Microsoft Shutting Groove Music, Moving Users to Spotify

monkeymagick

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Sad news for the dozens of you out there using Groove Music. Microsoft is shutting down the service soon and will migrate users to Spotify starting December 31. Customers will not be able to purchase songs and albums on the Windows Store. An update is scheduled to roll out next week for Windows Insiders, but users will have until January 31, 2018 to transfer completely from the service.

For the most part, Spotify offers a superset of Groove's music catalog, so except for a few edge cases, there's no reason to believe that moving to Spotify would be a great loss for Groove Music Pass customers. And because Spotify is available on Windows Phone, too, even the few users still left on Microsoft's failed mobile platform won't miss out.
 
iTunes continues to work just fine ;)

Not a fan of Apple, but this is where they shine. Coming out with a service and sticking to it. Unlike MS and Google, who seem to change, rename, discontinue services willy nilly.
 
Shouldn't hate on Spotify. I love it, listening to it right now. To me it's well worth the money. I did the free trial of Tidal lossless, it was just fine. But I didn't like it more than Spotify, and I don't have the audio equipment to make use of lossless, and I can't afford more subscriptions. On my 2.1 Logitech Z323 speakers/SB Audigy FX Spotify sounds great.
 
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You also loose the free 100gb of storage on OneDrive once Groove is shut down
 
I don't consider OneDrive a "thing." No great loss. Others probably will disagree.
 
Shouldn't hate on Spotify. I love it, listening to it right now. To me it's well worth the money. I did the free trial of Tidal lossless, it was just fine. But I didn't like it more than Spotify, and I don't have the audio equipment to make use of lossless, and I can't afford more subscriptions. On my 2.1 Logitech Z323 speakers/SB Audigy FX Spotify sounds great.

For free users Spotify is fine as long as you stay away from the mobile phone app. They have intentionally gimped it to make it completely useless in hopes of forcing people to go premium. Having random playback and ads is fine in my book but what is not fine is when you want to listen to music from specific artist it injects music from something else ("suggested artists") and there is no way to return to the original artist/playlist until it has stopped playing those said "suggested artists" that are often completely wrong genre even if it seems similar on the outside. Big problem for us metalheads who hates -Core (metalcore, deathcore etc...) stuff with passion. I've even heard about classical music fans having pop songs injected in their listening session though Spotify may have smartened the "feature" since then. Spotify on desktop and tablet is great but phone version is simply a disaster.

I could also go for premium which makes all problems go away but as a poor part-time worker there are only so many monthly subscriptions I can handle.
 
Spotify Premium, family plan, is all I can handle, financially. But it is well worth it. I know the bandwidth wasn't there in 1999, and that's why Napster took off. But now I don't have any reason to pirate music.
 
I don't consider OneDrive a "thing." No great loss. Others probably will disagree.

Onedrive is always the first thing I disable. I don't want unnecessary background processes let alone ones that generate background net traffic.
 
Google Music, same music library size as iTunes and includes YouTubeRed.
 
You also loose the free 100gb of storage on OneDrive once Groove is shut down
Youll lose it anyway once OneDrive is shut down.

I guess people didn't learn their lesson with MSN Music in 2005/2006 when that closed,

Didn't learn their lesson when PlaysForSure was shuttered and everyone lost access to DRM-laden, paid-for videos,

Didn't learn their lesson with GFWL game purchases that went poof,

Didn't learn their lesson with the OneDrive bait and switch where storage was cut down to 5GB,

And didn't learn their lesson when making purchases in the windows 8/8.1 store when it was abandoned and apps didn't carry forward.
 
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Should have stuck with Zune, which is still the back end you know. I look around recently and still found Zune mentioned in the error messages. I tested G music for free and got in on the low rate, then I decided to get a family plan for the same price is my old Zune subscription and give it to some friends.

I would still happily pay the 14.99 a month with unlimited play with 10 music credits a month if they hadn't snatched it from me. My Zune HD also is the only HD radio player I have and I like having a dedicated music player.

Anywho
"Ha ha!"
 
Youll lose it anyway once OneDrive is shut down.

Yeah. That's a stupid notion. One drive is part of their core business with office 365 and azure at this point. They'll rename it 50 more times perhaps, but it'll go away when MS goes out of business as we know it. Or clouds storage generally stops being a thing.
 
Why bother with spotify? Do Google Play and get Youtube Red! I pay for the family plan so my whole family gets streaming music and ad-free Youtube (with downloads for the kids to watch!).

I love that if I want an obscure song that isn't on google play/spotify I can get it from youtube and stream only audio!
 
Why bother with spotify? Do Google Play and get Youtube Red! I pay for the family plan so my whole family gets streaming music and ad-free Youtube (with downloads for the kids to watch!).

I love that if I want an obscure song that isn't on google play/spotify I can get it from youtube and stream only audio!

