I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but it sure seems like they are doing everything they can to rid the world of the CD option. On-demand CD-Rs, samples disappear, and now even track listings vanish. Hmm...
Maybe it is nothing more than an effort to push people into their Unlimited tier. Sorry, no sale here.
The music industry itself would like nothing more than to get rid of CDs. Amazon is just helping them out as the giant retailer would like nothing more than to stop selling physical media, especially super-low margin CDs. It's no conspiracy. It's a strategic business plan that has been implemented step by step by the three corporations that control most popular music in the world.
I had to look around a lot to find the 30-second previews. They still exist in the Amazon Music program for Windows. I do have Prime, so I have Prime Music (not Unlimited), but I think anyone who installs the program will be able to get the previews. Amazon REALLY wants you to use their programs/apps. As far as the mp3 cart goes, I did discover that if you buy several songs within a few minutes of each other on Amazon Music, they end up grouped as a single charge, not three separate transactions. I have no idea how long that time window lasts.
Oh well, plenty of other places to sample music at least. I will strive to make no music purchases on Amazon for the rest of the year.
Yes , then all of the streaming yahooz will start paying out of their keesters for streaming, after helping kill off physical media.
It took a while to have this thread show up in a Google search as to why Amazon removed mp3 30 second samples. Not only is that feature removed but they aesthetically redesigned the user interface mainly the fonts which pretty much told me this wasn't a temporary glitch on Amazon's part. I first thought it was my old Firefox browser that was at fault. Good to find this thread. The main reason I used Amazon's sampling is that it reflected the level of loudness of new remasterings of CD's before the purchase. My last purchase was the 2005 remaster of "The Very Best Of Canned Heat". The Amazon samples were exactly how they sounded on the CD (i.e. LOUD) which wasn't the case on YouTube. Qobuz sometimes has this but it's often buried among duplicates that don't have the same CD cover but use similar names of the album. Qobuz sometimes comes across a bit shady IMO in what samplings comes up in a search. Lot's of Karaoke versions of the same artist I was specific enough to NOT get using Qobuz search feature.
OH CRAP! I wonder if they completely removed even access to my Wish List or erased all of the items listed. I used that feature as a way to prioritize and organize items that I did plan to buy later like amplifiers and camping equipment including rare, hard to find CD's. One thing that bugged me about rummaging around my Amazon Wish List is that if I clicked on an item in the list to purchase, when I checked out I'ld get this warning that I can't purchase items accessed from my Wish List. HUH?! I had to do a fresh search for this item and hopefully what would show up was the same price that shows in my Wish List. Sometimes this didn't happen. I hope Amazon makes this and the music samples come back better.
UPDATE: My Amazon Wish List is still intact. Also I clicked on one of the items, a Duke Ellington CD, into a new page separate from my Wish List and it takes me to the CD page and the "Add To Wish List" drop down menu feature is still there. And of course the Ellington 2 disc CD album is outrageously priced at around $50, used $40. The same old Amazon!
I signed up for Music Unlimited about 6 months ago to stream.....they offered me a good rate. But if you're a Prime member, you should be able to stream some limited selections. At least I was able to when I signed up a few years ago.....that may have changed now.
Changing the marketplace not according to consumer demand, rather as the result of corporations seeking to force consumers to use their products? Hmm, sounds a bit "conspiratorial" to me!
Wonder if this has anything to do with Bezos getting grilled last week about the lack of music licensing deals on Amazon-owned Twitch. Perhaps they're working to streamline a licensing deal across all Amazon properties?
Has Amazon also discontinued autorip? A CD I bought July 19 included it but the listing no longer shows it. I see that Amazon also no longer shows that I've purchased something and ALL of their suggestions are things I've already purchased.
I did a quick check and it does appear that the autorip feature has disappeared too. They seem to have went all in on their war against their own CD sales. I guess they really are going to hasten the end of the CD era.
for a company that made billions of dollars in ONE DAY. I have to say they suck royally~...seems they are raising prices to nearly retail as far as Blu-rays go, and possibly other items as well...what's going on?
They just slowly and quietly took control of these markets, crushed competition, and now can decide what is available and how much it will cost. As long as they supported CD sales it was going to continue to be a viable format. If they have decided they are done with CD's, the format will disappear like has long been expected. I believe Amazon really does have that level of power.
Mine as well. Hmm, may be updating everything to the latest remaster Funny, I got a few auto-rips from AF cd's I purchased from them. They used whatever mastering they had lying around
What I've also noticed is that they have stopped listing ALL song titles and removed them from older releases. I just randomly looked up some Springsteen, Eagles and Beatles titles and NONE list the songs anymore if you click on the CD version, If you click on the MP3 or streaming versions, the titles do appear, but when you click on one, a box appears on the right with the options "Listen Now" and "Buy the MP3." When I click on "Listen Now," it takes me to a sign-in page. When I sign in with my Amazon account info, it then brings up this box in the center of the page: "Go Unlimited Listen to Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 (2013 Remaster) and over 60 million more songs with Amazon Music Unlimited. $7.99 per month for Prime members (Non-Prime member pricing of $9.99 per month)" with a button to click for a "30-day free trial." Clicking on an upper right option to "open web player" brought up this: "Prime Music is a benefit of your Prime membership. Listen to over two million hand-curated songs, plus stations and playlists, all ad-free. Listen anywhere on your favorite devices." You have to download the player for your desktop or portable device, but I guess Prime members can hear things, although I don't know about the 30-second song samples of new releases that frequently inspired me to make a purchase. I did order a CD being released next week and got this e-mail: "Thank you for your order. Play or Download the Music You Purchased Now. The CD you purchased is AutoRip eligible. This means that the MP3 version of the album is now available for you to play or download from your Amazon Music Library for FREE. When you buy any vinyl record or CD with the AutoRip logo, you'll instantly get the MP3 version of that album delivered to your Amazon Music Library for FREE. You can listen to your album anywhere, including on any Android phone, iPhone, iPod touch, Kindle Fire and other devices." I have zero interest in listening to crappy MP3s of something I just ordered a CD of! But I do want to be able to sample snippets of something I don't have to see f I want it, but I sure as F am not paying for that "privilege" whe I'm already paying for a Prime membership (which itself went up $30 last year). I can't beieve in addition to removing the samples, they don't even list the song titles anymore! Oh, by the way: Jeff Bezos just bought the $10 million house next door to the $165 million David Geffen Warner estate in Beverly Hills he purchased last February.The purchase equals 0.13% of his net worth. The tech billionaire’s other homes are scattered throughout the U.S., spanning from Washington, D.C., to California, Texas, and Washington state.
I joined just so I could tell you what I just learned about the music sample fail, since this was the only detailed thread I found about it when it drove me crazy a few days ago. I just got off an Amazon chat with a member of the "dedicated team working on this." Shine wrote, "We haven't removed it permanently. It will be back soon. It has been temporarily removed as our website is getting redesigned in a better way. So, we can expect that option of playing sample music very soon. "