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Amazon has entered the premium music streaming service fray today with Amazon Music Unlimited. It appears to be for the United States only at the moment.
Amazon has offered music to Prime subscribers for a while, but it's always been more of an add-on. Now, Amazon is getting serious with a much bigger library, curated playlists, and radio stations. This new tier costs $9.99/month, or $7.99 if you already have Prime.
According to Amazon, its regular Prime music service only offered "more than two million songs" which is probably enough that you won't notice the gaps if you're only looking for really popular stuff. However, as anyone who's ever tried to make eclectic playlists has found, it still leaves something to be desired. Services like Spotify, Play Music, and iTunes all have subscriptions with far more songs. With Music Unlimited, Amazon's cranking up the library to the tune of "tens of millions" of songs, so you'll probably have better luck finding something to listen to.
The service also comes with more of the features you'd come to expect from a music subscription. You'll be able to find curated playlists and custom radio stations (similar to Pandora, not the radio in your car) if you want to let someone else find you something to listen to. All of this will be available in the revamped Amazon Music app that's rolling out for iOS, Android, and on the desktop. If you have an Amazon Echo, there will also be a few new voice commands you can use.
The music streaming business is getting crowded, between Apple Music, Google Play Music All Access, Groove Music, Pandora, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tidal, and now Amazon Music Unlimited.
Which music streaming service, if any, do you use?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 16 2016, @01:19AM
Youtube.
It's not perfect, but the sound quality is decent and it's free. Plus, you can listen to anything you want (even weird esoteric shit not found anywhere else, including live bootlegs) without having to create an account. The big trade-off besides the ads is that other services are good for introducing new music while Youtube's recommendations are lackluster and too personally-tailored to enable one to expand their musical horizons.
The only problem with Youtube is that they will inevitably start charging to listen to music. The M.O. of Youtube is to suck people in, then gradually make things shittier until folks have no choice but to pay. When you pay up-front for another service there is less likelihood of those things you enjoy going to shit. Until then, though, you have ultimate control aside from the ads.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 16 2016, @03:58AM
It would be hilarious if YouTube started charging for music in a stupid way that let all of the free YouTube downloaders still download everything. Advertising and region restrictions and age restrictions are already total jokes. People who use YouTube downloaders are not likely to pay anyway, the goal would be to rope in the fatheaded idiots with fat wallets who always pay cuz thems the rules.
You do use a YouTube downloader, don't you?