Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
No, you miss the point. They don't care WHAT you use as the music source -- they're perfectly happy to stream Pandora or whatever. Same with Video. What they want to own is "the last mile" in a streaming sense. Just as they do for everything else they sell. So they started out with physical books. Then added physical music CDs. Then more and more dedicated stores within the Amazon framework. Then they added third party vendors and gave them the promise of warehousing and a secure selling portal with LOTS of traffic. Then they added vendors who don't use the warehouse, but do use the portal. All the same to them, they make their cut regardless. Now they want to do the same for streaming.
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Well with due respect, I'm not missing the point. Amazon does allow other streaming services, but none are allowed the whole suite of support like Amazon Music is, and none are all that well served by Amazon. Amazon's Alexa support for all the music streaming services I have tried, and that is quite a few, is dismal and just simply sputters on occasions. It is not that reliable nor that feature rich. It actually sucks in my opinion. To get a decent service to work on Alexas is, well, not possible unless you can accept dropped connections, hit and miss lyrics support, or even no lyrics support, etc. I can get much better service for Spotify, SiriusXM, etc. via a tablet, smartphone, or computer than I can through Alexa devices, and definitely better sound. I have no doubt that Amazon would love to dominate the music streaming marketplace, but I just don't see that happening with their current service levels. They need to make a lot of improvements.
As far as Amazon wanting to control the marketplace, well, welcome to capitalism. Capitalism can be a great thing, but it can also be really ugly when there are not enough controls on it. The era of mom and pop stores is long over, it has been replaced by giant businesses who dominate their marketplaces. It isn't just Amazon. Every month when I pay my bills I get angry with utility companies that can charge what they want, angry with cable TV companies who can do the same because they have the exclusive rights to my town, angry at the water/sewer company that also has exclusive rights to my town, angry with a natural gas company that dominates my entire state, angry with my cellular service provider which can charge whatever it wants too, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, Amazon is just one of the many bigger companies that can and do try to dominate their marketplace. It would be a challenge to find a big business like Amazon that doesn't try to dominate its marketplace. I'm just glad that they don't sell our information to the highest bidder like Google does, as far as I know anyway. I long ago accepted the fact that if you want certain services these days, you have to deal with some shady characters, like it or not. I miss the mom and pop shop days, but to be honest, even though I'm 60 years old I barely remember that era as it was already being supplanted by Sears, Montgomery Wards, JC Pennys, etc., who were then supplanted by Walmart, who is now being supplanted by Amazon, and the evolution continues...