Free ad-supported Google Play Music offered to US residents

[HEXUS]

Is this a pre-emptive strike against the soon-to-launch Apple Music?

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[boothy02]

This could actually pose a threat to spotify unlike apple's streaming.

[Jowsey]

By all accounts the advertisement is pretty heavy handed. Doesn't surprise me but if it comes to the UK I'll see if it's worth the grief. If not I'll just turn it off and rely on my catalogue of music I already own.

[crossy]

This could actually pose a threat to spotify unlike apple's streaming.

I'm with you on that - and I'm thinking that the teenage audience who'll be most happy with the new setup won't mind the ads anyway. Was talking to my kids the other day and they were saying that they notice the break for ads on tv, but that's about it. Suppose their mental firewalls are better developed than us "oldies".

For me personally, I'm not bothered and the only time I use Google Play Music is stream my own content. Interesting (to me) though that GPM has the same problem with "I Like Rock" by Paul Gilbert as Amazon's AutoRip service. In that case the intro has an awful "pattering" noise (rain on a roof) that isn't there on the original CD or an ALAC or high quality AAC rip. Maybe there's something in that particular track that messes up the MP3 algorithms?

[Saracen]

.... Suppose their mental firewalls are better developed than us "oldies".

....

Or their ad-radar is currently under-developed, not yet having developed a severe allergic reaction to ads as a result of long-term over-exposure.

Personally, I VERY rarely listen even to commercial radio stations, precisely because of adverts.

A streaming service? Not really interested. With adverts? Emphatically not interested. From Google? Hell will freeze over first.

I guess I'm not in their userbase target demographic.

[Jowsey]

Suppose their mental firewalls are better developed than us "oldies".

21 YO guy here. Adverts no longer work on me. If anything, an advert will actively drive me away from a product now.

If I'm looking for a new bed and as I'm about to walk into a shop I hear a little ditty in my head about the New Bridge Street Bedding Centre you can pretty much bet I will not be buying anything from there.

When I'm browsing a website with my ad-blocker turned off, or dialled down, and I see an Amazon advert about something I price checked last night, I find it a little desperate. Amazon, the reason I didn't purchase the item from you last night is still the same reason I am not purchasing it from you tonight! a)You're a terribly unethical company. Run your employees into the ground and run razor thing margins to increase the sheer scale of operations in a constant expansion strategy that only really benefits the owners. b) Even if you were a completely inoffensive company I would much rather deal face to face with a local business, end of story.

The adverts that will be used in GPM are the annoying ones that actually limit the amount of UI space on screen. But I can see it being a hit with the younger generation. For me, I'll have to decide by trial if it's ever rolled out in the UK, the starting point of my opinion is that I probably won't like it.

I don't see why Google are doing this so obtrusively. Why not try and get companies to pay to be ranked higher in playlists like they do now for web searches? Would be my preference...

[crossy]

21 YO guy here. Adverts no longer work on me. If anything, an advert will actively drive me away from a product now.

Sorry, didn't explain myself - with my kids (and they're not unusual in this according to the other parents) they're not even aware that the ad's been on, other than that the flow of (usually US) drivel has stopped temporarily. So if you asked them to name a single advert that was on five minutes ago then they'd struggle. Ad's have become the media equivalent of mashed potato - you're aware that it's filling up space, but it's not an "event".

b) Even if you were a completely inoffensive company I would much rather deal face to face with a local business, end of story.

Ditto here - and I said as much to the dude in the guitar shop I was in recently. Could have saved myself £10-20 by buying online, but where's the support if it goes wrong? At least with a brick 'n' mortar shop I can go back and (assuming they've not gone bust in the meantime) present my "plank" and say "fix it, fix it, fix it".

Saracen (a while ago) made the point that with downloads (and by implication - streaming) you don't actually "own" anything really. Whereas with a CD (or vinyl come to think of it) you've got something physical that it's going to take bailiffs to remove. It's for that reason I'm thinking very hard about moving my "2nd tier" novels (ones I like, but not favourites) from paper to Kindle.

