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Author Topic: Why Streaming Struggles  (Read 107507 times)

JimH

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Why Streaming Struggles
« on: November 23, 2015, 02:33:22 pm »

Rdio has filed for bankruptcy.

Pandora is buying certain assets for $75 million.

http://musically.com/2015/11/18/why-didnt-pandora-buy-rdio-it-was-220m-in-debt/

In business about 5 years. 

Monthly revenue about $1.7M, costs about $4M.  Losses of around $25M

Left with $220M of debt.
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KingSparta

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2015, 09:01:26 pm »

you can't take your music with you for the most part, and access it when you want to.

I prefer a physical, and digital file of some sort.
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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2016, 03:26:19 pm »

I must admit I'm with KingSparta on this issue. I far prefer the physical tracks whether they be on physical media or downloaded and stored in MC.

In fact I've even for the most part stopped digital downloads now because it is so difficult to legitimately download albums in flac format. I now generally buy the CD and rip it in MC and if it is an older album I buy the CD from second hand record shops or on ebay for just a couple of pounds.
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Castius

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2016, 07:51:23 pm »

I use Google Music because i can listen to anything they have. AND buy what i like from the same service.
If i like it, I can buy it then download to my library.

I'm in the middle of the road consumers though. i don't need flac files.
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KingSparta

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2016, 08:36:36 pm »

"Why Streaming Struggles"

As far as I can tell Amazon does not have an issue, and they make money.

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2016, 01:55:25 am »

I usually try to buy my downloads direct from the artist whenever possible.
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blgentry

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2016, 09:33:59 am »

Almost everyone I know uses some kind of streaming service:  Netflix is the most popular, followed by Pandora and Spotify.  Oh and of course Amazon.

I've written before about why streaming seems like an awful idea to ME personally.  But I think it's the future.  Fewer and fewer people are interested in having media that they own.  Most people just want instant gratification and that's it.

Brian.
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jmone

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2016, 05:37:40 pm »

What I don't like is the current trend of disaggregation from streaming services.  More and More of them are deliberately preventing aggregation progs like MC from being able to browse and play their content.  I want one UI to provide a combined view of all my content regardless of if it is local or "cloud" based.  We seem to be going down a path of MC for locally stored path an individual apps for each of the streaming services.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2016, 01:10:55 am »

I'm guessing that the record labels are behind that.  They don't want content they've licensed to one company to be used by another.  The same is probably true for video services like Netflix.  Both the record labels and the movie studios want to do as many deals as they can.

Eventually, this may change.  Or not.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2016, 12:53:02 pm »

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JimH

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KingSparta

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2016, 05:58:25 pm »

I'm surprised by that one.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2016, 06:53:45 pm »

They're all a shock.
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glynor

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #13 on: February 03, 2016, 08:44:16 pm »

I think some of what we are seeing is a normal market rush and then inevitable high failure rate. For every amazon.com, you're going to have a lot of pets.coms. Of course, Amazon isn't making any money, and never has, and Netflix (I agree probably the most popular one out there) isn't setting the financial world on fire either.

What I don't like is the current trend of disaggregation from streaming services.  More and More of them are deliberately preventing aggregation progs like MC from being able to browse and play their content.  I want one UI to provide a combined view of all my content regardless of if it is local or "cloud" based.  We seem to be going down a path of MC for locally stored path an individual apps for each of the streaming services.

I think this (and an established content marketing and delivery industry fighting the future tooth and nail) is what is holding streaming services back.

The future of media is apps?

I don't know about that. With a typical, cheap consumer TV, you have to deal with a crappy, buggy, often poorly-thought-out UI design. But, you only really have one or three of them to deal with in your house. And the "cable box/DVR/whatever" (with its crappy UI) dis-intermediates a lot of the interface anyway. In any case, it is a single platform for delivery of all the television content you want. The UI may be crappy, but you only have to learn one or two of them, and just barely enough to get your job done. And that's now, we're coming from a place where the UI was a channel dial (and then an up/down arrow control).

But a future where HBO has its app, and Warner Brothers has its app, and Disney has its app, and ESPN, and some content is aggregated (and silo-ed) over in Hulu, and some in Netflix, but only sometimes and vanishes other times that don't fully make sense (and shift over time anyway)? And now you're learning and dealing with categorizing 30 apps and their idiosyncrasies? Some of them will be great, but most of them will be terrible, or at-best, mediocre.

That is... Well, it is their problem.  :-\

I remain unconvinced. I think the Internet has a much bigger, and more fundamental, destiny as a content delivery platform. We don't really need these services with their walled gardens to middle-man between us and the people creating the actual content.

