In January of 2016 the original Live365.com - a streaming radio site focusing on niche stations run by real living, breathing people and with 100% of content uploaded from their own personal CD collections - closed its doors. This catastrophic loss was due to the expiration in late 2015 of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009, which had allowed lower music performance royalty payments for small 'net broadcasters, of which Live365 is host.The year 2016 was a sad one for people who prized real radio - as opposed to robostreams like Apple Music, Pandora and Spotify. Just a gaping void where a great variety of music in every imaginable genre had been available. But that all changed when news came out in early 2017 that someone had bought and re-started Live365. Sadly, it became quickly apparent that this new ownership was allowing - nay, exacerbating significantly - one of the prime elements which had utterly obliterated any chance that Live365 would make so much as a blip on the publicity radar for "Top Streaming Music." That destructive element is: Advertising volume set to blast out at several times louder than the station content. So the new Live365 is just as invisible as the old, and the new management not only refuse to correct the problem, there's a definite indication they're in total denial that the problem even exists. Like presumably thousands of other streaming music fans I try to listen at work, when I'm on tasks where having music going is not a problem. And like most workplaces, there are people there other than me. So assuming everybody in your work group is cool with the music you want to play, all of that agreement and goodwill goes straight down the toilet when an ad screams out from the speakers at 4,000 dB louder than the music that had just been playing. Every. Single. Time. This is not an anomaly limited to any particular station - I have listened to dozens of stations at Live365 and it's the same for every single one of them: When the song ends and an ad cuts in, you had better have your fingers on the volume or you are going to get your ears blasted to smithereens.I've long since learned that Live365 simply *cannot be used* in a work situation or any other public or semi-public listening scenario. I'm assuming every single other potential listener, wherever they may be, has learned that exact same lesson, the hard way, in every listening situation in which others are present - work, school, home, wherever. It quickly becomes intolerable even for me when listening solo at home - so it's off to some YouTube channel or other, usually.So not surprisingly, Live365, nearly six years after its relaunch, is all but invisible to the world - particularly to cyberspace and all discussions of music streaming therein. If you do a simple search for "Top Streaming Music Sources," you will see: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Qobuz, Tidal, LiveXLive, Deezer, Pandora, SiriusXM, Idagio.What you will not find, anywhere, is Live365. Go ahead, open a new tab and give it a try. See?Granted, some of these competitors (like Apple and YouTube,) have boatloads of cash for promotion. But they at least make the effort, and above all: They do not blast ads at listeners at ten times the volume of the music, thereby negating the entire prospect of that whole "having listeners" thing in the first place.So the new Live365, like the old Live365, is like a rare treasure with absolutely enormous potential - but is circling the drain to inevitable bankruptcy and oblivion. Why? Because its management cannot - or will not - correct a massive flaw that short-circuits the entire entity at the ground level. People will not listen to Live365 for the simple reason that Live365's ad volume makes listening impossible. It's sad to see the slow suicide of Live365 happen, but for fans and DJs alike there is nothing that can be done except hope that at some point in the future a wiser group of people will buy out the site and run it responsibly. This is a problem that is bonehead-easy to fix, but the people at the controls refuse to do it. I feel like I'm watching an old friend destroy himself with a crack addiction or something. Again, it's just inexpressibly sad.
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Live365 Internet Radio - Start Your Own Internet Radio Station or Listen to Thousands of Stations Run by People Not Algorithms
