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Music Businesses

Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain Its 100M-Song Catalog Can Only Be Played on Shuffle (inc.com) 96

Posted by EditorDavid from the 99-problems dept.
Remember Amazon's announcement Tuesday that Prime members would get free access to ad-free podcasts and a library of 100 million songs?

It made Slashdot reader ayjaym cancel their Amazon Prime subsciption. Because despite the upgrade to 100 million tracks, "all of these — including the albums that were available on Prime Music previously — can only be played in random order!" You can't skip forward or back while playing a song either. And, if you like to listen to classical music you now have the travesty of having great works chopped up and reshuffled into a random play order.
A headline at Inc. magazine says Amazon's change "Is Making Everyone Angry." "Hey Alexa, play Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero," used to be a simple thing you might say. When you did, your Echo would do exactly that. It would play Taylor Swift's newest song as long as it was in the catalog of songs available. Now, however, that's not what happens at all. If you're lucky, Alexa will start playing songs from Midnights, Swift's latest album. That, however, is not a given. It might play some of her older songs. It might start playing songs from other artists instead. Why does Amazon think anyone wants this?

Here's why: It's cheaper for a streaming service to not let you choose the song you want, but to let you give it an input and start playing similar music. Also, because Amazon clearly sees Amazon Music as a thing you use in the background when you just want music playing as you do other things.... If what you want to do is listen to Taylor Swift's latest album, you're going to have to choose Apple Music or Spotify Premium, both of which charge more than $10 a month, or Amazon Music Unlimited, which is $8.99 per month.

According to Amazon, 80 percent of people will never do that. They will never pay $10 a month to stream music. They will, however, use a free streaming service even if it means giving up the ability to actually choose the song they want to listen to. Okay, fine, except that's not the thing Amazon had made before.
Inc's conclusion? "If you give someone a thing as a benefit because they gave you money for your $140 a year subscription membership, it's not great if you suddenly make that thing dramatically worse and expect them to pay you more to make it a better experience."

So if you're not going to pay extra to upgrade to Amazon's "Unlimited Music" service, Fast Company explains that "It's probably better to think of Music Prime as a Pandora-like service wherein you pick an artist or genre you like and let Amazon sort out which songs are going to be played for you." The only catch there is that if you're streaming Music Prime to an Amazon Echo device — which we do non-stop around my house — it'll time out after an hour of inactivity. So if you're thinking of throwing a party and asking Alexa to spin up '80s music all night, you're going to have to keep asking every hour.

Another sticking point for some: Music Prime sound quality is available in "standard" definition, whereas Music Unlimited subscribers get access to "HD" and "Ultra HD" tracks depending on how each album is mastered.

Some Music Unlimited tracks can also be played in "spatial audio" — which is touted as "a multidimensional audio experience, adding space, clarity, and depth that is not achievable with traditional stereo music." Far out, man.
Deep in the fine print of the Amazon Music FAQ, you'll find a couple more options. There's also a $4.99-a-month "single device" plan, and a "Family Plan" offering six accounts for $14.99 a month. But Amazon is apparently offering its biggest savings to students enrolled in a degree-granting college or university, with a sharply discounted "Amazon Music Unlimited for Students" program.
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Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain Its 100M-Song Catalog Can Only Be Played on Shuffle More

Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain Its 100M-Song Catalog Can Only Be Played on Shuffle

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  • Free * Members Complain is not the lead to a compelling story.

    • The story is space filler, standard on Yahoodot.

    • Re:Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain (Score:4, Insightful)

      by leehwtsohg ( 618675 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:24PM (#63029795)

      Free? How do I get amazon prime for free?

