What a shame! I got excited when I saw the status update, but reading it left me totally stumped.
So hundreds of people asked for Roon integration, and after an eternity of silence they disingenuously change the status to ‘planned’, when they just mean they’ll add more ‘Roon-like’ features to Qobuz. How could they possibly imagine that’s what everyone wanted?!
Bizarre. Perhaps they could hire a communications company to help them out. If they couldn’t afford one full time, they could share them with Devialet perhaps.
The thing that has me stumped is that strategically it’s a dumb move. Integrating with Roon would bring new revenue streams whereas popping Roon like features into a Qobuz subscriber app only (possibly) makes you more attractive to existing Qobuz subscribers.
Unless a user’s tastes in music is rather limited it’s unlikely they’ll end up with a single streaming service, and given subscription to multiple streaming services no user in their right mind is going to want to run a different app for each streaming service. Roon is the answer to that problem, but it seems the guys at Qobuz haven’t quite cottoned on to the obvious.
The other thing that’s going to happen is streaming is going to become a complete commodity play where price is the only differentiator (it’s probably already there) …competing effectively is going to be about low cost operations and exclusive content…probably why Apple is keen to acquire Tidal…access to artists and the ability to monopolise their work. The successful streaming service provider of today will probably become the record co. (in what limited form they continue to exist) of tomorrow. The front-end is not where this battle will be won.
Oh dear. I really love Roon but the reliance on Tidal( who may be bought by Apple) makes me nervous. I like the integration of a streaming service but without it I’m afraid I may be tempted back to LMS and Qobuz. With other services not allowing the full implementation of Roon, the future is looking uncertain.
I don’t understand this decision. Inventing things “like Roon” is time consuming and expensive and unlikely to match Roon (which has had a lot of development). Co-operating with Roon by providing information and access is probably less time consuming and expensive (since Roon builds the software system) and is likely to result in something like the very well received Tidal/Roon integration.
When I read the; poorly phrased, response from Qobuz, I got the impression that they don’t really understand what Roon is. I feel they were simply trying to placate customers with the offer of new features. As we all know when you have fundamental problems, new features are always the solution.
For a company that almost went belly up less than a year ago this decision sounds like the last nail in the coffin, I´ve tried to like Qobuz, the quality of the files is pretty good, the search is light years ahead of tidal, and they have some really nice labels and artists, but they just don´t get it.
I feel sorry for them that will spend their already scarce resources developing an software that no one will use.
With 14000 users Roon is a smal niche for qobuz most of us already have qobuz. So why should they bother they have nothing to gain. Dont get me wrong i love Roon and Qobuz but the business for them is simply not there.
I just do not see it like this,
even though there are now only 14000 Roon subscribers, let´s say we are heavy users and most of us willing to spend far more money with music than the average user.
So for their download business the Roon crowd could be a really good source of revenue, if we check the number of audio companies that have made their products Roon ready in the last year gives a good picture of the potential new users.
Even if you were, I think Qobuz were only about 110,000 subscribers to their hifi teir a year or so ago. Assuming it’s still similar, Roon would give them access to about 15% potential additional paid subscribers. That’s not insignificant. I guess they would have to weigh up what percentage of Roon users would use it (as new customers) and revenue against cost of setting it up. It honestly doesn’t feel like they’ve done that though, and I think they’ve really missed the whole point. Or they just have other things to achieve with minimal resources so can’t do both. Whatever it is, it’s hugely disappointing. I posted that original one a year ago…
Wasn’t Spotify a niche for music lovers at one point in its life? Now its grown far larger than that today. For Qobuz, their apps are poor and linking with Roon seems an ideal fit to me. So alot for them to gain.
