Amazon Music Ending Support For Uploaded Files

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by sunspot42, Dec 20, 2017.

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  1. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Wasn't sure whether to post this in the Hardware or Music forum, but Amazon Music as we know it is coming to an end - they're ending their support for uploading massive MP3 libraries.

    As a subscriber I kind of wondered if something was up - they eliminated their app for managing your library and uploading files awhile back and switch to some browser-based thing that wasn't so hot. They've also been pushing their Amazon Music Unlimited scheme hard, which opens up access to everything in their library but doesn't support uploading yours.

    This is really unfortunate, as Amazon was allowing you to upload much larger libraries than either iTunes Match or Google, and the price was good (especially for existing Amazon Prime customers). It sounds like existing customers will be able to continue using the service until January of 2019, or another full year.

    Amazon Music to end support for streaming your uploaded MP3s

    I'd kinda given up on it to be honest once they killed their PC app and made it almost impossible to effectively manage and expand and sync my library, and moved on to streaming from my own home server (a laptop) using Subsonic. That was also driven in part by their buggy iPhone app, and by the fact that some tracks which Amazon once made available for free to Prime subscribers disappeared once their Unlimited service fired up.

    Frankly, I think this is a mistake. With their huge AWS backend they were in the best position of any of the majors (Apple, Google, Amazon) to support the upload, management and streaming of large personal libraries, and it would have been a unique feature to lure customers away from the more limited libraries supported by Apple and Google. I also stream my stuff to my Amazon Echo - if my library goes away, the utility of the Echo goes away, too.

    If Microsoft ever gets its act together with Cortana and has it better-integrated with apps running on Windows, I might just switch over to using that to play music - and other tasks - as well. Anybody in Redmond paying attention?
     
  2. dachada

    dachada Senior Member

    Location:
    FL
    I think economical streaming is going to end with the new laws approved by the FCC
     
    showtaper and ribonucleic like this.
  3. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Maybe, but that seems unlikely. A lot of major players - Apple, Amazon and Google in particular - want streaming to be as cheap as possible. They could certainly move to provide the bandwidth themselves - in fact, Google has already made inroads into doing exactly that. I think unwary consumers are going to be subject to a ton of new fees and plans, though.
     
  4. I can’t imagine ever uploading my music to anyone. Amazon, Apple etc. why bother?
     
  5. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Because then you can access it from everywhere you have an internet connection, without a server at home and without hauling it around on some device with a huge drive.
     
  6. Jking3002

    Jking3002 Forum Resident

    Say it ain’t so?! Companies that offer subscription based streaming services pushing users towards those services...

    PS how long until there are commercials even on paid streaming plans unless you pay even more for the commercial free streaming option?
     
    showtaper, Tullman, Scopitone and 2 others like this.
  7. bluesbro

    bluesbro Forum Hall of Shame

    Location:
    DC
    And that’s why I keep my CDs
     
  8. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    What does uploading your music to a server have to do with "keeping your CDs"?

    It's not like the CD's evaporate if you rip 'em and upload 'em to a server.

    You might as well say, "And that's why I keep my 8-tracks."

    Or "my Edison cylinders."

    :biglaugh:
     
    andy749, shaboo, Projectman and 8 others like this.
  9. Jking3002

    Jking3002 Forum Resident

    Of course you can keep your backups but many people don’t once they rip. @bluesbro was pointing out that he likes to keep his backups for these types of reasons...
     
    wilejoe, FashionBoy and bluesbro like this.
  10. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    You'd have to have a local copy in order to upload the tracks.

    Also, the service isn't going away for subscribers. If for some reason you had stupidly deleted all of your local rips, and had no other backup, you'd have over a year to re-download everything from Amazon.

    Unlike, say, someone who hadn't ripped their library and hadn't backed those rips up offsite and subsequently had their house burn down. All of their CDs would be ash and they'd have nothing.
     
  11. jeffmackwood

    jeffmackwood Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ottawa
    A "server" can be bought for less than $200 and connected to your router allowing you to access music, movies and photos stored on it anywhere you have an internet connection and without hauling a device around with huge storage capacity. Maybe that's not chump change for a lot of people, but once you start storing a lot files, is there not a point where the cost of cloud storage to do so becomes significant as well? One can also create visitor accounts for family members so that they can access those files.