    • Re:Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:28PM (#63029805) Homepage

      The title is wrong, it's called "Amazon Music Prime" and it's not free at all, but included with a paid Amazon Prime subscription. I think there is some sort of free ad-supported Amazon Music tier as well, but I don't think that was changed.
      Anyway, it is quite annoying because while I am a Prime member for the free express shipping (and secondary for Prime Video), I was used to being able to ask my echo to play me a specific song - it did not have everything, so I did not mind when it told me I needed Amazon Music Unlimited for the particular track - it offered me to play "similar" songs instead, which was OK. So, now, they stop this ability, you cannot ask for a particular song anymore. Gone are the days when I enjoyed saying "Alexa, play Downeaster Alexa" (probably my favourite Billy Joel song - but also the request made me chuckle every time). They included something in our subscription, they increased the subscription 2 months ago and then they took it away, claiming they give something "better" somehow...

      • The Prime subscription gives you fuck all when it comes to music and videos. Anything worthwhile costs extra.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Not sure what you are talking about, it has many excellent shows and, unlike Netflix, you can also find older classic movies.

      • >"The title is wrong, it's called "Amazon Music Prime" and it's not free at all, but included with a paid Amazon Prime subscription. [...] while I am a Prime member for the free express shipping

        Not to be pedantic, but that express shipping isn't "free", either. It is included at no extra cost if you are a Prime member. So you kinda contradicted your own argument :) Of course, it is understandable, since the word "free" has been corrupted horribly.

        It is like saying "free drink with meal". It isn't fre

    • It's certainly a weird angle to take when it just confuses the real issue that Amazon fucked up a service that was working quite well for a lot of people. I'm guessing no one who works on this stuff actually uses it themselves because someone should have noticed this problem. There's a reason that companies want their employees to use the company's products and it's not all just branding and free marketing.
      • Presumably Amazon wants their employees to use this nonsense, but won't give it to them for free, and the employees looked at it and thought, "nah, too expensive".
        I mean, it is Amazon we're talking about.

        This service might be worse than a huge drive full of pirated stuff.

      • Re:Free 'Amazon Music' Members Complain (Score:4, Informative)

        by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @08:12PM (#63030279)

        As a musician this has caused us huge problems. When it was announced we threw out a bunch of social media notices that our albums are now free to listen to on Amazon prime, and had to *hastily* retract them when people where saying "So.... we went to your album, threw it on and got some other band playing instead?".

        I guess its on us for not properly testing it, but we really did want to be the first to hit the press with it.

        Instead we where among the first to remove amazon from our list of distributers, because unlike before we now arent entirely sure if paid amazon listeners will get the ad.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • they show, but trying to play them brings up a dialog telling me to subscribe to Music Unlimited.

          I tried using the Music service included in my Amazon Prime subscription years ago, and stopped after a week. It kept popping up a full screen ad for Unlimited every few songs I played on my phone. After a few days of that nonsense I uninstalled it and never looked back.

          Funnily, this new version of their service might be worth checking again. I like to listen to random brainless Eurobeat tracks when doing chores, but Amazon's selection of Eurobeat songs on the Prime-included tier was microscopic. Now it mig

        • "I've had entire paid-for albums disappear, had to have customer service intervene who have ended up refunding me and telling me to buy it again, only for the newly rebought copy to be missing tracks..."

          This is EXACTLY why I don't "buy" media that lives exclusively online. Somebody could make a business decision, delete it, and say "so sad, too bad". There would be nothing I could do about it. I won't buy media unless I can hold it (CD's and DVD's) or have the digital data live offline on my computer (well

          • Paid-for albums and songs from Amazon don't exist solely online. You can download them as unprotected MP3 files. You can put those files on as many devices as you like, burn them to CDs, back them up on discs or tapes, store them on a NAS or a cloud storage service, whatever -- they are yours.

            Paid-for video, on the other hand, only exists online. Some of it can be downloaded in a limited form that is still DRM-encumbered and has to be renewed every few weeks, but you can't download it in a form that you ful

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      If ember paying $100 for a box and in return I could listen to any song being played at the time, for no additional charge. There was sometimes ads, it I could change the âstationâ(TM) to avoid them.

      When I bought my last car, it came with a satellite receiver and for $15 a month I had the ability, get this, as it is so innovative, to listen to whatever song was being played at the time. Mean, what value for money.

