Spotify - a good or a not so good thing?

[muzzer]

Certainly in the books world I observe there’s a wealth of podcasts either by or supporting small publishers such as Unbound which help writers to find readers and vice versa of course. I agree services such as Spotify can help get new music to new audiences but that service certainly pays almost nothing. The smart method is social media backed by an own site streaming/selling one’s wares but others here know far more than I about this. It’s worth remembering of course that there are innumerable books and recordings that are simply too gloriously obscure to be picked up the digital providers. As my bookshelves continue to attest ;)

[richardfinegold]

http://fortune.com/2017/11/13/young-...-than-boomers/

Young people are finding their way to physical media. London bookshops are full of young people.

Physical books have survived the ebook revolution and sales remain solid, and physical music will too, IMO.

Streaming is part of the mix now, but stuff remains popular. You can't sign a download, and who really wants a download as a gift ?

I wasn’t able to open the link in your post, ts, but I would be cheered if it provided some hard data for your assertion. Regrettably what I have read concerning music buying habits of the under 35 year old and younger crowd , and what I personally have seen, is the opposite. I don’t know anyone in that age group who even owns a CD, and very few who download—it’s all streaming. They are virtually no shops that sell CDs in the States. I am on vacation now in Italy, and even at the Opera Houses in Naples and Palermo there are no CD shops in the vicinity. Some occasionally buy vinyl for the coolness factor, but some don’t even possess a way to play it.

[Old Grumpy]

Some occasionally buy vinyl for the coolness factor, but some don’t even possess a way to play it.

[I do, but it's all packed up in the loft]

OG

[BBMmk2]

I'm on Spotify premium, I'm very happy with it. I'm happy to use it when doing the washing up and for investigating recordings I might like to buy! It's been terribly useful especially recently when I've not been working so unable to buy anything new.

No Hyperion though!

[Jonathan]

No, regrettably BBM! There are a few other labels who don't use it either but there is plenty there.

Talking with my colleagues (when I was working before the summer), one of them who is 23 said they'd never owned a CD in their life. I was somewhat surprised and this trend seems to have been echoed elsewhere in this thread.

[Sir Velo]

I have a relatively large CD collection (probably over 5k at last count) and although I stream some music for convenience, I find that the quality of CDs is significantly better generally. Also, even if the streaming audio is OK, there can still be buffering issues - even on high speed Internet. On a good day we get around 70 Mbps, being very close to an exchange, but that still doesn’t prevent buffering at the server end, with adverse effects re the listening.

You do seem to suffer remarkable bad luck when it comes to anything technology related! Indeed, I wonder if you're really getting the 70Mbps your ISP appears to be claiming. You might want to do some tests (google Ookla if you're unsure how to do this). Like Waldo, we get considerably slower line speeds than you and yet I have never had the slightest issue with buffering. In fact, I should remark that currently I am enjoying 24/96 streaming of Gardiner's Schumann symphony cycle on Qobuz and mighty fine it sounds. Certainly far more involving than anything 16/44 CDs are capable of - and yes, I am listening on comparably high end platforms. Very occasionally, one is aware of compression on some pieces when streaming, but this is almost certainly down to the conversion techniques applied rather than limitations of the streaming per se.

[Dave2002]

You do seem to suffer remarkable bad luck when it comes to anything technology related!

No not really bad luck at all. Just that not all technology is all it's cracked up to be. I don't believe what my ISP says (BT), but I have measured the data rate at 70 Mbps. Somedays it's down at 50 Mbps. Even at 20 Mbps it should be good enough for most purposes. Buffering and data rates are not directly related.

Possible causes of "buffering" problems:

Client exhausts server, so has to wait for server to send next dollop of data.
Server "fills up" client, so there's a problem on the client side - which might be resolved by clearing the input buffer, then requesting a resend - hence a delay.
Client side has too many CPU intensive activities going on, so just can't cope.

There are quite a number of possible reasons - these are just a few.

From time to time the BT connection has a glitch - "normally" only a second or two - that might appear as a stuttering effect, but occasionally the glitch lasts 2-5 minutes which would/does definitely affect any streaming video or audio service.

Another possible problem could be due to internal wireless links, though I have tested these, and mostly they are nowadays reliable, and operate well above any low data rate which could be expected to cause problems.

I use the internet (wired broadbands - sometimes with a wireless local link) in different locations. In some locations it is noticeable that problems arise at certain times of day - for example around 5-7 pm when all the kids return from school and start watching video or playing video games. In days gone by the symptoms would appear in the morning when businesses started up, but I figure that now the data demand from businesses (serious work...!!!) is far lower than from games players.

Mostly CDs and DVDs are completely free of this kind of problem, and apart from the loss or damage of a CD or DVD, there's not the risk that a third party will suddently decide to delete or deny access to all of its (for examples) Furtwängler or Heifetz recordings, or even that a copyright holder will restrict the ability of a streaming service to supply such.