Another not well known feature, if you have music not on the streaming service, you can upload it to your account and stream it just like it was already on there.
 
Another not well known feature, if you have music not on the streaming service, you can upload it to your account and stream it just like it was already on there.

Yep it works well - Google Music streams my entire catalog of ripped CD's to all my devices. I was kinda meh on it before discovering that feature; now I find myself resorting to Spotify less and less.
 
For free users Spotify is fine as long as you stay away from the mobile phone app. They have intentionally gimped it to make it completely useless in hopes of forcing people to go premium. Having random playback and ads is fine in my book but what is not fine is when you want to listen to music from specific artist it injects music from something else ("suggested artists") and there is no way to return to the original artist/playlist until it has stopped playing those said "suggested artists" that are often completely wrong genre even if it seems similar on the outside. Big problem for us metalheads who hates -Core (metalcore, deathcore etc...) stuff with passion. I've even heard about classical music fans having pop songs injected in their listening session though Spotify may have smartened the "feature" since then. Spotify on desktop and tablet is great but phone version is simply a disaster.

I could also go for premium which makes all problems go away but as a poor part-time worker there are only so many monthly subscriptions I can handle.
As a fellow punk rocker who had to support the metal heads growing up because we shared a venue. PM me your email address I'll add you to my spotify premium if you want.

Always good to meet another alternative music listener, and I have an extra slot.
 
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For free users Spotify is fine as long as you stay away from the mobile phone app. They have intentionally gimped it to make it completely useless in hopes of forcing people to go premium.

Plot twist: Someone at XDA intentionally gimped the free mobile app to make it premium.

Unsubstantiated rumor ofcourse.
 
How dumb is that. Another reason to never trust Microsoft.

fuck this. No way I move to Spotify. My shit is up for renewal. Canceled.

Why would you invest your time and money into any of their services if this is what happened? Their other services are already in the same outgunned position. lol.



Look, people: Why were you investing in Microsoft services in the first place? Do you not remember GFWL - which Microsoft shut-down without warning, shutting tons of people out of their games, without any patches to unlock them, without any recourse whatsoever to still play their games purchased through Microsoft's service? With that action, Microsoft proved itself a non-dependable, non-trustworthy company.

And look at what Microsoft did to force Windows 10 onto people's PCs, and what Microsoft has done to Windows 7 to make it more difficult for people to use. These things also exemplify a total disregard from Microsoft for their customers.

And do you not remember what Microsoft did with OneDrive free storage space: They unilaterally reduced it for existing users with some BS excuse, though they did send out emails that let people keep their higher storage capacities if they responded to those emails within a short amount of time.

And don't forget Microsoft volunteered Windows user data to the NSA. Volunteered. And that Microsoft has been caught snooping in people's Microsoft email accounts. Also, Microsoft has constantly make PR-speak about how they're perpetually 'now' going to be supporting PC gaming in a big way over the past decade, and never followed through on any of it.


Do you think these are isolated incidents? No, they are all the same attitude and will towards customers being expressed through different Microsoft avenues - like branches of a river, they're all carrying the same water.

Microsoft as a company demonstrates all the characteristic of a psychopath, which is probably because its management, execs, and share-holders are themselves psychopaths.


Look: I do feel empathy for people who are screwed by this, because it's happened to me and I know how much it can suck. But at the same time, many people have been apologist for Microsoft every step of the way, and criticized the people who called out these behaviours from Microsoft. So, I think that for many people, they've really done this to themselves by denying that a spade is a spade every step of the way.

If you care about being able to access the stuff you spend your money on in the future, you don't go with Microsoft. Microsoft is where you go if posterity for access isn't a concern or consideration of yours, and if you don't care that you're supporting a thug company. My view is that Microsoft services (including Windows / Microsoft Store) are where people not 'in the know' spend their money, and only because they're not 'in the know'.
 
This is a pretty huge indication of Microsoft's plan for Windows 10 backfiring.

The whole reason behind their massive strongarm push behind moving people to Windows 10 was so that between the Microsoft store, groove music and other included non-removable services they'd shift their income from the selling of operating systems to the selling of freemium services, like Apple with the iTunes store and the cloud.

If they are shutting this down, it's the first sing that users won't take it, and that massive antagonistic push was for naught.

I hope they give up on the following next:
- Forced Cortana
- Forced Xbox integration apps
- Forced OneDrive app
- Microsoft cloud accounts instead of local system accounts
- The Microsoft Store
- Limiting many features to those who give in and use online Microsoft accounts instead of local accounts only
- Using users computers to distribute updates
- Forced telemetry
...and many more I am likely forgetting right now.
 
Groove is a great example of MS and their lack of focus, and lack of being grounded in reality. I use groove, the music player, because it intgrates well with onedrive and I have been too busy to look for an alternative, but its a very lacking music player. The android notification bar doesn't even have a go back button...... Songs get stuck in a playlist. You cant even properly manage a playlist from android. You cant do simple things like add to queue or play next.