    • If you give someone a thing as a benefit because they gave you money for a $140/year subscription membership, it's not great if you suddenly make that thing dramatically worse and expect them to pay you more to make it a better experience.

    • Most Prime members sign up for reasons other than the music; shipping and Prime Video are the most common. (In my personal valuation of Prime membership I count those two things as 50% of the cost each; everything else is gravy.) The discounts at Whole Foods are also significant to some members. The bundled tier of Amazon Music comes along for the ride for most; in that sense it's "free".

  • Prime's only value is related to shipping (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:25PM (#63029799)

    You get free shipping without having to spend $35 (or whatever the cutoff is now). That's it. All of the "extra value add-ons" are crap. Whether it's this third-rate music service, or "Prime Video" where you likely have to pay extra to watch most anything you actually want to watch... it's crap.

    So if the shipping benefits are worth $130 a year to you, subscribe. If they're not, don't be tricked by the supposed extra benefits - they're not worth paying for.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      The video service does have some good content, and if you like B movies (well, maybe C movies), there's a ton of low-budget weird stuff that you've never heard of. But it's not on the par of Netflix, Disney+, and the like.

      If you shop at Whole Foods, then Prime with the Amazon credit card can pay for itself.

      But, for the most part, you're correct that Prime is all about not worrying about shipping costs.

    • That's about how I feel about it.

      If I can't choose what I want to listen to I won't use this at all even if it lets me choose a genre. I have plenty of choices already.

      We used to get a Washington Post digital subscription with it. Now I have to pay for that. I've never watched Prime Video much, but recently I wanted to watch Only Fools and Horses. There are 7 seasons and I got a 7-day free trial. Ha - I can't that much TV in such a short time. I'm still on Season 2 and now I'm paying for it.

      I guess it's

    • or "Prime Video" where you likely have to pay extra to watch most anything you actually want to watch...

      I have actually found plenty on Prime Video available to watch. The issue is that Amazon has a large collection than they have provided for streaming. Where the likes of Netflix will simply not show a result, Prime does and offers it to you for extra. It makes it look scummy while actually being a benefit to users (at least those few users out there who would actually pay for an on-demand streamed movie).

      Prime Music however is utter trash and not worth discussing along with Prime shipping and Prime Video.

    • Right. They fund Lord of the Woke for half a billion dollars and raise my prime $30 to pay for it.

      I'm out at the next increase. I have a whole-house VPN and they block VPN ranges from Prime services. So all of the plums are literally worthless.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Offer a service for free or nearly free.
    Frustrate user until he/she drops the service or pays for premium
    Profit!
  • Who doesn't want more than 100 million songs? Just go to YouTube, they have BILLIONS of songs.
  • My wife and I both laughed about this change. Any time you ask the device to play a specific item, first it has to lecture you in how great Amazon music is and how the changes they've made are better for consumers.

    Except they are not. Before you could be specific, now you simply get something similar to what you requested. Even my 9 year old son was questioning why it won't play the music we request.

    I guess Amazon isn't making enough money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      So they are going for the "Big Lie" technique of praising their stupid decision at every opportunity? Yeah, that will work on something like this...

  • bad marketing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:43PM (#63029853)
    I tried it today since I have prime. Was so bad (intentionally in order to protect their premium brand) that I'm not going to even try the premium version and will stick with Spotify. (I AM willing to pay for music and do, but not from Amazon now) Sometimes offering a low end poor quality product damages your company reputation and hurts your high end products.

    • I'm glad you managed to try it. I tried logging in and got an error (you need to log into the correct region's website). I tried a region where I live, where the prime membership is registered, and the region from which I first signed up in, all the same error.