Still think there's a market for a lending library for eBooks, kind of analogous to music streaming. Yes, I know Amazon has their "Lending Library" but that's all tied up with lord-knows what other dross - specifically "New Prime".

[iamlorro]

Ditto here - and I said as much to the dude in the guitar shop I was in recently. Could have saved myself £10-20 by buying online, but where's the support if it goes wrong? At least with a brick 'n' mortar shop I can go back and (assuming they've not gone bust in the meantime) present my "plank" and say "fix it, fix it, fix it".

Agree with this, but the brick and mortar places can be just as bad in terms of customer service too. Don't get me wrong -I'm not saying all local places are bad - a while back I had a bad experience with one local retailer.

I will admit to a slight sense of smug satisfaction when that particular shop closed down.

The smart local places are ones that give good customer service to encourage people to come back.

[Saracen]

...

Saracen (a while ago) made the point that with downloads (and by implication - streaming) you don't actually "own" anything really. Whereas with a CD (or vinyl come to think of it) you've got something physical that it's going to take bailiffs to remove. ....

I don't remember putting it quite like that. Not that it's far off.

I'd say with a CD, much like a printed book, you certainly own the physical medium, but that doesn't give you unrestricted rights to do with as you wish. You may, for example, be able to sell the item, but not hire it out. For music, you can play it for private, domestic purposes, but probably not play it in a commercial environment.

With downloads, you get the rights the attached licence says you get, which broadly are likely to be the same, and you may well be able to "backup" the file onto physical media, like CF, DVD, etc.

But streaming services are more like monthly subscription services, where your access is likely to be only for the period of an active subscription. Some "download" services certainly have been like that, and if you stop paying, or if the service ceases operating you lose your entire 'collection'. A relative of mine got caught like that - he paid monthly for several years, building up a massive collection of his favourite music, and when the vompany decided to drop the service (Sony, IIRC) his music collection of thousands of tracks disappeared in an instant, leaving him to start sgain from scratch.

I still listen to CDs I bought with my first CD player, when CDs first came out. Hell, I still sometimes play LPs that are Mono, 'cos when I bought them, stereo wasn't available, like some early (and probably collectible) Beatles albums, and Shadows, Presley, and so on.

So here I am, 50 years later, give or take, still getting value from that one, single payment, half a century ago. With a monthly streaming service sub, once the month has gone, I never get any more value from the £x I paid gor that month.

On the other hand, for my payment for an LP, CD etc, I get indefinite access to that album, but ONLY that album, whereas with a streaming service, I get access to an effectively indefinite range of material, for a very finite period.

It's horses for courses, I guess.

The vast bulk of the music I feel inclined to listen to, I already have, on CD, etc. I buy occasional new stuff, but it's sporafic at best, not like the old days when I might go shopping and come back with 20, 30 or more CDs. But it's far more cost-effective for me to buy a CD I really want, than pay out every month for an infinite range of choice, much of which I wouldn't want to listen to if the music industry paid me.

Putting that another way, buying the CDs was like buying a house rather than renting - flaming expensive while you're doing it, but then vastly cheaper once you own it outright. Of course, now that I'm jit paying either mortgage or rent, I-ve got much greater disposable income for books and CDs, etc, but I've got most of what I want in those, too.

Anyway, the upshot of that is that, personally, no way am I listening to "free" music services if I have to listen to ads too, and no way am I paying Google for diddly squat, ads or not.

[GuidoLS]

Simple solution for those that don't care if someone else picks the songs - Shoutcast Radio, via WinAmp (yeah, you can still get the client, and it still works just fine). Pick a genre, find a station, book mark it, rock out. 1000's of stations, worldwide - all streaming, all the time.

Total cost? Free. Some of the bigger outfits (Big R Radio, for example) will have 2-3 minutes of commercials per hour. Some of the smaller ones don't have any. I'll not pay for the privilege of listening to music I've already bought.