    Jeff
     
  12. jeffmackwood

    jeffmackwood Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ottawa
    Great point. It's why, as well as having four up-to-date copies of all my ripped music (which is now pretty much all of my music), I also keep one other copy (of everything: documents, music, home movies, photos, etc.) stored elsewhere in case of catastrophic loss. It means retrieving and updating that off-site hard drive regularly (it gets swapped with another off-site, before coming into the house, so that all of the hard drives are never in the same place at the same time). Call me overly cautious, but I prefer it to the alternative.

    Jeff
     
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  13. uofmtiger

    uofmtiger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Memphis, TN
    I will miss this feature. I use it with the Echos I have around the house. In January 2019, I will be limited to the stuff they have available. I have no plans on subscribing to Amazon Music.

    I have music on a server, but it doesn’t work directly with the Dot. Hopefully, someone creates a skill between now and then.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  14. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I'm also hoping someone creates a skill that works with the Amazon Echo and Subsonic in the next year. Or, like I said, that Microsoft gets it together with Cortana - if I could give voice commands to MediaMonkey, I'd just use my laptop to control playback and skip the Echo entirely.
     
  15. I guess I’m fortunate enough to have music (mostly cds ) that i have purchased from Amazon since 1998 up on my Amazon Music app. Even albums I no longer own or I gave as gifts are there, so I have thousands of albums I can play anywhere .
     
    drgn95 likes this.
  16. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Yeah, but I've gotta tell you - I've found these devices to all be a pain in the butt to setup and maintain, and anybody who isn't super computer literate or who doesn't have the time to deal with it or the aggravation it can cause would find a product like Amazon's far more appealing. It was much easier to get up and running with Amazon Music (at least back when they had the app) than it was with Subsonic. I also wasn't dependent on my home's internet connection once the upload/matching process was done. My ISP was garbage, so streaming media from home didn't work very well (I've since switched ISPs, thank the maker).
     
    Bob_in_OKC likes this.
  17. uofmtiger

    uofmtiger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Memphis, TN
    Echo can control J River and Plex, but I often use it in the kitchen and bath, so that feature isn’t ideal for a lot of situations. I might as well just use Siri on iPhone with AirPlay/Bluetooth if I need to get that involved.

    I would rather have a skill that can access Plex and play it back from the Echo.
     
  18. HiFi Guy

    HiFi Guy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lakeland, FL
    And that's why I keep my vinyl.

    That and I enjoy it more.
     
  19. bluemooze

    bluemooze Senior Member

    Location:
    Frenchtown NJ USA
    Or, you could just play your CDs and records. Seems like a lot of effort for little/no benefit.
     
  20. TheRoaringSlience

    TheRoaringSlience Member

    Location:
    Munich
    Music files don't sell anymore.
     
  21. vinylontubes

    vinylontubes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Katy, TX
    Unlimited data plans on mobile phones.
     
  22. jeddy

    jeddy Forum Resident

    Why upload your music to Amazon?
    for the sake of accessing it anywhere?

    how much do you need access to? Seriously?

    Could you ever get " locked out" of your account?
    Maybe for some weird reason...who knows...
    Why give Amazon that power over your stuff?

    Isn't it bad enough that companies want us to "live our lives" online?
    Why clog up servers?

    Boo hoo!
     
    stax o' wax, daglesj, dee and 3 others like this.
  23. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    That's what I would do if I were really invested in having everything available to me everywhere. As it is, I keep about 80 albums on my tablet and have that with me everywhere. I mean, for a 53-year old guy who can well remember "portable music"meaning a bag full of cassette tapes, this is just astonishing portability and convenience.

    But I do sympathize with the Amazon music users, I know it sucks to be really invested in some technology and then they start stripping it away piecemeal.
     
    dee and mds like this.
  24. Budley

    Budley Forum Resident

    Location:
    TX, USA
    Maybe this would be an option to those asking for an Alexa Skill with onsite storage? (Requires a subscription fee, though) - My Media for Amazon Alexa

    JRiver has an Alexa Skill called "House Band", but it won't play the music through the Echo device without a Bluetooth hookup from server.

    Also, Home - My Pod will stream music through an Echo device, but it uses URLs for media request. Appears to be compatible with Google Drive and a couple of other online file storage services if you still want to stay in the Cloud.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2017
    John Porcellino and sunspot42 like this.
  25. ribonucleic

    ribonucleic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SLC UT
    A 256GB phone loaded up with V0 files contains, by my calculations, enough music to play for 4 months, round the clock.

    Personally, that would last me until I got home.
     
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