      Then I gave up and signed in on the website, typed one thing into search and got a popup suggesting I needed Music Unlimited. Can't comment on sound quality, after 10minutes I didn't get that far and frankly don't have the patience for that level of s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sheph ( 955019 )
      I'm not fond of streaming services in general. I don't mind paying for music but I need to have a physical copy. Companies go away, arbitrarily decide they're going to change the way you use what you've paid for, or get into legal spats resulting in the removal of some content. I prefer vinyl, otherwise CD, and I'll download if it's the only way I can get it, but it's going on my hard drive that I have control over. Not only that these streaming services are really bad for the artists. They hardly pay

  • They get free movies and TV-series and free music and people bitch?

    • They get free movies and TV-series and free music and people bitch?

      The so-called "free" videos and music purchased with the annual fee aren't as good as they used to be.

      The free shipping ain't what it used to be, either. It used to usually be two days, now we're lucky if it shows up in five days. That's despite the fact that they've built a whole bunch of distribution centers closer than ever, and they now control their own custom delivery service.

      To make up for all of that, they've substantially increased the annual fee.

      It's no fun when a company finally achieves total do

    • Read next time. People are complaining because Amazon significantly degraded the included with prime music service experience while claiming it was an improvement.

    • Specifically, they are bitching about how the service they were paying for was changed to be significantly worse while being gaslit about how it's better.

    • They pay for exactly everything they get. Nothing is free.

  • 1960's GE Record Player v. 2022 Amazon Music Prime (Score:4, Insightful)

    by theodp ( 442580 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:49PM (#63029877)

    With a cheap 1960's GE Wildcat record player [imgur.com], teens could play the specific song they wanted to hear. With a 2022 Amazon Echo (or iPhone 14), an Alexa AI/ML digital assistant backed by the power of the AWS Cloud (2022Q3 revenue = $20.5 billion), an Amazon Music Prime membership, and a 75 Mbps internet connection, teens today cannot. That's what 50+ years of progress looks like, kids!

    • You forgot the part about said teens riding their bikes out to the record store and spending their hard-earned cash on an album with maybe 10 songs, often only a few of which were actually good...

    • That's what 50+ years of progress looks like, kids!

      Let's see. Average size of an album is 11 tracks, 100 million / 11 = 9.09 million albums.
      Average cost of a record in 1960 was $4. Total cost of 9.09 million albums = $36.36 million.
      Cumulative inflation value from 1960 to 2022 is 902.7% so total cost of that record player and 100 million songs is ...

      $364.59 million.

      Oh but no ability to shuffle? Well amazon music unlimited is only $8.99
      Average humans live 70 years give or take. Since we'll assume people under 8 don't give a shit about shuffle let's make that

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Whibla ( 210729 )

        To be fair, you make a reasonable point, but...

        Average cost of a record in 1960 was $4. ... Cumulative inflation value from 1960 to 2022 is 902.7% so ...

        Does an 'average' record / cd actually cost ~$40 these days? I still mostly buy mine at between £2 & £10 an album.

        Inflation has not been evenly, equally, spread.

        Of course, the magnitude of the difference you arrived at still means it's 'more worthwhile' to subscribe to Amazon Music, for certain values of 'worth', though I can't help myself pointing out that there are other considerations too, such as availability, and the ability to pass the col

        • Does an 'average' record / cd actually cost ~$40 these days? I still mostly buy mine at between £2 & £10 an album.

          No. *looks over at the muse album I bought 2 days ago*. It's $45.
          Inflation absolutely has kept up. The parent did show a record player. A CD is probably cheaper, but they are also in the order of $25-30 typical unless you go bargain bin diving.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by coats ( 1068 )
        $6,688.56 times 100 million people is something over $6billion...

  • "Shuffle" on iOS only does by-track. The Mac OS Music.app does support 'shuffle by album' or 'shuffle by grouping'. For a company that is supposed to "care deeply about music" this is really appalling. (Makes me wonder what kind of music the Apple executives listen to... No one does album rock, jazz, classical or books-on-tape???) I have to think it would be a small number of lines of code to provide by-album or by-grouping shuffle on iOS.

    • Re:Apple iOS has the same 'track only' problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by Megane ( 129182 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @05:04PM (#63029919)

      The difference is that you can turn the shuffle off on the music app, but now you can't turn it off on Amazon.

