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Here's Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Spotify Goes Public

Pretty interesting story here on how the banks are rooting for the Spotify Public Offering to fail because Spotify has circumvented
the banks in the offering.

In layman's terms, like selling your house without a broker.

The banks fear other tech companies could follow suit, hurting their own bottom line.


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Good article you linked there.
Some salient highlights:


Spotify is 12 years old and has never been profitable.

Last year, it posted an operating loss of $461 million.

Today, as it goes public, it wants investors to value it at something above $20 billion.

In order to believe that’s a good idea, you have to believe that Spotify has figured out a way to improve its margins, which it says it will do.

And in order to believe that, you have to believe that Spotify has figured out how to change the way it works with its most crucial partners: The big music labels.

Spotify hasn’t said it will do that, for good reason. Spotify and the big music labels are in a co-dependent relationship that is both fraught and fruitful.

The big labels provide Spotify with the music that makes up 87 percent of the company’s streams. Spotify provides the labels with billions in revenue, which is starting to replace the vanishing money the labels used to make from CD sales and digital downloads.*

So don't use spotify. .

I don't happen to subscribe myself. But that's beside the point. Streaming service add 1 million new paying subscriptions a month, and are on track to utterly dominate as the preferred music delivery/consumption method.

market share of streaming.jpg


As your linked article points out, this new revenue stream is a blessing for major labels, who have lost physical media and are now losing downloads as a revenue source.

However, this platform is the final death knell for small artists in terms of their reasonably expecting any appreciable revenue from recordings.
 
The biggest take away for me was that the major labels are the ones pimping their artists. Then, double dipping ( well soon to be ). Spotify is nothing without the support of the major labels. So, as always, they are the evil empire. That someone has figured out how to be a lamprey on the whale that is the music industry is a minor thing, comparatively. Unless I misunderstand the relationship.
 
The internet has also killed living wages in the once-lucrative field of pornography.

Porn star Ron Jeremy was involved in a fender-bender on the Sunset Strip last night.

Consider his car. That's not a bra on the front fender, it's gaffer's tape.

This is probably the best-known actor in the history of the genre,
and his wheels look like something a bass player would drive.


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At least he still hangs out at the Whiskey
 
The biggest take away for me was that the major labels are the ones pimping their artists. Then, double dipping ( well soon to be ). Spotify is nothing without the support of the major labels. So, as always, they are the evil empire. That someone has figured out how to be a lamprey on the whale that is the music industry is a minor thing, comparatively. Unless I misunderstand the relationship.
I think that's fair. That's why Spotify has to diversify its content sources. Also, while they are in the lead as far as streaming goes, they will probably be facing off against behemoths--Apple, Google, and Amazon may very well get into streaming as well.

I don't use Spotify because I really don't like the impact on artists, and I would not buy the stock (for both that reason and the uncertainty of its future), either.
 
The biggest take away for me was that the major labels are the ones pimping their artists. Then, double dipping ( well soon to be ). Spotify is nothing without the support of the major labels. So, as always, they are the evil empire. That someone has figured out how to be a lamprey on the whale that is the music industry is a minor thing, comparatively. Unless I misunderstand the relationship.

You are quite right, the major labels are complicit in this. Presumably they could have had a bigger slice of the pie had they opted for more horizontal integration and started their own delivery platforms. Maybe they will do this yet (Disney is taking its films off Netflix to deliver on its own platform so as to maximize profits). But the music industry has often been very conservative and lagged behind tech innovation at their own loss.
 
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This is ironic that Spotify is going public, because at this time I am considering shorting Amazon stock. Or Tesla. Is a toss up atm, but these tech wankers are writing checks their asses can't cash. Hell, maybe I'll short both of them.

I don't argue with your analysis. But it seems both those stocks have been hammered in the past week, and I would thus assume you are behind the curve on short "bets"? In other other words, isn't the likelihood of further bad news for both stocks fairly baked in at the moment?

I would feel more confident buying Spotify on an upcoming dip, and then betting they will grow Bain-like before they bail on the evident loser that ad-free internet radio is proving to be, judging by true revenue.
 
I don't argue with your analysis. But it seems both those stocks have been hammered in the past week, and I would thus assume you are behind the curve on short "bets"? In other other words, isn't the likelihood of further bad news for both stocks fairly baked in at the moment?

I would feel more confident buying Spotify on an upcoming dip, and then betting they will grow Bain-like before they bail on the evident loser that ad-free internet radio is proving to be, judging by true revenue?

I hear you, but I've looked a lil deeper.
Tesla just put out a favorable Q1 so they should see an uptick. They have lost about 30% in the last 6 mos, so there is room to go up before they fall again.

Re: Amazon, I think they will be shattered by an anti trust suit before the end of the Orange One's first term. Probably plenty of time remaining before I need to get in on that.

Pretty sure Zuck's lil enterprise hasn't found the bottom yet either :whistle:
 
The internet has also killed living wages in the once-lucrative field of pornography.

Porn star Ron Jeremy was involved in a fender-bender on the Sunset Strip last night.

Consider his car. That's not a bra on the front fender, it's gaffer's tape.

This is probably the best-known actor in the history of the genre,
and his wheels look like something a bass player would drive.


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Love The Hedgehog
He's has like a masters in education I believe.
 
On Spotify

LOOK AT THOSE ANNUAL LOSSES!


From today's Washington Post

Launched in 2008, the company claims to have nearly 160 million monthly active users, across dozens of countries.

It says it believes it has more than twice as many paying customers as its closest competitor, Apple Music, according to SEC filings. Apple has said 36 million people pay to use its music streaming service, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Spotify has positioned itself as a key contributor to the reversal of the music industry's decline, by convincing millions of people to pay for an on-demand music subscription service.

The company's growth has been matched by increasing losses. It generated about $5 billion in revenue last year, up more than 40 percent from 2016, and a $1.5 billion net loss compared with about $664 million in 2016.

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