Amazon Music Unlimited is too little, too late in a market saturated with options.
Amazon launched its music-streaming service last week to take back the music market dominated by Apple Music and Spotify.
This is one market that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will not be able to infiltrate no matter how hard he tries. It’s not because he isn’t offering a similar product, but because there are too many options. Amazon would have to do something drastic to change the game.
So far they are offering nothing that will make users switch.
I will admit that the $3.99 price tag is nice, but that only applies if you have Amazon Prime and an Echo device. The standard price of $9.99 matches a Spotify premium and Apple Music. Why would consumers switch?
Also, Spotify offers steep discounts for students and Apple Music will give you three months to try out their product for free.
This seems to be Bezos’ another attempt to enter a market he knows nothing about. Yes, Amazon is one of the most innovative companies in the world, but this seems to be another way to get the Amazon name in front of as many consumers as possible.
Bezos couldn’t care less about profits. After his company finally made money this year, however, it looks like he is all-in on this music venture.
The most impressive feature will likely not be used by most. This service takes a program like Apple’s Siri to the next level. Amazon’s Echo is designed to listen at all times in case a user has a question, a feature that works wonders for those who love to listen to music.
“If you don’t know the name of a song but know a few lyrics, if you want to hear songs from a specific decade, or even if you’re looking for music to match your mood, just ask,” Bezos said.
This alone is why I love Amazon. They take an artificial assistant like Siri, inject her with steroids, name her Alexa and show everyone how it is done.
By creating Amazon Music Unlimited, it seems that the company was so desperate to get in the market they relied on something that Bezos never does: price.
I hope Amazon can figure out a way to innovate this market and make it their own because that is what the company is good at and what it is made for.
We need entrepreneurs like Bezos and companies like Amazon, but we don’t need another streaming service that focuses on making money rather than the consumer experience.
Opinion editor Frank Campos is a media production senior and can be reached at [email protected]