      Notice how TFS says "it's cheaper"? The reason is that a shuffle mode without requests is only subject to radio play royalties, which are much cheaper. I can't remember the name (I think Techmoan reviewed it) but there was a series of digital players sold with hundreds of songs built in for an affordable price, and with the same catch. It controlled the random play, but I think you at least had a skip button.

      I'll stick with my thrift store CD collection (usually a dollar or less per disc) and manually rip what I want to take with me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Askmum ( 1038780 )

      "Shuffle" on iOS only does by-track. [...] classical or books-on-tape???)

      Haha, yes. For classical music it never really bothered me (if I have it on shuffle, shuffle it, there are other times that I want to hear a complete symphony) but that one time I put an audio book on my iPod, noooooooo! Why are you playing a random chapter of a book?!

      I can't understand that the developers of those kind of systems have never experienced that and fixed it.

      Also:

      According to Amazon, 80 percent of people will never do that. They will never pay $10 a month to stream music. They will, however, use a free streaming service even if it means giving up the ability to actually choose the song they want to listen to. Okay, fine, except that's not the thing Amazon had made before

      First is true, second is false. I believe spotify had this at some point (or still does) for the free version: you search for and

  • Then they wonder why people download free media... (Score:4)

    by maybe111 ( 4811467 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @04:51PM (#63029885)

    Then they wonder why people download free media...

    • Then they wonder why people download free media...

      Because people are too tight to pay $8.99 for access to 100 million songs and will justify piracy despite the fact they now have access to 100 million songs without restriction for what used to be the cost of 4 albums (average of 44 tracks altogether) per year.

    • Then they wonder why people download free media...

      Honestly, that's basically a solved problem at this point from the perspective of the labels.

      Back in 2001, *everybody* I knew used Napster. Then they went to Kazaa and later Limewire. Nontechnical people were doing it, and iTunes libraries were massive and locally stored. It was basically the primary way people interacted with their music libraries.

      Now, I'll admit that part of it is my age bracket - I'm not in high school or college anymore. However, even the people I do know in those age ranges don't downl

  • Its a shame (Score:5, Informative)

    by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @05:07PM (#63029925)
    The former Amazon Music included with Prime was actually a great benefit. This effectively removes music as a great benefit. Given the cost of prime, might be better off just ordering when youre over $35 for free shipping that way

    • >"Given the cost of prime, might be better off just ordering when youre over $35 for free shipping that way"

      That is what I have done for years. Never paid for Prime. Sometimes they offer it "free" for a month or week or whatnot, and I will check out their services then stop it. Not a single one of them interests me. Don't have a Kindle. Already have the music I want. Video stuff has only a tiny bit of things I would watch, and did. Have ZERO interest in "Whole Foods." Don't care about "same day s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dublin ( 31215 )

      Yeah, Prime's value proposition is gone. I doubt I run much more than two or three under $35 Amazon orders per year anyway, so it's not like I *need* Prime. I used to justify it for Prime video, but with the crashing content quality, and Amazon's continual killing off of shows we really like (Z, The Last Tycoon, Night Sky, etc., etc.) in favor of execrable dreck like Rings of Power or their latest perverted LGBTQIACRT sh*t...

  • I've had prime pretty much forever but I could not care less about the music. I don't believe I've ever even used it, except perhaps at a friend's home via Alexa, just asking for a song.

    So, I find this all a bit amusing. that said....

    "If you give someone a thing as a benefit because they gave you money for your $140 a year subscription membership, it's not great if you suddenly make that thing dramatically worse and expect them to pay you more to make it a better experience."

