Except inactive users probably have a much higher chance of cancelling their subscription in whatever it is (netflix, spotify, gym, martial arts, etc.), so I dont think these companies are actually incentivised to reduce the usability of the platform. Unless of course they can make it very inconvenient for people to cancel or change providers, which is why strong regulation in that area is essential.
Absolutely. I wasnāt really thinking of poor usabilityāthat would definitely result in canceled accounts and decreased revenue. I was thinking more about, for example, the huge āfake musicā problem on Spotify.
Sorry to link to Ted Gioia for a second time in the thread, but heās a fascinating read.
Theyāve also removed a great deal of the risk of making a record. For indie musicians, thereās no need to record your album and then play the guessing game of how many copies you should get made and how many you can sell, and hope to god you donāt end up with 20 boxes of your debut album that no-one wants taking up space in your garage (and under your bed and in the crawlspace).
Thatās not quite right. Streaming services pay out a fixed percentage (I think itās somewhere around 2/3) of what they take in to rights holders no matter how much or little people listen to music on their service. The only difference what you listen to makes is how the money gets allocated, not how much goes out.
Which is fabulous for the variety of music available, and our access to it. The trade off, or one of them, is that thee signal to noise ratio is worse now than it was when there was a lot more money involved as a gatekeeping device, IMO. Also, my anecdotal experience over many years of teaching college students, who are among the most voracious consumers of music I would think, is that people largely do not value music as much. Free stuff easily obtained becomes fungible.
I mean, there are a ton of artists who started on soundcloud and now have major record deals and tours.
Streaming has helped new artists distribute their music in a way that has helped with discoverability, especially when tied to social media.
It hasnāt been all bad for artists, I would say streaming certainly helped a lot when the music industry was getting hammered with people resorting to piracy to get new music.
I donāt know how we go back. Stuff moves off of streaming platforms, and we are back to people pirating stuff. Personally, the smaller artists I enjoy, I typically buy the vinyl record of their new album, or use bandcamp to send them 10 bucks.
In the case of Barnes & Noble, the new boss was named James Daunt.
Cue James Bond theme.
Love what you do seems to be the takeaway.
I think the takeaway is that you should have someone at the helm that actually knows and loves the business, and the customers. Thereās been this rising thing for decades now that what you really need is a sharp MBA that understands how business is done- they donāt have to know anything about this particular business, in fact thatās probably a negative as their love and passion would cloud good solid business decisions. Meanwhile they tank the business and walk away with a golden parachute regardless, and get hired on to do the same thing elsewhere.
āā¦but he doesnāt know the territory!ā
Sure, thereās always tradeoffs. From the musicians point of view, though, thereās no arguing that the barrier to entry is way lower. A lot of bands that get to make their second, third and fourth albums that probably wouldnāt have made it past their first EP in the old days (and maybe shouldnāt have, honestly, but judging the quality of music being released is up to the listeners I guess.)
Oh, yeah, thatās really my point, just to show the different takes on the current landscape, not to evaluate it as good or bad or anything.
The coming digipocalypse is why I have my DVD and OG X-Box collection. Yep, media prepper right here. Oh yeah, CDs, too.
Bit rot will kill all your shiny plastic discs in about two decades.
It is comforting to know that in the very worst of outcomes where all our digital platforms go bust and take our collections with them, there is always that ābayā that will help us recover what we paid forā¦
Amazon is absolutely immolating their reputation as a good store with these sponsored products.
Iāve actually had a few times recently where I searched for a specific product model and brand, exact wording, and Amazon doesnāt even put it on the entire front page of results. Presumably the company didnāt purchase high enough ranking results from Amazon so it gets buried.
So Iām starting to default to searching Google first, just skipping Amazon in the first place. Because if I search product model + brand + the word Amazon on Google, it actually gets me to the god damn page where I can buy the product on Amazon.
Maybe they know what theyāre doing because I still end up buying it from Amazon because itās cheap. But Seriously WTF. From now on Iām treating the Amazon online storefront as a hostile AI I have to defeat.
Yeah, Amazon really has gone to shit. The amount I buy from there has dwindled every year for a while now and itās to the point Iām on the fence about ditching Prime, which will in turn reduce how much I buy from Amazon even further. Itāll probably tip me over the edge when they crank up prices once again.
Yes, Amazon has really en-shittified itself with so much crap that actually finding the item you are actually looking for is impossible.
I was looking for a specific LED bulb I had purchased before, a 1500 lumen cool white LED bulb, to replace the one that failed in my bathroom vanity, and the first 10 results had nothing to do with my search request. Not 1500 lumens, not the right color etc. I was very specific in my search terms too.
I actually only found the product I wanted by clicking on the brand I remembered it being, and than switching in the product page to the type/color of bulb I wanted.
The problem with it is, there is no good alternative online for shopping. Walmart started trying to compete with Amazon, but they too have a terrible search full of sponsored and third party results, making it impossible to find anything you want there either.
This is a bit of a myth, at least if you take care of them properly (donāt store them in extreme temperatures or high humidity, donāt leave the discs exposed in sunlight, donāt constantly get your grubby little fingers all over the surfaces, etc.) I have 30+ year old CDs and 20+ year old CD-Rs that work just fine. With proper treatment, prerecorded CDs may last 100 to 200 years.
Of course, if you leave them in your car and constantly handle them while eating pizza, all bets are off. And as with all recorded media, the more you play a particular disc, the quicker it will degrade. Also, manufacturing standards differed wildly - some of the earliest CDs were poorly manufactured and started rotting almost immediately.
You can search just your previous orders. I do it all the time.
Sure, but that is not nearly as easy as me just putting in the exact name of the item I want and having it show up at the top of the list. Amazon decides to show you a bunch of sponsored results that are tangentially related to what you want.
Search:
ā1500 lumen daylight 5000k led lampā
Result:
The 1st 4 sponsored results are not what I am looking for, pushing the actual matching products to my request to the 5th item in the list, as well as needing to scroll to see options like what I want. (I have circled what I was looking for, and ordered)
It just really sucks, as it makes finding what you actually want just a bit harder.
Sure. Iām not denying Amazon has shitty search. Iām just saying there is a workaround for this particular aspect of its shittiness.