[pdshrader]

I agree that comprehensive catalogues matter more for music, but I think we're missing another area where Netflix and Spotify are similar (and where Spotify may arguably be better than Netflix): acting as a recommendation engine.

Netflix has been able to track exactly what types of movies consumers are into so that it can deliver more in the same vein. Originally, it would send consumers to other movies it licensed. Now, as a producer, it can direct consumers towards its own flow of productions.

Spotify's recommendation engine has long been a draw for many users. I believe Spotify is setting itself up to be able to increasingly direct users into its own Spotify-flow of artists and musicians. The recent change to playlist mechanics (so that playlists autoplay "recommended similar songs" once completed) will make this even easier.

Having a huge catalog is important, but controlling the flow of what's popular may trump the back catalog in the long run.

edit: Spotify is not as far along in the process as Netflix, obviously, and the entrenched nature of the music business doesn't help, especially with the market practice of locking artists into 7-year exclusive contracts. I believe it will go in the same direction - it's just going to take a little longer.

[lambda_lover]

Spotify's recommendations used to be very good for me, but Discover Weekly has gotten dramatically worse in the past few months. I'm lucky to find one good new song in there these days, whereas I used to love the entire playlist.

Netflix's "recommendations" have been pretty terrible from day 1 -- it's mostly random garbage, and suffers from serious issues like grouping sci-fi with horror (seriously? Star Trek TNG belongs in the same category as Hellraiser?) -- and since they started producing their own content their recommendations have quickly become thinly-veiled attempts to push their own mostly-poor content. Add in their horrible UI, replete with autoplaying previews as you browse tiles paired with obnoxious stock music, and Netflix has become something painful to use. I've been moving back to renting/pirating depending on availability and price this year because Netflix doesn't have anything worth watching that I haven't already seen.

[rainbowmverse]

So I'm not the only one with that problem! All Spotify recommends to me these days are covers, most of them video game style themes. I like chiptunes and Minecraft parodies as much as anyone, but not to the exclusion of all else. I don't know what they changed to cause this, but I haven't opened Spotify in a month.

Now I open Bandcamp first when I want music.