[bradleybuda]

The UX for this is very awkward (unless I'm missing something) - the "store" and the "player" are completely disjoint experiences with only a few marketing links between them. You can't actually add new (free) "Prime Music" to your collection from the player - you have to jump to the "store" to discover the music you want and add it to your cloud library. Nor can you play full songs from the "store", even if you have Prime and they are free - you are limited to 30 second samples.

The amazing thing about Rdio and Spotify, and what makes streaming services different than their MP3 purchasing predecessors, is that you can think "I want to listen to Kanye", type "Kanye" in to the search bar, press enter and listen. Amazon is making this whole process very awkward by adding a "buy" step (even if no money is changing hands).

The reason that Spotify is disruptive isn't that the music is paid for via subscription pricing - it's that it eliminates the distinction between "music I own" and "all of the music ever recorded".

[SilkRoadie]

It is no better than their Amazon Instant Video. Their video offering is pretty terrible. Takes ages to move between menus. You cannot just continue from where you were previously. It doesn't skip the credits and offer the next episode. The whole thing is painful to use compared to Netflix.

Another example. Yesterday I was looking for a TV show I was watching. I went into "Your TV Shows" and it wasn't there. It had been pushed out by other shows I watched. Instead it appeared in "Recently Watched." It is so unintuitive.

I have a prime account. I wouldn't mind cancelling Netflix and Spotify but can't while the user experience offered by Amazon is so horrible.

[cwyers]

Amazon's UX on Prime Instant on the PC is so terrible, their discoverability on ANY platform is awful, and they have restricted HD streaming of Prime content (i.e., stuff you don't have to buy) to non-PC platforms only. And I've had far more problems with buffering on Prime Instant on Xbox 360 than I have ever had with Netflix, despite watching roughly five times as much content on Netflix. It's ridiculous.

Their music offering looks like more of the same. Lower selection, poor discoverability, a second-class UI on PC. I really wish Amazon would stop re-purposing their storefront UI for every product they can, and actually design a decent UI for their various products.

[ConceptJunkie]

We access Amazon Prime Video through the Roku, and I can't believe it's any better than on the PC because it's awful.

While I like their site for shopping, etc., their content delivery UIs leave much to be desired.

[dominotw]

> You cannot just continue from where you were previously. Wrong. There is a resume button.

[TetOn]

Exactly. And, if you don't already have the Cloud Player application on your computer, you're shown nothing and told to sign up online. No link, no further explanation.

Okay, except you can't actually sign up online. Searching through Amazon and Google, you may eventually discover you need to download another application, which of course requires you to enter separate credit card information from that Amazon already has on file for your Prime membership, download a downloader, then use that to download the music application, which may finally allow you to sign up to use the service for which you are supposed to be already paying for (e.g. Prime).

I'd say that fairly well qualifies as the worst possible "new" user experience. I mean that quite literally; it appears to have been optimized at each and every step to be as bad as is possible given current limitations. Well played, Amazon; I expect total music dominance within the quarter.

[ctdonath]

What's scaring me is the ease of polluting my library: sure I want to listen to lots of free* music, but I also want to not dilute my paid-for collection of Good Stuff™ with Cheap Crap™ in the process. Same problem exists with e-books: good & paid content gets lost amid the briefly attractive titles downloaded by the hundreds (thousands?). Physical media at least forces you to address limited storage space by chucking/relocating the cruft.

(* - yes, it's $99/yr)