Is Spotify ready for America?

I think they got greedy. i can understand the 10 hour limit, but when they forced 5 time limit per track it killed my interest to this service. If they wanted to make unlimited (5€) service more appealing they should have just reduced the 10 hour time to 5hours. That way you would still get money from those who don't use service as much that they would want to pay 5€/kk for it, but those who use it bit more would have to consider buying the service. This new agreement is just going to scare people away from the service.

Should this be re-stated? Is America Ready For Spotify?

I'm not for paying anyting with limits but this is Unlimited service unless you want to use it for free the there are many limits which is understandable. Now having 3 different pay levels sounds to me like they are looking to gouge us for their service so I will not be interested. It looks like I'll just stick with Pandora.

Seeing as all off-air radio stations uses satellite links & internet feeds (anyone like K*** or W***) for their programming, these days I find it REALLY hard to want to pay for anyone's service at all. Pandora, Slacker, Last.FM, they all get to a point within a broadcast pattern that they start to grossly repeat themselves; just exactly like they did back when radio 'was' the only medium for sound only entertainment.

Adding another log onto the fire of infernos, music playback "we have nothing invested in physical medium" (maximize the minimum), finger bang conglomerates trying to break into another commodity market before the prices start to rise again... hell... just, plain "no thank you"...

I'm worried my landlord is going to raise my rent! Even though he refinanced at a lower interest rate & got lower payments... I'm not interested in spending more money I don't have.

They rape us for CD's, DVD's, & BD's but it is really bad for MP3's yet the stepple love it, WOW!

If my old brain serves me right we've always had some type of media to deliver music on during the radio period whether it was paper rolls, drums, or vinyl platters (albums) and now optical.

Pandora is free and not bad it lets you select what the general channel you want by Artist preference in which they will play music similar to that artist. Then you can rate thumbs up or down and Sleeper to help streamline your listening pleasure. There are issues with it but it's not bad in a pinch.

This is the most over-hyped lame transition ever. U.S. will not patronize this on any massive scale.

Not like I haven't bitched up the inter-verse enough, but to get one more dig in 'somewhere'...

What happened to "free access" anything?

Up until what... the early 90s you had off air TV and radio. Sure it sucked, but at least you had entertainment that got to you through the airwaves that was add driven and came to you free of charge. If you didn't like it you changed the channel... and unless you were like me and lived in a back woods area, most markets were saturated with enough competitors that you could get a really good variety.

Now we have utter bullshit. I pay $150 a month for full frontal add driven bullshit. No movie channels, choked music. Even the local off air radio stations are using satellite radio or internet feeds that use the same repeat play crap that I can download (that I'm theoretically paying for).

Thus I'm kinda pissy about another "give me some money" service moving into the territory. Hell, I go to the movies & I'm paying for advertising there! Don't like it guys. If I wanted to pay for the soda, I'd have bought a soda. So now the soda company's pissed I didn't buy a soda, now they make me pay for the add that didn't work? Piss off!

Just sayin'... Then another company, this Spotify, wants to come in, grab my money for a service that they're eventually going to slip advertising in anyway? You know, they ALL say this shit, and then turn right around...

It's called double dipping...

Originally posted by LordRuss:

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Not like I haven't bitched up the inter-verse enough, but to get one more dig in 'somewhere'...

What happened to "free access" anything?

Up until what... the early 90s you had off air TV and radio. Sure it sucked, but at least you had entertainment that got to you through the airwaves that was add driven and came to you free of charge. If you didn't like it you changed the channel... and unless you were like me and lived in a back woods area, most markets were saturated with enough competitors that you could get a really good variety.

Now we have utter bullshit. I pay $150 a month for full frontal add driven bullshit. No movie channels, choked music. Even the local off air radio stations are using satellite radio or internet feeds that use the same repeat play crap that I can download (that I'm theoretically paying for).

Thus I'm kinda pissy about another "give me some money" service moving into the territory. Hell, I go to the movies & I'm paying for advertising there! Don't like it guys. If I wanted to pay for the soda, I'd have bought a soda. So now the soda company's pissed I didn't buy a soda, now they make me pay for the add that didn't work? Piss off!

Just sayin'... Then another company, this Spotify, wants to come in, grab my money for a service that they're eventually going to slip advertising in anyway? You know, they ALL say this shit, and then turn right around...

It's called double dipping...

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Fully agree with that!

Originally posted by LordRuss:

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Not like I haven't bitched up the inter-verse enough, but to get one more dig in 'somewhere'...

What happened to "free access" anything?

Up until what... the early 90s you had off air TV and radio. Sure it sucked, but at least you had entertainment that got to you through the airwaves that was add driven and came to you free of charge. If you didn't like it you changed the channel... and unless you were like me and lived in a back woods area, most markets were saturated with enough competitors that you could get a really good variety.

Now we have utter bullshit. I pay $150 a month for full frontal add driven bullshit. No movie channels, choked music. Even the local off air radio stations are using satellite radio or internet feeds that use the same repeat play crap that I can download (that I'm theoretically paying for).

Thus I'm kinda pissy about another "give me some money" service moving into the territory. Hell, I go to the movies & I'm paying for advertising there! Don't like it guys. If I wanted to pay for the soda, I'd have bought a soda. So now the soda company's pissed I didn't buy a soda, now they make me pay for the add that didn't work? Piss off!

Just sayin'... Then another company, this Spotify, wants to come in, grab my money for a service that they're eventually going to slip advertising in anyway? You know, they ALL say this shit, and then turn right around...

It's called double dipping...

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Actually it seems like all content is going to become free to the consumer over the next couple years. Paid for much like it was in the past by advertisements. The problem with that is internet adevertising pays so little.

The neat thing that the record labels are inadvertantly doing is, over charging for content, and killing off all the services that could save them and keep them profitable. Lets hope that they continue down this route of destroying any possible cash cows. That way when they begin filing for bankruptcy there is no further option for them except total failure.

@Hephaestus...

You're oh so right, BMI (1939) and ASCAP (1914) have been raping the radio markets for going on 100 years now. Most folks don't know it, but the advertising that goes into radio stations wasn't actually 100% for the station's operational expenses. Single representatives for the both have not only hounded radio stations, but actually stores (clothing, grocery, shoe, you name it)doctor' offices & other public places where money exchanges hands and music is being played and demanded "money owed the performing artists" be rendered.

It gets both interesting and really wordy, but suffice to say when I was in radio I had to fill out log sheets proving when actual songs were played on the air & by which artist so that we didn't get over charged by their run-of-the-mill slide rule guide. There are stations to this date that are still "millions" of dollars in debt because of these people and the rules apply to TV as well.

As I've pined before... The money won't get to the artist, it's going to the pockets of the 'something for nothings'.