Amazon Music Ending Support For Uploaded Files

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

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  1. chacha

    chacha Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    mill valley CA USA
    There’s been a relief fund established to help make this an attainable reality.
     
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  2. jeffmackwood

    jeffmackwood Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ottawa
    Good points.

    I have unlimited download and upload with my ISP at home. So that end's covered.

    And with unlimited free wifi available pretty much everywhere nowadays (well, except on commercial aircraft and similar places where you are treated like sheep and fleeced ad nauseam - but I digress...) it's never been an issue for me, in practice, when I've been traveling. So that end's pretty much covered as well.

    But just in case, I also carry an iPod Touch with my most-favourite 500 songs loaded onto it, and a USB stick with 6,000 of my almost-most-favourite songs on it (good for in-car use etc.), just in case I absolutely can't get access to the other 165,000 other songs in my collection. Enough to get between wifi hot spots! :)

    Jeff
     
  3. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Does anyone know you can put your own music files on an Amazon Fire Tablet?
     
  4. Splungeworthy

    Splungeworthy Forum Rezidentura

    Your point about ubiquitous free wifi is important in this discussion, and is obviously the workaround for data issues. I have unfortunately found that many of the wifi hotspots in my area (Optimum) are pretty slow and spotty.
     
  5. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    I uploaded around 65GB of my music collection to Google a couple of years ago.

    I have to say I haven't ever used it. I can pop a 128GB SD card in my phone and have it all with me anyway.

    I may well delete it as it take up Google Drive space.
     
    Shak Cohen likes this.
  6. jeffmackwood

    jeffmackwood Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ottawa
    Here in Ottawa, every city-owned property must provide free wi-fi. So sports complexes, libraries, etc. all have very good wi-fi. On top of that you've got college and university campuses, which have guest log-in, a billion coffee shops and restos, etc. etc. Heck walk into the lobby of any hotel and you're set. But that's all local to me.

    When I travel, probably 90%+ of the time that I want to access my home server is when I'm at my hotel or resort. I don't think I've been anywhere in the last ten years where my hotel wi-fi has ever been a problem.

    Jeff
     
  7. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I've got enough LTE bandwidth and monthly capacity that streaming a little music over it isn't a huge issue even when I don't have good wifi. When I was a Comcraps subscriber I could access their wifi around town, which helped a bit too.
     
  8. opieandy

    opieandy MusicIsLife

    Location:
    Kennesaw, GA
    It is always funny to see people say things like "why would anyone ever want to do [insert your favorite phrase here, such as "upload music to the cloud"]. People live in their own little world and can't understand there are different ways of doing things.

    I have around 10 devices in my house that stream music from the Amazon Music cloud. That has revolutionized my life. Instead of mostly listening to music in my car, now I mostly listen to music in my home. Everywhere in my home. Amazon's cloud made this possible.

    Some here have written about the demise of the desktop app, but I haven't seen that demise. I've been using it heavily today and in recent days. One article (Amazon Music to end support for streaming your uploaded MP3s ) cited in this thread: "Here, the company explains that as of Monday, December 18, 2017, the ability to upload music will be removed from the Amazon Music desktop app." I can tell you that is categorically untrue. I'm uploading songs today and have uploaded probably 200 songs since December 18.

    Amazon has given me tremendous value since I started buying from it in 2000. Fantastic customer service. However, if they don't provide a fairly seamless solution to the loss of their music storage service, I will be fighting for refunds on most of my Echo devices. I know it's an uphill battle but Amazon throws money at me every time I complain and has given me many significant refunds that have blown my mind. Just an above-an-beyond level of service that has earned my loyalty.

    I suspect there will be a reasonable solution but I haven't even begun to investigate other options to store my music that will work with Echo devices. Amazon doesn't play with Google so that won't be a solution. Maybe they will continue to take my $25/year for storage and just not provide support or app enhancements. That would be fine with me.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  9. opieandy

    opieandy MusicIsLife

    Location:
    Kennesaw, GA
    Well hello, this Amazon page makes it pretty crystal clear that the cloud subscription will continue to be supported for $25/year, as I suspected: Amazon.com Help: About Amazon Music Subscriptions

    No NEW subscriptions will be accepted. But you can continue to use and renew your existing subscription. Where did the disinformation come from?
     
  10. Scopitone

    Scopitone Caught the last train for the coast

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    I am not paying the subscription and thus have been able to do 250 songs. I have space for about 35 more, and I forgot about the change as I tried to upload some songs yesterday.

    That feature is now blocked in the desktop software for me. It says the feature has been discontinued.
     
  11. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Rats. I must have missed this announcement, or misunderstood it originally. I would LOVE the ability to store up to 250K of my files for $25/year. But looks like I'm about 6 weeks too late :( I'm a Prime member, and think I've used the Amazon desktop app before, but it doesn't appear I've ever uploaded anything, as part of the 250 song free tier. And I don't see any way to "convert" my account to the paid tier.