    I totally agree with this, an

    • Hans Moravec said, in the late 90s that the code would become the law at some point. I think we're seeing it now all over the place. Operational software for large organizations has given over decision making to algorithms, so their use case defines what you can and cannot do. Edge cases are now a software problem, well, *rules* really, remarkably like the law in their end result.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qubezz ( 520511 )
      I've paid absolutely nothing forever to Amazon, and have a thrift store echo dot. This is exactly how it has always worked. You say play a specific song, it might have an ad first asking if you want to upgrade, then launches a "radio station" based on that song, which might include it or the artist before playing a broader selection of song.
  • it's Amazon choosing what you hear.
  • In this corner, Musk, in that corner, Zuck, and ... who's this running in with a chair ? Jefffffffffffffffffffff Bozo !
  • AFAIK the limitations on the bundled Prime Music were: 1) Only one device could stream at a given time 2) Smaller catalog without the "latest and greatest", which, let's be honest, should probably be considered a premium feature. I guess this was more than enough for a lot of people, thus Prime Music Unlimited was not that enticing. Now that the interest rates are going up you need to pad that bottom line somehow...

  • It's a really crap phone app. The navigation sucks, you can't clear out your presets "with free" so you get a bunch of crap you
    don't like. I'm back to Spotify and Pandora.

  • they hold your satisfaction hostage.

  • Many years ago we had this free streaming service, it was called a "radio". Dozens of playlists. They called them "radio stations"

  • Apple Music may not be free (TAASNSTAFL, remember?); but:

    1. You are the Program Director; not Apple. You can choose to pick everything manually (like I do) and/or choose any of several human-curated and (really quite fucking 'smart'!) AI-Generated "Stations".

    2. It is simplicity itself to Add Songs and Albums to your "Library". Playlists are also supported. Libraries Sync across Devices (with an iCloud Subscription, IIRC).

    3. Pretty much all (if not all) of their gigantic Catalog is Lossless (for those device

    • I think lots of Apple's music catalog is not lossless, but converted to 256 Kbit variable rate AAC from higher-than-CD-quality masters. I'd be curious how that compares to "lossless" CD, which in the end is also just a lossy compressed version of the same masters.

      And I tested this 20 years ago when I started ripping my CDs, I couldn't hear the difference between 160 and 192 Kbit AAC so I ripped everything at 192 Kbit to be sure. Then downloaded lots from iTunes Music at 256 Kbit because hard drives becam

      • I think lots of Apple's music catalog is not lossless, but converted to 256 Kbit variable rate AAC from higher-than-CD-quality masters. I'd be curious how that compares to "lossless" CD, which in the end is also just a lossy compressed version of the same masters.

        And I tested this 20 years ago when I started ripping my CDs, I couldn't hear the difference between 160 and 192 Kbit AAC so I ripped everything at 192 Kbit to be sure. Then downloaded lots from iTunes Music at 256 Kbit because hard drives became cheaper, and just because you can't detect a difference doesn't mean there isn't one.

        Wrong.

        Apple quietly ran around about a year ago and re-released everything (at least everything I have run into so far) as Lossless (Up to 192k/24 bit!).

        Since you can turn it on or off, I assume it is all stored on Apple's Servers as Lossless, and it does AAC conversion at Delivery-Time, if Requested.

        Long ago, I conducted the same informal test you did, and came to the same result: 160k AAC was where I could no longer even pretend I could hear a difference between original CD 44.1k/16 PCM source and AAC. An

  • I was wondering what the catch here was when they announced it. Licensing major catalogs is not cheap, and without upping the price of Prime substantially, I could not figure out how they managed to squeeze the big labels to get this done. There had to be a catch and now we know what it is. Funny thing is, if they never had the small collection of "free" music before this, everyone would be praising them for adding this. But they did, and now everyone is pissed off. Woops....

  • No progress in the last 20 years (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BeaverCleaver ( 673164 ) on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:31PM (#63030481)

    Nothing about the modern experience of "listening to music" adds anything that wasn't possible decades ago with Winamp and a decent-sized hard drive. If you'd told me in 2001 that we would have ubiquitous wifi and cheap storage ("you mean we'll have TERABYTE USB drives in the future??") but the experience would be MORE sucky than in 2001, I wouldn't have believed you. Then again, back then Google was a search engine for nerds, Apple made coloured desktop computers for rich idiots, and Amazon was just an online bookshop.

