None of the streaming music companies are sustainable in the long term.

Do you have a basis for this statement?

Yeah, it's one industry I'm very familiar with. It's what dublinben said, there is no profit. It's even a bit worse than that - there are significant losses involved. The sites are expensive to run and the labels can charge whatever they want for licensing fees.

The profit margins are too slim. Their revenue barely covers the operating costs and onerous licensing fees.

When their licensing fees are barely paying the people who produce the content then I don't think onerous is the right way to describe it. Spotify produce far too much consumer surplus and in return underpay artists and themselves. I'm guessing the backers think this is OK, but inorder for low cost low margin to work you need massive scale which may work for spotify, but is not really sustainable and ends up being another example of silicon valley shitting on content producers.

I've never bought a single song on iTunes, but I went out of my way to pay Spotify $5 a month.

Before that I relied on grooveshark, last.fm, youtube, and, a long time ago kazaa and napster. I can't be the only one. There are just too many 'free' alternatives.

When the 'barely paid' content producers would have gotten zilch if it weren't for Spotify, I wouldn't say that they're being shat on.

On another note, few would bemoan the plight of ISPs being paid less per bits transferred than they were a decade ago, why should we consider it a bad thing that per unit prices of content have dropped? Are the top artists of today any poorer than their counterparts from the 80s? Would the smaller artist even exist if it weren't for the proliferation of these cheap and convenient content delivery services?

Its pretty hard to beat Spotify unless you have some specific taste in music they dont cover well. But overall I have a hard time seing a better service than theirs.

It just works, is fast and has a large db of content.

I've tried both and have stuck with Rdio. The social aspect is superior. I love being able to see playlists and recommendations from random people beyond my Facebook friends. Spotify's desktop app is definitely faster, though I find Rdio to be better designed.

But there is a BIG difference here if we're talking about the free services of both. Spotify is always free, and rdio is only free for 6 months. Yes it's probably a good thing to pay for a service that you like (I do), but some people don't, and that's going to be where they prefer Spotify.

http://support.spotify.com/us/learn-more/faq/#!/article/How-...

http://help.rdio.com/customer/portal/articles/187730-rdio-fo...

I'd rather be cut off honestly than hectored into subscribing by having my music continuously interrupted with advertising.

> Yes it's probably a good thing to pay for a service that you like (I do)...

It's also good to pay for a service that you want to stick around.

Completely agree. The UX of Rdio is far superior, IMHO.

totally agree as well. its above and beyond better.

Spotify uses peer-to-peer (http://community.spotify.com/t5/Help-Desktop-Linux-Mac-and/O...) which makes it bad UX for me.

I've been using Mog for a while, but had I run into Rdio first, I might have picked them instead.

When you don't pay for it, Spotify interrupts your music with shitty commercials for country music, while Rdio just cuts you off after awhile. Hence, Rdio was the one I ended up using long enough to decide to subscribe.

Grooveshark doesn't do any audio ads and never cuts you off.

Can I ask why you used the word pivoting instead of moving? To pivot is to swing around a fixed point. What is the fixed point in this context?

Pivot is a term of art popularized by Eric Ries and the lean startup movement.

Pivots frequently keep a large part constant, thus the word makes sense.

Frankly I think that it is nonsense and an attempt to sound like you are saying something cleverer than you are. What would be meaningfully different in what he had said if he used the word move?

He would no longer be referring to Lean Startup. He would no longer be implying that part of the business model was being held constant.