Not Happy with We7
I’m completely disgusted with the relaunch of We7. They will tell you it’s to make the site more relevant to the user but don’t believe their lies. The official responses for these changes are as follows:
• First, we believe that a radio with request service is easier for more people to get access to more music without effort - sit back and just enjoy the music.
• Secondly, rights holders are imposing more restrictions upon free music services in an attempt to protect the value of music.
• Finally, this model creates a economic balance so we can provided you with access to unlimited music, pay a fair rate to artists and rights owners and create a base to build a sustainable business.
Moving to a radio format takes away the real key point of we7 which was choice the ability to play and replay any artist, album and song in their database. While this service was interrupted by the odd the avert it was a very good service. They have now taken this away and installed a radio style system instead where users can now request songs and albums (number of request are determined by user level).
The “monthly 50 request” idea is clearly an attempt to pacify people like my self who they knew would straight away kick up a fuss. Unlimited requests are available to subscribers but that defeats the point.
If they are now targeting subscribers as there main business how come we still have to put up with adverts? They say that “rights holders” are now being stricter on them, well how come we haven’t seen the same measures brought against YouTube.
What I really resent is how they have put up the users as the main reason for change, like these restrictions are meant to be for our benefit. They believe the new system will be “easier for more people to get access to more music without effort”. How thick do you link your users are? There was a search bar and standard audio player controls, it’s hardly rocket science. What really pisses me off is the old site appears to be available in all its form to subscribers. So does this mean your subscribers are stupid? If they had come out and given a valid real reason e.g. music labels are being dicks to us. I would have had a hell of a lot more respect for them. Instead they look like nothing but whores, if they want money why not sell blow jobs on the street like the whores you are.
My suspicions are that their attempt to get into the US market would be compromised by letting users have the freedom to choose what they listen on demand. The radio system amounts to nothing more than a striped down version of the excellent Last.fm, only there is no stats or community interaction capabilities. We7, you’ve lost a user because I fail to see what your service offers that others (Last.fm and YouTube) don’t. It doesn’t even scrobble anymore and just wonder how much longer we7 will continue to exist.