The problem is it needs a unified platform, search, and discovery. And, a way for the content makers to reliably generate revenue directly from the users. Then you don't need "Networks" (which become essentially banks fronting loans with marketing departments attached), because they can sell to us directly. The real "Content (App) Store", where you or I can submit something as easily as JJ Abrams.

But, I guess I want to believe, that the reason these things fail, is that content is, to consumers, fundamentally different from "software". An app only "goes" with a particular phone (or tablet, but only mostly), so it is one thing to tie the "thing you buy" to the device vendor in a walled garden. But it is entirely a different thing for a song, or a TV show. The consumer doesn't care about your excuses why it can't be all in one place on all of their devices that have a screen, or speakers, or bluetooth. They don't care. With that analogy, we're in the AOL and CompuServe "phase" of the evolution of the disruption of entertainment (and news) media by the Internet, with walled gardens everywhere.

So, the model I hope that evolves out of it, must be much closer to the model of the Open Web. Where you can pick your "web browser" but it is still the web, and anyone can put up a web server and serve some content. We need that, but for entertainment media content delivery, funding and/or purchase, and playback. I think it will happen, but it is going to be an interesting road.

The alternative is dour, because it almost certainly means we end up with a Facebook of media, and one company controls it all. And that, since this includes essentially our modern freedom of speech and of the press, is... Not the result I'm pulling for.
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JimH

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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #15 on: March 01, 2016, 07:55:41 pm »

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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #16 on: March 07, 2016, 01:12:48 pm »

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JimH

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blgentry

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2016, 04:05:22 pm »

I heard Tidal had a major outage recently and just *barely* got through it without a lot of visibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7uBph38kXo






(Just a little humor)  :)

Brian.
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KingSparta

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #19 on: May 10, 2016, 07:42:35 pm »

An Important Update on the Beatport Streaming Service
Thank you for using the Beatport Streaming service over the past year. This note is to inform you that on May 13, we will discontinue the Streaming music service and mobile apps. In addition to our web and mobile streaming apps no longer being accessible, embedded audio players will no longer be available, and user playlists will be removed from our database.
The Beatport Store will remain fully operational and functioning without interruption, where you will still have the ability to preview tracks and browse curated genres, find exclusive content, and access weekly updated DJ charts from our vast community.
Please read our Company Blog Post to learn more about this change.

We'd like to thank you for using our Streaming service, and regret any inconvenience this may cause.
-The Beatport Team
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #20 on: August 22, 2016, 06:55:51 am »

Samsung is closing their Milk Music service on September 22.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/22/samsung-is-closing-its-milk-music-streaming-service/
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JimH

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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2016, 06:46:21 pm »

Verge Article

Best year since 1990 for record labels?
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imugli

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #23 on: September 28, 2016, 05:11:15 pm »

Could this be the beginning of the consolidation of the industry?

Spotify to purchase SoundCloud -

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13098754/spotify-soundcloud-acquisition-report

JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #24 on: September 28, 2016, 06:05:09 pm »

Consolidation doesn't help.  They just lose more money.
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imugli

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #25 on: September 28, 2016, 06:54:30 pm »

Less competition reduces pricing pressure, allowing the remaining players to raise prices / increase ads etc to increase revenue, without people having the option to shop around.

JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2016, 07:30:54 pm »

Possible, but it hasn't happened yet.  New companies pop up. 
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DJLegba

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #27 on: September 28, 2016, 08:05:58 pm »

Article says Spotify is valued at $8.5 billion. How does that compare with JRiver?
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #28 on: September 28, 2016, 09:16:53 pm »

It's more.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #29 on: January 09, 2017, 02:24:42 am »

Soundcloud's annual loss exceeds annual sales.  Loses $52 million on $22 million in sales.

http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-may-run-out-of-cash-this-year-as-it-posts-e51m-loss/
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2017, 04:23:15 am »

Soundcloud's annual loss exceeds annual sales.  Loses $52 million on $22 million in sales.
This is like running a business that sells $100 bills for $50, and having 1,000,000 customers.
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ferday

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DJLegba

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #32 on: January 25, 2017, 12:45:37 pm »

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-is-terrific-the-bandcamp-2016-year-in-review/

Nice to see that Bandcamp is now accepting credit cards. Paypal (which I refuse to use) was the only thing holding me back until now.
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DarkPenguin

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2017, 11:26:19 pm »

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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #34 on: May 24, 2017, 09:48:40 am »

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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #35 on: July 09, 2017, 09:25:05 am »

SoundCloud lays off 40% of staff.  Losses in the 10's of millions of dollars each year.  Average revenue per customer of $0.11.

https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/07/soundcloud-cuts-nearly-half-of-its-staff-in-order-to-stay-afloat/
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DarkPenguin

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #36 on: July 09, 2017, 01:05:03 pm »

