Yeah, I’m not suggesting decoupling the exercises from the songs. I agree that the rhythm is very important. I am simply suggesting that the songs with the exercises be able to be selected individually and put into a custom playlist, rather than being forced to workout to the pre-made playlists by SN. The songs in the pre-made playlists are not dependent on each other (i.e., each song is separately recorded by the coach and the exercises are unique to that song), and so it should be fairly easy to mix and match. The only thing you’d have to get used to is hearing different coaches and working at different intensity levels within a single custom playlist.

The music licensing issue is one that’s been raised a few times as a possible explanation, but I’m not terribly convinced by that explanation because there are no limits on how many times users can play a workout/song list. I imagine SN buys a blanket license from a performing rights organization to use their existing catalogue and that the fees are based on number of users SN has. I doubt that there are increased license fees based on number of streams of a single song. Instead, I think SN has simply built their exercise model around providing a preset song list with one instructor to coach the entire set, similar to Peloton. Unlike Peloton, however, all SN workouts are pre-recorded and so they can be mixed and matched, but I don’t think SN wants to bother developing that feature (or other frequently-requested features like multiplayer). Right now, I think SN is just taking the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, which is fine until more serious competition comes along that offers those features.