This week the trend is Spotify (books)

This week the trend is Spotify and its audiobook endeavor. Did you even know that with your Spotify Premium subscription, you can listen to 15 hours of audiobooks? (That's roughly one audiobook per month.)

Now, Spotify is introducing a new subscription tier completely based around audiobooks. For $9.99, you can get access to 200,000 audiobooks (still 15 hours) and free, ad-supported music.

By the way, a normal Premium subscription is still $10.99. It's only a buck more expensive to get ad-free music.

The interesting part to me is that audiobooks are actually a compelling draw. As someone who subscribes to Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, I've been trying to track the appeals to each from a normal consumer's perspective.

Apple Music moved to lossless and Dolby Atmos spatial music. YouTube plays up its videos (obviously). Spotify was chasing podcasts. I'm glad the company pivoted to books instead.

I've hated the mixed formats of music and podcasts in the Spotify app, and even though audiobooks are similar, I at least continually listen to new audiobooks. Having books in Spotify is a legitimate money-saver for me.

I was on the verge of canceling Spotify when I started using YouTube Music, but instead, I canceled Audible. Of course, listening to books in Spotify isn't as good as Audible since I can't download them to my Apple Watch when I go running or play the books at various speeds on my watch either. But it is at least a compelling addition to the service.

Are audiobooks what most Spotify subscribers want? It's hard to imagine a lot of people consuming 15 hours of a book over the same amount of hours listening to music. But it does make sense in the context of Spotify being a media app that you reach for, no matter what you want to listen to.

Those two cover a wide spectrum. It's reasonable to assume people want music that can be communal, in the background, active listening, and so forth, or they want longer-form stories. So, for now, I'm glad books are there for subscribers, but I worry it's another "what about this...?" type of move for Spotify.

Note: A few years ago I wrote about how Pandora lost to Spotify with honest quotes from Pandora's founder, CEO, and CTO if you missed it.

Other things I’m thinking about this week

Not too long ago the rumors were that the next Nintendo console, the Switch sequel, would be out in late 2024. Now, reports suggest no sooner than 2025.

This is crazy. For as much as I don’t care about raw graphics performance and specs of gaming devices, the Switch is now decidedly past its prime. It came out March 3, 2017—7 years ago.

Selfishly, I want another Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and other first-party Nintendo games, but those will be saved for launch titles or subsequent releases for a new system. Console lifespans are longer than ever now, but eight years is about three years too long.

Music

Twenty One Pilots - "Overcompensate"

Green River Ordinance's "Tough Love" is a little more country than some of their previous songs, but still a great tune. By the way, the band's 2012 album Under Firetime is one of my favorites of all time.

Griff - "Miss Me Too"

Movies

Well, Civil War looks both outlandish and completely plausible which makes it the scariest type of movie. It comes out on April 12, 2024.

(As a side note, I considered Enemy of the State one of the most terrifying movies for a long time. It showed the realistic possibilities of technology at the time in an utterly terrifying way.)

TV

I started The New Look and, three episodes in, it’s great. I know nothing about fashion houses so I went in blind to the intertwined story of Chanel and Dior. Regardless of your knowledge of the era or fashion industry, the show is worth starting. Service: Apple TV+

To follow up on last week’s mention of Constellation, I have now finished the show. TL;DR: It's a decent sci-fi show that starts slow and ends much stronger.

The problem with the show, generally speaking, is that it's very back-weighted. Its initial episodes, while important to the story, are more of a slog than I wished they were. There are payoffs and the vagueness isn’t pointless, but the show also assumes that everyone will put up with four to five hours to get to some of the meatier payoffs. In today’s TV landscape, I don’t think that’s a given.

Even as late as episode eight, I wasn’t sure where a second season would go, but that too is largely more visible at the end. I also think with a little more clarity and trimming of the fat, a second season could be much more compelling since the groundwork has been laid.

Misc links

• I keep track of all my music releases using MusicHarbor. It scans your music libraries and then shows when new albums are coming or when they get released. It's indispensable.
• If you use Last.fm the site has a labs section with some neat graphs. (tip: J Herskowitz)