    As of a few days ago, I started using AWS Glacier to basically do this exact same thing. Not with the intent of streaming from the uploads, rather using it as an archival back up service. Glacier is a much more "developer focused" tool, and it looks like my costs will be about $36/year. I'm not that bummed about the cost delta, I just think this (now discontinued) service is more user friendly.

    But I suppose you were always at the mercy of Amazon discontinuing the service, whereas AWS Glacier is not going anywhere.

    Do you see any method where a free subscription customer can upgrade to the paid tier?
     
  12. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    Be advised that this is part of a general Amazon move away from customer interactivity. They are ending forums and restricting comments on item reviews as well as commentor functionality. In addition Amazon arbitrarily moves reviews to various product whether or not the commentor intended it to apply there.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  13. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Micro SD card
     
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  14. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    The best option IMO is to get a (good quality) Micro SD card, which you can use with many phones and tablets (basically non-Apple). You can get them in 32, 64, 128 or even 256gb capacity. Even 32gb will store about 3000 Mp3s in 320kbps quality.

    When your device dies, or you want to upgrade, simply take the card out and place it in a new compatible one. Also, there are USB adaptors that allow you to connect it to a computer or hundreds of other modern devices:righton:
     
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  15. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    It's sort of refreshing to read or hear about all those continuous struggles with hardware, software and services, that is ripping, tagging, searching, matching, scanning, connecting, downloading, uploading, installing, copying, synchronizing, merging, converting, upgrading, migrating, etc

    So glad I need to cope with my antiquated physical collection only... :D
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2018
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  16. Doug_B

    Doug_B Time Traveler

    Location:
    New Jersey
    ^^Flexibility and complexity often go hand-in-hand.

    Doug
     
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  17. rxonmymind

    rxonmymind Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento
    True. There has ALWAYS been a price for independence. All this garbage of "free" is just that. B.S. What did our parents tell us. Nothing is free. Rant over. If it was me with serious music files I'd rip them to a 1 TB thumb drive that goes for $700. A 2TB is $1300. I'd gladly take those two options than rely on "anyone". Look what happened to all those "free" online photo storage. Boom, next week they wanted $300 with no guarantee they would be there next year. Be independent.
    Keychain not included: The five largest flash drives to handle all your digital life
     
  18. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Not sure if serious? That would be a major headache if you accidentally left that $1700 2TB USB drive on an airplane.

    The purpose of these cloud backups is to provide an additional layer of low cost redundancy to your most important files.
     
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  19. rxonmymind

    rxonmymind Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento
    I'm serious. I don't loose my earphones nor will I a usb drive attached to a keychain to my phone.
    "your most important files".....
    You rely on someone else to take care of this? I understand the portability & access thing but not my most cherished or most important files. Don't get my wrong I'm not against it as I've bought a few music on Google and Amazon which they have. Maybe ten on each companies server. I'm just weary of any "free" service that eventually be sourced out to third party to manage it this hijacking your hard work and important songs/items. I use a 512 mb SD card for most songs on my phone as I don't have a lot of songs.
    Not to derail the thread but ANYTHING stored in the cloud is searchable without a warrant by our government without you knowing or having to be told they are. So if your a major corporation playing on the big stage I'd consider being independent. Not rely on IBM, Google etc. With all this hacking cloud storage is suspect.
     
  20. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Yes, I'd rely on AWS or similar vs. trusting a USB not to break, get dropped, stolen, misplaced. If the US government relies on AWS (etc.) to store "important files", why wouldn't I?

    Also, even if the government has a warrant to your records stored by a cloud provider, they cannot get/access the encryption keys (which only you would have) to the data. This is a fact. So Google hands over a hard drive full of your stuff to the Feds. You've encrypted it with AES 256, which means no one is getting the contents, except you.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  21. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Who would be stupid enough to only store their data in the cloud. I have local copies of everything. The cloud is for backup, and for easy anywhere access when I'm away from home. But if something goes wonky with my stuff out on Amazon it's an inconvenience, not a disaster. The originals are safe at home.
     
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  22. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Pretty much this. Although large enterprises often use only the cloud, using either multiple providers and/or geographic regions for redundancy. Your bank balance/401(k) i.e. your "money" is probably stored in a cloud service.
     
  23. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    middle.
     
  24. JamieLang

    JamieLang Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    Without much effort I convinced their "service" I owned CDs I did not....down come the completely DRM free, albeit ****ty sounding mp3 files....that might have something to do with their decision. :)
     
  25. opieandy

    opieandy MusicIsLife

    Location:
    Kennesaw, GA
    I have far more issues with vinyl records than online music.
     
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