Arguments for the Tesla in-house music streaming service

[Electric Joe]

In the summer of 2017 there was some news that Tesla was developing its own music streaming service. Most people seemed to think it was a pointless distraction for the company, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately and have come up with some good reasons Tesla would pursue this:

• Cost
  Tesla's customers stream a LOT of music, so cutting out the middleman could be financially attractive.
• Licensing
  The current streaming app in the car does not cache music, likely because of licensing restrictions. But if Tesla were negotiating those terms, they could cache common songs so that they don't need to be downloaded from the internet every time. This would also make the streaming music work in areas with poor cellular reception. It would also save Tesla a lot of money because, for now, they pay for all cellular service. By caching songs the data used would be significantly reduced.
• Karaoke Mode, etc.
  Tesla, by way of an Elon tweet, has stated it is working on a karaoke mode. This might be difficult or impossible to do using Slacker or Spotify. And who knows what other unusual features like this they are considering.
  
  And the big one...
  
  
• Full control of the user experience, stupid
  This has always been Apple's mantra and has worked very well for them. If Tesla runs the music service, they can integrate it with the car's hardware very closely. They can learn a lot more about your preferences than a third party can. Right now Slacker learns about your musical preferences by analyzing what you skip and what you "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". That's all they can do. But if Tesla were in full control they could rate songs based on which ones make you drum on the steering wheel or bounce in your seat, which ones make you turn up the volume, which ones you sing along with, etc. There's a LOT more useful information available to Tesla than they would let Slacker access. With full software and hardware integration Tesla could do other creative things like playing music or podcasts related to your geographic position, or synchronizing music between nearby vehicles for tailgate parties, or... things I haven't imagined.

I'm posting this because I think it is an interesting topic and I'm curious to know if there are other reasons to support or invalidate any of my arguments here. Thoughts?

 

[SVMike]

I don't see why they can't cache (in the car) now with no new license. How would this be any different than what DVR (like Tivo) do for cable TV or over the air HDTV?

 

[Eno Deb]

I doubt Tesla would be able to make money with a music service. Spotify and Apple Music have been at it for years and have a much larger user base, and they are still not making money on their music subscriptions.

But more importantly, as a user I have zero interest in another music service that only works in the car. I want to be able to access my playlists etc., and I don't want to pay for two subscriptions. Tesla should just provide Spotify (and perhaps Apple Music) clients and let people use their own accounts, or simply get out of the way and support Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

 

[xilex]

I don't see developing in-house music service to be advantageous. Why replicate something Spotify, Pandora, or any other music service already does? They all have multi-million user base, whereas Tesla is under half a million. Listening in the car is only a fraction of the total amount of listening time during the day. How would you take the music here and bring it along with you on desktop/phone/etc. And then it is yet another subscription to pay for.

The one nice benefit now is music starts when entering the car. Whereas on phone after a long day the music app would have been closed and I have to open up the app again.

 

[Aellinsar]

ITesla should just provide Spotify (and perhaps Apple Music) clients and let people use their own accounts, or simply get out of the way and support Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

As a Google Music user, I'd add that one to the list as well with Spotify/apple Music. (Or, like you said, just go to Android Auto)