  • When Google killed Google Play Music and forced everyone ontoYoutube Music, the Google Assistant music features were completely nerfed -- I used to be able to ask for a specific song from my own uploaded library, and it woul dutifully play that track. Free users only get a useless shuffle from some 'mix station' Google thinks might, maybe, have the track I want, eventually. And ads. between. nearly. every. track. Ugh.

    They too hoped users would get annoyed enough to pay for Youtube premium. F$ck that with a

  • For all its faults, Amazon basic services used to be without equivalent. I don't know if it's the effect of being a monopoly but cracks are beginning to show. One other examples: I read in 3 languages and have a kindle. I used to be able to buy books at Amazon.com, .fr and .it. Not anymore, it won't let me buy if I'm not the website of my shipping country. I can still jump through hoops and change addresses, but for how long?

  • Next JB's idea: Amazon Prime Ultimate will play the exact movie you requested, while free Prime Video will play a movie "related" to what you wanted. But it's a freebie with Prime subscription so...enjoy!

  • Give up private ownership of your music collection and it's just a question of time when they move to the second stage of the "bait and switch" strategy. Personally I don't blame amazon for this, they're just a corporation trying to make as much profit as possible by any means whatsoever, like all the other soulless corporations. People relinquished control of their music and now they're getting the inevitable result.
  • i do and if you do too then you know everyday these FM radio stations have a pool of about 40 to 60 songs and these stations play those same songs everyday and it can make listening to those radio stations cringeworthy

    • I do every Friday morning from 7 to 10. G101.3 [wikipedia.org], a local radio station, has had a feature with the morning show with Rick Duncan for almost 20 years. It is called the "Free For All Friday" and they have more than just the "40 to 60" songs for sure. You can request anything as long as it is up tempo and they can find a clean version of it. They will play music from today all the way back, regardless of genre as long as they have it. For example, they will play music from Rob Zombie, Johnny Horton, Bobby Dar

  • If you want a good music subscription, just get a 1-year Spotify code/card for $100. That's $20 off the normal yearly $10/mo price, and Spotify has most music and works the way people expect it to.

    If you worry that Bezos feels left out, you can buy the codes on Amazon too.

    • If you want a good music subscription, just get a 1-year Spotify code/card for $100. That's $20 off the normal yearly $10/mo price, and Spotify has most music and works the way people expect it to. If you worry that Bezos feels left out, you can buy the codes on Amazon too.

      When I go through my Best Buy account I can get a year of Tidal HiFi plus for $120. The normal price at Tidal is $20/month for that plan.

  • ``And, if you like to listen to classical music you now have the travesty of having great works chopped up and reshuffled into a random play order.''

    They got lazy when they built their library. I once did the same thing---plopping a CD into the drive and simply pulling out individual tracks. While I don't mind Santana being followed up by a Beethoven symphony, followed up by Sex Pistols, I found it incredibly annoying that only a single movement of that Beethoven got played between the two rocks songs. A

  • ... was to cancel Amazon Prime this past year, because we were sick of the way they pay/treat their workers (we have personal friends who used to be employed by Amazon and their struggles are real); because we don't like what they're doing to entertainment IPs that we love (Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings), and because we don't like the net effect the company's business model has on retail and commerce.

    The winning move is not to play.

  • With very few exceptions (literally only a few a year), the only thing we use Amazon Prime services for is to use Alexa as a voice controlled radio or music player.
    Amazon's pissing me off badly enough in other areas that I'd just as soon drop them, if I can easily replace that functionality.

    Does anyone know of an already-sorted, distributed, voice-controlled *local* media player solution? Sure, I have the skills and could put all the pieces together myself (I'd even buy new hardware to replace the Echoes,

  • "Also, because Amazon clearly sees Amazon Music as a thing you use in the background when you just want music playing as you do other things..."

    And more of this bullshit "everyone's the same" thinking, and also why "I am not other people" has become a popular catchphrase.

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Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. - Oscar Wilde

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