https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28991637
Haven’t read all the comments yet. A programmer shared it with me as if it was big news, so thought I’d share here in case others want to comment and/or share it wider.
(@Hakanto feel free to move this post elsewhere if you want.)
From a first glance, plenty of (to be expected and in some cases legitimate) criticism of the S2O model, lots of expectations of something more 1.0 than where we’re at in terms of UX, and an awful lot of shit hot takes from people who know everything about all things (and especially things they don’t know anything about and are lazy to try to find out more about).
I think it’s an interesting exercise to be confronted to something like the Hackernews crowd because they’re a wildly x1000 subset niche of the general population that kind of gives us a kind of “explosive version” taste of what will happen if go 1.0 too soon and without enough of a backbone both in terms of : user experience, UI, business model, democratic structure and more important than all those things ; how do we advertise and communicate about who we are.
It’s still my opinion that the S2O takes way too much of our identity in terms of selling/convincing people of who we are and why we’re different as opposed to what I feel has been our real aim which is to be a community/artists owned platform regardless of what the business model is.
I’m yet unclear on how to change that, but I know we’re not there yet in terms of how we communicate about the platform.
It makes me think that’s something I should maybe try to tackle myself a little more and come back to this forum with some actual words and catchphrases and concepts and articulated arguments about how I could see us present our work in a light that’s not “we’re going to bring Spotify down with the new genius idea of Stream 2 Own” which no matter how we’re changing our pitch within the closed walls of this community, seems to still be the baseline idea that people hear whenever they first get introduced to Resonate.
Thanks for sharing @peter! This is pretty sweet!
As @LLK mentions, it seems like more commentary about Resonate and ideas around streaming in general, but definitely something worth keeping an eye on as the comments progress since this would be a lot of what Resonate would be faced with as it tries to scale in the (hopefully near) future.
I’d love to direct some of the HN comments to the deeper discussion around S2O going on here…especially here Resonate Listeners Should Be Able To Download The Songs They Own - #34 by Sam_Martyn
I could be wrong but it seems like most people are on board with this view regarding the messaging (my fault for not keeping up with the forum/new website enough).
The S2O model should be an implementation detail if anything. It seems like we are moving towards that, its only mentioned on the pricing page. The about page mentions nothing of it.
Am I wrong, anyone wanna correct me on that ?
Much love to everyone working hard here <3
I have the distinct memory of S20 being at the forefront of the info being shown when I was getting acquainted with Resonate - or at least, being one of the points where my attention was focussed.
I had a look at the landing page (https://resonate.is/) and it’s right there in the description as the first “bullet point”, below the artist on display. The “About” page does hint at a different payment scheme, without mentioning S2O directly.
I think that’s probably how I’d like it worded for the landing page as well, otherwise reading this:
Support the artists you love. What takes other services 200 plays, we do in 9 with stream2own.
…gets me curious about the workings of the thing and takes me straight down the technicalities rabbit hole. As to me Resonate differentiates itself from other platforms on a philosophy standpoint more so than by its technicalities, that doesn’t seem like a good thing. I wouldn’t want to make the info about S2O and more too far out of reach, but I think it’s important the points about what Resonate is trying to achieve (community, coop, etc.) are well-made before people get a look at, or are led to look at how the sausage is made.
Also it completely leaves out the fact that you spend just 10 or 15 bucks and possibly listen to music for 1 to 3 months if your listener behavior is not to have stuff on repeat, so it only puts the emphasis on the fact you’re going to spend 10 euros in 90 listens, and as soon as the brain gets that, it starts to do the math and it’s like “but I listen to 10k songs a month? Wtf I don’t WANT TO spend 10 euros for 90 listens!”.
The problem with the marketting and inner mechanics of S2O is nothing new and I won’t get into it again though but yeah, “the first artist owned cooperative streaming service” is much more what I’m after, whatever business model said platform tries to push. As I said elsewhere currently all my music is free on Resonate and I just want it to be a streaming service to say “fuck Spotify listen and Playlist me here instead and if you like it go spend on Bandcamp”. Hopefully we’ll find a way to have people spend here but if it can already be that it’s a lot.
