Anyone Else Sad to See Groove Music Pass Go?

[chriswong13]

Sure, Groove was a great service and I like it a lot. I'm not that big on radio, so listening to full artist albums all the time was great for me. I use radio on any music service sparingly, but it did happen to turn me onto some new artists that I now listen to all of the time.

Spotify has a limit of 10,000 songs in your collection, which sucks because I have over 15,000 in my Groove collection. My workaround is to not save any albums or songs, and I just follow all of the artists I want - with Spotify Premium, I can still play any full albums I want.

 

[JasonH81]

Sad, yes, and getting nervous about Microsoft's consumer focus.

 

[Dodheimsgard]

I had been a Microsoft supporter since the Zune days when I was in high school. I had always hated Apple for their anti-consumer pricing (I always called Apple the "dark side"). The Zune software was miles ahead of iTunes in both design and function. I was so sad when they discontinued Zune, but at least I was able to use the Zune player on desktop until they bought Groove Music. After the Windows 8 debacle, seeing all the hype about Windows 10 had me all excited. Started using Groove, then my Android phone at the time crapped out on me, so I decided to go with a Lumia 950. W10M was such a nice organized OS, but the app support was so lacking.

Having the Groove Music Pass on W10M was perfect, but the lack of other apps, mainly app=based tech, eventually drew me away from W10M back to Android. I used Groove for only two months on Android before dropping it. The app was always locking up, causing force closes, shoddy connection, a weird virtualizer-like sound effect that drove me nuts, and the biggest one: no local playback. Having to use 2 different music apps is absolutely backwards.

It is kinda sad to see Groove Music streaming go, it kinda brings back sad memories of the death of Zune. But given the other products that Microsoft has introduced and killed (Windows RT, Windows 10 Mobile, SYNC, Kinect, unlimited OneDrive storage, Microsoft Band), my sorrow for Groove Music is more of a pity. Given that Cortana and Alexa can talk to each other now, it makes me wonder about the future of the Harmon?Kardon Evoke speaker, and when/if Microsoft will cannibalize Cortana for Alexa. They certainly don't know how to endow their consumer base with trust in their products.

Groove angered me so much, last month I made the switch to the "dark side" and got a subscription to Apple Music. It's just as fluid in design as Groove AND has iCloud Music Library, so my giant discography can be wherever without having to pay for extra cloud storage. In fact, I liked Apple Music so much, I returned my Android phone and bought an iPhone, something me a decade ago would scoff at. But all the Apple hype actually isn't without warrant. Things ACTUALLY work and are supported. Turns out there is a light on the "dark side" after all.

 

[Riopato]

Been a music pass user since Zune Desktop. Beyond pissed about this decision since Xbox Music and Groove Music was never a respectable replacement for Zune Desktop or it's mobile app version. Now I'm stuck with a music player that only streams without a streaming service, can't rip CDs and can't purchase music from it
Were long time users given an option to purchase their collections they want to keep at a special rate for a limited time? No, go sign up with a service you didn't want in the first place. Did users get to keep their One Drive space for music? No, you lose it unless you buy One Drive for this purpose, but we won't offer you this as an alternative to a streaming service. Did they update the Groove app to function as a stand alone music player? No, Groove will be less functional than our antiquated Windows media player, but at least you can install it on an iOS and Android device! of course we could've updated the app to be able to stream any third-party music service of your choice but we're just going to update it as an advertising vehicle to promote Spotify even though they've never updated their own app on our platform so your experience will not only be the same as a Groove user, it will also be a worse experience on our platform than Apple's or Google's. Thank you for your patronage, go **** yourself.

 

[Christopher Dy]

Until Microsoft figures out how they can compete globally, I don't care. It's not available here in the Philippines anyway (at least last time I checked) and is not marketed at all, unlike Spotify.

 

[SimonMelb]

I've been trying to play music on the Spotify app on W10M and just keep getting either the loading dots scrolling or a notification to check my internet connection.
WTF. So we've been booted from Groove and now the alternative won't work???? You are a DISGRACE Microsoft.

 

[Gwenddoleu]

Disappointed and sad.

 

[korzhs]

Bad move. From the "trust and reliability" point of view first of all.
How would Microsoft convince somebody to support their platform if they repeatedly drop support for their own services?

