Tidal $28 million losses, alternative streaming services for Roon?

I tend to agree. (I’m a long time LMS/Squeezebox user as well). I’m mostly interested in my own library, but in order to completely replace LMS for me, Roon will have to provide other services. These include access to multiple streaming services (I’m a Spotify user myself…don’t care about lossless streaming, as I use it mostly for discovery or one-off songs). I’d also like to see better integrated internet radio streaming (beyond ability to just enter an URL, if one can find it…i.e., something like tunein). Ability to stream SiriusXM would be a real plus too (squeezebox lost this last year, but ickStream is trying to restore this ability).

I fully understand the integration and metadata arguments made by Roon and Roon users, but don’t let “the perfect be the enemy of the good”. As a Roon user I’m capable of understanding the options when some services are more integrated than others.

There’s a very interesting debate going on elsewhere about the mismatch between VC-backed Internet business models and news/media businesses. Successful VC-backed Internet businesses are based on network effects (see Google, Facebook, Uber, …). News and media businesses try to pretend they can get on the same network effects gravy train, but in fact they are being slaughtered by the Internet replacing scarcity (hometown newspaper, physical media) by ridiculous abundance where the only winners are the owners of the networks (social, advertising, …) that are used to spread that abundance. I know people who were very connected to the birth of portable digital audio, and they told me that Steve Jobs was very clear that Apple’s dive into music through iTunes was not a business by itself, but a way to sell a new integrated experience (iPods, then iPhones). I can see a beneficiary of network effects using music as another element of network stickiness, and I can see businesses like Roon do well from providing a higher-quality music experience for a relatively small but affluent niche, but both traditional labels and VC-backed streaming services lack the network effects to achieve the kind of breakout success venture investors demand.

I agree streaming services are the future in terms of accessing music content - my kids live on Spotify and Pandora - they use it via Bluetooth sound boxes or via car audio - I use it for family BBQs and parties. This is not where Roon integration plays in the market - for me I love the TIDAL Flac integration and I hope it remains because I have stated elsewhere it is a compelling in terms how I listen to TIDAL. If the integration did not survive I would not subscribe to TIDAL - however Roon would remain for my player for all the data on my server. It is much like using Kodi or XBMC/ Plex for videos - it’s sits alongside Netflix - but I prefer the settings on Kodi for video playback. I do not think that Roon’s existence and growth simply relies upon it being integrated to a streaming service - but I do respect your view as this space is evolving very rapidly.

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To be clear, I personally could live without any streaming service and don’t even subscribe to tidal. For me, all I really care about is streaming my own files to multiple places in my house. I have about 6,000 albums ripped to mostly FLAC, and that plus new purchases provides lots of music.

My key point, agreeing with someone else, was that I’m a dinosaur. And I’m not sure that a company that needs to make a profit can do so with only dinosaurs. LMS is a bit different because it’s now maintained as essentially open-source updated by hobbyists. LOGITECH doesn’t need (or even try) to make a profit from LMS, squeezelite, and DIY squeezeboxes.

Assuming the Roon folks need to make a living, I just think they need to appeal to more than just dinasaurs like me.

EDIT: and there will be so much shakeup and rearrangement of the streaming business that who knows what it will look like in 5 years. Folks should read the history of the early days of the automobile manufacturing business. In the early days there were dozens, even hundreds of manufacturers until things consolidated and settled in.

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More to the point - none of the streaming services even the ones with scale like Spotify make money - they buy geography (revenue) but are burning cash - the streaming business model has not yet proven to be a profitable one for all parties including artists! TIDALs loss by comparison is very small and some may say are in line with expectations - I do not think with these numbers you can state that TIDAL will be out of business- in the context of industry TIDAL is actually doing well -

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I know very little about the streaming industry (music industry for that matter), but usually if everyone in a market segment (substitutable products/services) is losing money then they are protecting market share until an eventual inevitable rationalisation as the weakest run out of financial stamina. That is usually accompanied by discounted prices for the public. The constraint here is piracy; services don’t have the capacity to increase prices without losing customers fairly quickly. Not sure what the fallout is going to look like but the status quo seems unsustainable.

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I don´t know much about TIDAL making losses, however: I know if they continue to reduce their catalog, they will make even more losses… :-/

TIDAL integration is in-deed one of the key features of Roon to me. So, alternative streaming services would be very much appreciated!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/don-t-blame-jay-z-tidal-has-always-been-a-disaster

Which one is not making losses?

I doubt there is an independent streaming service that’s not losing money. Profit goes to the labels:

Due to —as Tren Griffin points out— something called Wholesale Transfer Pricing

Will Spotify ever go lossless?

just noting that Qobuz support was released today.