been using it before it was invented) and it's just
| your style.
|
| Apparently my style is to sound insulting when I don't
| intend to be.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| OK but just never, ever call me "this guy" again. For the
| sake of my own reputation sure, but I am doing you a
| solid here, believe me
|
| fella
| jmptr wrote:
| Is this guy for real? Did someone rumble his AI jimmies?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think this reply needed more edits ;-)
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Eh, when someone with a HN account starts massaging the
| conversation toward dave portnoy territory, then it's
| usually not worth the effort to effectively remain the
| ChatGPT side of the discourse
| 6510 wrote:
| Some product like an AI driven aquarium screen saver.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Like the ones we had in the 90's without the AI?
| internet101010 wrote:
| >Spotify's challenge with white noise podcasts mirrors a similar
| conversation happening in the music world. Universal Music
| Group's CEO Lucian Grainge and Warner Music's CEO Robert Kyncl
| have both voiced their displeasure at the fact that songs filled
| with noise are paid out of the same royalty pool shared by their
| superstars.
|
| It just means that people value white noise over the music your
| artists are creating.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| not necessary, i'm not giving the same attention to rain sounds
| that to any other music, this type of content is design to be
| consume as background sound so most of the reproductions are
| less valuable if you equate attention = money, it was like the
| moment when youtube quality = time view and you have millions
| of multi hours low quality gameplays in the main feed, i feel
| this is the problem of only account time view over 30 as metric
| of monetization.
| [deleted]
| ChatGTP wrote:
| I'm annoyed at Spotify for being lame and really quite a boring
| as shit product.
| mg wrote:
| Aren't there audio ads injected of the free version of Spotify?
|
| How can one sleep when those come up?
|
| Or do they only inject ads between songs, so that if the song is
| long enough, the user will never hear any ads?
| [deleted]
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Like with TV, I suspect people just blank them out, or they
| become part of the experience.
|
| Or it's paid subscribers.
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