Spotify will fail

Some very good points

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Who is this Spotify? …

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Inevitable obsolescence is inevitable.

I think that for a large percentage of the population in the next few years AI will be the main source of entertainment, from movies to music, and quaint “old tech” such as streaming services will be as relevant as DVDs and CDs are today.

“Play music in the style of Aphex Twin”

Done.

For most people this will be good enough, until the next thing comes along.

Possibly the new “stars” of this dystopian shite show will be AI seeders, a contemporary equivalent to a DJ, which have a talent for influencing output that will be popular without any effort from the consumer, and probably eventually most of these seeders will be AI themselves.

Ultimately though just as there are consumers who still buy records or CDs in the streaming age, there will still likely be consumers who want human created art, but they will be a minority.

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I do like the thought of blaming AI for why folk don’t listen to my music or why I never became a superstar though :joy:

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The Spotify algorithm has actually introduced me to a lot of music I never knew about and turned out liking. I hate the interface and what they pay artists (obviously). How come if I have albums downloaded on my device but no connection it takes eons for them to load?

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There will always be a market for Artisan versions of all goods and entertainment.

However some mass-produced items are of a far higher quality than the hand-crafted due to the use of large, expensive, custom-specified machinery that is only possible at scale.

Therefore, a supercomputer level system with access to the historical library of all music styles, melodies and timbres, broken into algorithmic addressable chunks and several billion hours of listener data, may be able to make 10 albums in the style of Selected Ambient Works at that are “better” than Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 was… on the fly.

Doesn’t mean you have to listen to it tho.

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Some horrifying visions of our artistic and cultural future that will probably prove true @darenager and @RustyRoses

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A youtuber made a video, must be true

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I don’t know. Apparently we are supposed to be communicating with each other in the metaverse by now. How’s that working out? If Philip K. Dick were still alive maybe we’d have answers but he’s dead.

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Money is the only true power. Vote with your wallet.

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With reinforcement learning AI will soon produce tunes and stuff that will make us produce so much dopamine when we merely approach it that we’ll die like those rats in skinner boxes that had a button connected to their brain’s pleasure center. Perfect songs.

End of humanity will ensue.

Not sure about Spotify.

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I honestly don’t give a shit if the music played in gyms, stores, advertising etc. is made by an AI. Maybe the people who spend their days making that soulless drivel will then spend their days on something more substantial and meaningful.

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Neil Town Stephenson is still alive, he coined the term Metaverse and described one in Snow Crash, which inspired Second Life to be created.

"Snow Crash" Metaverse Sci-Fi, 30 Years Later — Meridian Treehouse.

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William Gibson is still alive and his latest pair of books is great.

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It probably would help curb our pessimism unless we want to contribute to some self fulling prophecy.

My music is shadow banned everywhere for sure. I mean nobody listens to it so what other options are there really? Think Bobcat from Police Academy.

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I want to some exhibition at the MET here on the Tudors a few weeks ago and it was packed with people many who looked under 30. I doubt most those people would of been at some AI generated art museum if they had the option.

But yea, the Roman Empire eventually fell and the Dutch East India Trading Company, Tidal too, so I guess it’s plausible that Spotify won’t be around forever.

I find it really weird that most of the people in the thread are talking about the threat of AI generated music which Benn Jordan covered in a recent video, but not THIS video.

This is about the business model of hyperscaling startups being generally unsustainable and how the money that comes from streaming platforms doesn’t find it’s way back to artists which is a completely different subject.

I don’t know if Spotify will fail, but in video streaming everything is consolidating to the power being in the hands of the content owners not the platform owners so Spotify don’t seem to be on a very secure foundation compared to someone like Sony.

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Such deeply grievous eschatological thoughts just because of some imperfect online music service?

Oh come on. :sweat_smile: :gun:

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I’m still waiting for VR to become a thing.

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