 

[Toby Simpson]

I'm sad, not just because I believe it is a great product, but because I see it as a step down a greasy slope for a company I have always been a ****** of. I have a headhunting firm of 24 people, and because all OSs integrate into our IT platform now our staff have freedom to choose whatever IT hardware and OS's they want. More and more they are choosing Apple and I can see a day when Chromebooks start popping up simply because many people have andriod phones and want a platform they can still use office on, but that is native to the serivces they use the most.

Microsoft killed mobile, which is a great platform poorly marketed to devs and users, and now it is killing off more services such as Groove and who knows what's next that to focus on core products such as the OS, cloud and office. What they don't realise is that without these serivces people will steer away more and more from their core services to be with what makes them more comfortable, which is the OS they use the most (mobile) and the provider of the services they use the most and have a payment system set up for.

I feel so sorry for the people at Groove who did an excellent job, just as I did with windows mobile who were let down by poor business support from Microsoft and I reckon a whole load of people in other "non core" services such as hardware and bing will be pretty demotivated right now. Someone has to go and it is not more "non core" services.

 

[Aden Rossinni]

That's crap. None of the streaming services make money. If we used that philosophy on everything then we wouldn't have any Surface products.

 

[Joachim David]

Android has Google Music, Apple has iTunes, all other devices have Spotify; not sure though I'm really sad, just a little surprised they put so much effort in a product that really was destined to fail with all the competition out there.

 

[Lordtree]

Again such a lost of resources... Senseless waste. Ohh i forgot: Hit refresh or is it RESET? All resets suppose a restart: not on this one...

 

[blegs38552]

Will miss it. So far have not been able to transfer playlists to Spotify. I am a long time Zune and Groove subscriber. End of an era (again).

 

[Mister Wolf]

People miss it because there wasn't much else on the WP anyway. Amazon is way better to purchase from. That is my go to for music purchases on my OnePlus. You guys have to let WP die.

 

[gimplotech]

MS are slowly abandoning all their consumer facing services. Expect more to go as they transition to an Enterprise focused company. I'm betting even Xbox could be spun off as it's own company too. One less consumer thing for MS to have to deal with.
Many hear moan, or say they're sad, but Groove was an expensive system to maintain and had a very low number of actual subscribers. It was Microsoft's attempt to compete with the big players, but when Win10 Mobile failed, so went Microsoft's main plan for Groove. The 'partnership' with Spotify is Microsoft's attempt to soften the blow and try and put a positive spin on the whole mess. Spotify pick up some new subscribers, MS exit the market with a bump rather than a crash (or so they hope).

 

[vovchyk_bratyk]

Groove should become a Microsoft Garage project. It never reached beyond people who were already committed to the Microsoft ecosystem because of the lack of feature parity with the major providers. There were lots of simple things Groove didn't do that are too numerous to list, and have been documented elsewhere.

The thing is, fixing those things are not insurmountable. A Garage team could easily bolt on functionality and engage with a beta user community at low cost to push Groove across the finish line and broaden its appeal.

 

[TheSlipgate]

I am a little pissed off that Groove is shutting down. I found it to be better than the other services including Spotify, especially around music organisation.

That said I'm now doubting if I will bother upgrading my Xbox One to an X, how can you trust a company to keep any consumer facing services if they can't even keep a music subscription service going - especially when people are paying them for it. It's not like its a free service.

 

[Robert Paulsen]

Microsoft won't be "cool" to the general consumer if they are not successful. They need to shed the things they are failing and brag about the things they are winning.

 

[Grant Taylor3]

I have never used the music pass. I use Groove Music with my music either locally or on Onedrive.

I use it on Windows 10 & Mobile as well as on the iPad.

I will continue to use Groove Music when I have to replace my Lumia 950.

 

[croceamors]

Well. I'm starting to move away from Microsoft and it's services and products. I already have an iPad and two Android phones in addition to my Lumia 950. But I was a Microsoft phone user since 2004.

But since I can see that Microsoft is going the IBM way I'm also starting thinking about alternate options for Windows desktop. I'm already testing Ubuntu which could be used for some tasks but it's definitely far from desktop Windows. But I also plan to build a Hackintosh.

Microsoft is really good in transforming its fans into their enemy.