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imugli

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astromo

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #39 on: July 31, 2017, 06:26:40 am »

Netflix now owes US$20 Billion and does not expect to turn a profit for years yet.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/streaming-giant-netflix-is-bleeding-money-at-a-shocking-rate-with-debts-of-more-than-25-billion/news-story/d7001732c2c5cea197252d58ed492f25

So much of the market rides on sentiment and if the lemmings start to run for the cliff, watch out. I still haven't signed up to streaming content. Broadband hasn't hit my street yet and when it does, it may not deliver enough up/download anyway. Probably not such a bad thing to be outside the impact zone.
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stewart_pk

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #40 on: July 31, 2017, 10:13:16 pm »

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/05/film-and-tv-streaming-and-downloads-overtake-dvd-sales-for-first-time-netflix-amazon-uk

"The digital onslaught is also continuing in the music market, with subscription revenues increasing by 65% to £418m, driven by services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer.
Physical sales of CDs fell by 13%, a steep decline after a 3.7% fall in 2015.
Downloads and streaming accounted for over 57% of the music market in 2016.
"
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RoderickGI

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #41 on: August 01, 2017, 01:09:42 am »

Netflix now owes US$20 Billion and does not expect to turn a profit for years yet.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/streaming-giant-netflix-is-bleeding-money-at-a-shocking-rate-with-debts-of-more-than-25-billion/news-story/d7001732c2c5cea197252d58ed492f25

Quote from: http://www.news.com.au
A spokeswoman for Netflix in Australia disputed the inclusion of the company’s content contracts with studios as debt.
“Netflix has a total gross debt of $4.8 billion versus the company’s equity market value of about $75 billion,” she said.

While the report may not be wrong, essentially, it is using dodgy accounting to sensationalise the story.

Netflix is trying to get big enough to be able to tell the studios what they will pay, and what for, and to demand access to all content rather than negotiate a selected range, piece by piece. Once they have done that, we may actually get a streaming service that is worth paying for.
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Hendrik

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #42 on: August 01, 2017, 02:34:09 am »

Once they have done that, we may actually get a streaming service that is worth paying for.

But if you don't do it before that, they might not get there. Its a conundrum.
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tyler69

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #43 on: August 01, 2017, 05:27:59 am »

is jriver of the impression that streaming is not becoming a major way of listening to music?

disclaimer: i do not use streaming services.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #44 on: August 01, 2017, 05:51:21 am »

We have worked with streaming services for more than 10 years, but they keep falling on their faces and the rules keep changing.  For example, we had a very nice implementation for Netflix once, but they then closed their system so it no longer worked.

This kind of thing happens but it is too risky to bet on who will survive.
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tyler69

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #45 on: August 01, 2017, 06:00:12 am »

i understand, but i did not ask about what companies will survive or who-will-have-what-market share. companies die for different reasons. in my opinion the market will consolidate and we will see very few big players eating the pie. smaller streaming vendors will either be bought or die.

my question was rather meant on the subject itself, since the topic implies to me that jriver does not think streaming itself has a future.
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JimH

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #46 on: August 01, 2017, 06:16:40 am »

... the topic implies to me that jriver does not think streaming itself has a future.
I didn't ever say that.  I think streaming is important.  I thought that ten years ago.  We were working with Musicnet, later Medianet, when they were sold by the record labels in 2005:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/13/labels_sell_musicnet/
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tyler69

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #47 on: August 01, 2017, 07:11:22 am »

thanks for claryfing. what a real problem with streaming is, is the fragmentation of availability: some content is available with vendor a, some is with vendor b. people do not want to have several subscriptions in order to see all champions league soccer games or listen to all their favorite bands. combining the services and offer one touchpoint to the customer is the way to go i think.
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stewart_pk

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #48 on: August 01, 2017, 10:59:52 pm »

I didn't ever say that.  I think streaming is important.  I thought that ten years ago.

Well that's good to hear. But I don't really understand the point of this thread. We know that streaming services will continue to replace discs and file downloads. It's happening day by day every day. Who cares if the big major players are cutting each others throat with pricing; you know when that happens it's the consumer who wins.

So that raises the question of where does that place MC in the future being predominantly a file player.

FWIW I don't really use streaming services. Physical discs and some legal downloads are how I consume my media.
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Hendrik

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Re: Why Streaming Struggles
« Reply #49 on: August 02, 2017, 03:37:35 am »

So that raises the question of where does that place MC in the future being predominantly a file player.

We would generally be happy to have a place in playing streamed content (if the conditions are right), but the streaming providers are generally not interested in that, not in music and even much less so in video.
I can only imagine that they view MC as giving you too much freedom and as such doesn't fit into their quite restrictive model on how they want to control your listening.
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