What MS doesn't get is that it doesn't matter if your idea is good or bad it matters how well you implement it. And MS has problems implementing stuff. It takes them a while to get things good.

Youll lose it anyway once OneDrive is shut down.

I guess people didn't learn their lesson with MSN Music in 2005/2006 when that closed,

Didn't learn their lesson when PlaysForSure was shuttered and everyone lost access to DRM-laden, paid-for videos,

Didn't learn their lesson with GFWL game purchases that went poof,

Didn't learn their lesson with the OneDrive bait and switch where storage was cut down to 5GB,

And didn't learn their lesson when making purchases in the windows 8/8.1 store when it was abandoned and apps didn't carry forward.

I get what you are saying but TBH MS makes some pretty good products that have lasted a long time. And second many of the most popular services in the world will get shutdown or changed, because now days almost every company does this, they try and make a product work by giving it away free or too cheap then try to force you up, if they cant force you up in price they close it down. A few companies survive such as netflix, others perish but they all change, I canned my Netflix subscription because their library became so anemic and it became all about exclusive content. But MS is not going to perish so they get a bigger bad rep from it. I invested in many Music streaming services that closed down like grooveshark. Its just what you end up doing. Onedrive is still the best integrated storage and its features and price are unmatched if you are using it with office 365. And for all those features 5GB is still enough for a huge part of the population. Basically my point is you like to rag on bait and switch but bait and switch is the core business model for massive tech companies almost universally in the United states. So good luck finding options that are not bait and switch. If you are getting anything for free, or very cheap it is a bait and switch that I can promise you.

I think perhaps the bigger issue MS has is that they do not continue to keep up with certain ideas. They have made 3+ attempts at music services had they just stuck with the first one maybe it would be a hit now. MS as a company needs to accept that they really aren't very good at first product releases but they get better with time. Everytime something doesn't work they don't need to go in and change it a million ways they need to just keep improving the features and functionality. MS is NOT a sexy company, they a utilitarian company. Make ti work, you aren't apple. And your user base will steadily grow, just like onenote, office, etc....
 
This is a pretty huge indication of Microsoft's plan for Windows 10 backfiring.

The whole reason behind their massive strongarm push behind moving people to Windows 10 was so that between the Microsoft store, groove music and other included non-removable services they'd shift their income from the selling of operating systems to the selling of freemium services, like Apple with the iTunes store and the cloud.

If they are shutting this down, it's the first sing that users won't take it, and that massive antagonistic push was for naught.

I hope they give up on the following next:
- Forced Cortana
- Forced Xbox integration apps
- Forced OneDrive app
- Microsoft cloud accounts instead of local system accounts
- The Microsoft Store
- Limiting many features to those who give in and use online Microsoft accounts instead of local accounts only
- Using users computers to distribute updates
- Forced telemetry
...and many more I am likely forgetting right now.

I'm pretty sure they'll do the opposite and push the spyware even to the other existing OS versions as a final move of despiration. They want to monetize their billion users and become ad financed like Google. Too bad bing doesn't work and people hate ads inside their OS.
 
Another reason not to trust cloud services or subscription services that go belly up. Good, one less useless app in Win10. Of course they will replace it with some other useless app.
 
maybe they should have renamed it to something, microsoft is good at that. a music app/sub? what about mixr? oh wait.......

they give up on so many things.
 
As a fellow punk rocker who had to support the metal heads growing up because we shared a venue. PM me your email address I'll add you to my spotify premium if you want.

Always good to meet another alternative music listener, and I have an extra slot.


I really thank you for the kind offer, I will consider it though at this moment I have to say no. I'm a proud person who hates the idea of riding on someones wing plus I am very suspicious person when it comes to these situations. It's what has kept me alive in the internet. :) But if I change my mind I'll PM you.


Plot twist: Someone at XDA intentionally gimped the free mobile app to make it premium.

Unsubstantiated rumor ofcourse.


I have heard of such rumors but didn't think of them true. ;) Actually I am aware of such modded apps but the whole idea screams me about accounts getting banned at some point in future. A safer way is to spoof my phone into tablet (no grey area stuff here) which I have previously done and it immidietly makes Spotify play nice, but it requires rooting and that causes issues with banking apps that I currently use. I know there are ways to hide the root but they are not reliable as apps get updated and I am getting too old for this cat and mouse shit. My current phone (Moto G5) is my first android phone that I have no intention on getting rooted.
 
Yep it works well - Google Music streams my entire catalog of ripped CD's to all my devices. I was kinda meh on it before discovering that feature; now I find myself resorting to Spotify less and less.

You don't have to pay for this feature. They give away 20000 songs streaming for free.

I guess they assume I'll buy something from them at some point?
 
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