Spotify’s 2nd price hike in a year raises prices in July by up to $3
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Music publishers aren't happy about the bundling either
https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/spotify-sued-by-mechanical-licensing-collective-1236007093/
https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/spotify-sued-by-mechanical-licensing-collective-1236007093/
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Meh. Spotify used to be good when they focused on music. I found lots of good groups because they had a good discovery system. That was then...
The front page now is crap, mostly what you listen to and not driving new finds. They also keep shoehorning crap like podcasts etc to bump the price.
Meh, I only use spotify free at work now in the browser with adblock to stop all the adverts they inject, and even with that I use it less and less as the whole reason for using it, discovery, gets worse and worse.
The front page now is crap, mostly what you listen to and not driving new finds. They also keep shoehorning crap like podcasts etc to bump the price.
Meh, I only use spotify free at work now in the browser with adblock to stop all the adverts they inject, and even with that I use it less and less as the whole reason for using it, discovery, gets worse and worse.
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Well the music publishers and rights holders can push Spotify they can't push Apple or Amazon or they will push back harder.
It's why Spotify which loses money is constantly looking for something that they can make money from hence podcasts, audio books and I believe they are adding online courses next.
When Spotify fails the majority of their customers will go to Amazon, Apple or Alphabet leaving everyone else fighting over the last 10% of the market not Chinese or Russian.
Spotify has failed unlike Netflix because the music and film/TV business have long been different in how they distribute their product and make their money.
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Having been born and raised in the Vinyl Era, and having recorded the music I wanted onto cassette tapes for the car because radio drove me nuts with the commercials and full on sucked balls when driving across country, one would think something like Spotify would appeal to me.
Nope.
I want to hear MY music. While playlists are fine, I would much rather pay for my music straight from the vine (as it were) and rip it to my device of choice. No chance for anyone to fuck it up with commercials, plenty of options for randomizing the list if I wanted to do that, or skipping a track for the next song.
And not a single penny paid in subscription fees, nor any heartbreak in not hearing a song because I had to pay a monthly rent to listen to it and couldn't afford it.
One year of Spotify would cost me more money in rental fees than I've paid for music in the last decade (largely because the vast majority of stuff that's come out in the last decade doesn't appeal to me in the slightest), but my annual cost of songs was always under $100.
That's roughly what Spotify would cost me for a year under the new plan, but I don't own those songs, and would have to pay for the privilege of hearing them again.
That's not my idea of a sound investment.
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It's not a comparable situation at all. Spotify signed a $250 million deal for JRE (#1 US podcast). On the other hand, Spotify pays $0 for TAL (#4 US podcast) and other non-exclusives.
$250 million isn't just a drop in the bucket. In all of 2023, Spotify paid a total of $9 billion for music overall.
I expect the people commenting above aren't necessarily against Spotify offering the JRE podcast like they would offer any other freely available podcast, but rather against the expensive exclusivity agreement (plus related advertising).
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For every dollar Spotify makes in revenue 63 cents goes to the record labels.
Then you have costs of running the company it's why after 18 years in it just had it's first quarter of profitability a paltry €197 million or 22 cents per paying subscriber per month.
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They paid $250 million to Joe Rogan alone for a podcast.
For those subscribing to a music streaming service, yes that is a reason to believe prices are higher because of podcasts that music streamers do not want.
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No they won't.
The way they made the contracts with the big labels, those labels receive a percentage of the revenue. This was forced on Spotify in order to be granted access to the vast libraries of the big three Sony, Universal and Warner. A higher price just means that the larger but same percentage slice from a slightly larger revenue pie goes to the labels.
Spotify is stuck not making a profit.
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Stochastic
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Here's an informative video on why Spotify is so unprofitable.
The core issue is the dysfunctional licensing agreement Spotify maintains with record labels. They don't earn more money from more plays, but rather pay a percentage of revenue. So when they earn more, they have to pay more.
Also, because all the major streaming services effectively have access to all music, they can only differentiate on platform features and not content (unlike with video streaming services). And because Spotify is not appreciably better than its competitors, they can't command a premium.
P.S. I also recommend this video on how Spotify's UI could be improved.
The core issue is the dysfunctional licensing agreement Spotify maintains with record labels. They don't earn more money from more plays, but rather pay a percentage of revenue. So when they earn more, they have to pay more.
Also, because all the major streaming services effectively have access to all music, they can only differentiate on platform features and not content (unlike with video streaming services). And because Spotify is not appreciably better than its competitors, they can't command a premium.
P.S. I also recommend this video on how Spotify's UI could be improved.
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I saw the writing on the wall after they gave Joe Rogan $200 million at the height of his antivax nonsense. I do YouTube Music now, but there's zero guarantees the won't start doing similar shenanigans to keep up with whatever it is they imagine they have to keep up with. We're all stuck in The Great Enshittification whether we like it or not.
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When Spotify signed Joe Rogan there was also a lot of news at the time about how royalties are shared and how most artists make little on streams. At the time I looked up which service overall was the friendliest to the artists and it turned out to be Apple. My wife wanted Apple Fitness so we cancelled Spotify and took the Apple bundle deal. It looks like Tidal currently offers the best royalty share followed by Apple.
The streaming apps honestly don't give me that much value aside from access to the music itself. Prior to that I was the sort of person with a massive CD collection. I am a prog-rock/metal guy and I almost never listen to playlists and I have always been too lazy to make them. I like to listen to either full albums or full artist shuffles generally. That works for me and it's pretty much the basic thing all of these services provide. I very much appreciate music overall and I will give up some convenience features in an app if they are giving more money back to artists. The stuff I enjoy listening to is already niche enough nowadays.
I just want more music in the world. Not more streaming app features.
The streaming apps honestly don't give me that much value aside from access to the music itself. Prior to that I was the sort of person with a massive CD collection. I am a prog-rock/metal guy and I almost never listen to playlists and I have always been too lazy to make them. I like to listen to either full albums or full artist shuffles generally. That works for me and it's pretty much the basic thing all of these services provide. I very much appreciate music overall and I will give up some convenience features in an app if they are giving more money back to artists. The stuff I enjoy listening to is already niche enough nowadays.
I just want more music in the world. Not more streaming app features.
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The coronavirus rotted Rogan's brain, straight up. This guy will go on completely unprompted tirades about masks and vaccines and whatever else for 10 and 20 minutes at a time. While the guest is sitting there like "Can we please talk about something else?", but saying that means you never come back.
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I'd like to point out for the price of a subscription you can buy one album per month, every month. You then own that music "forever" (for as long as you can store it, or the download resource still exists). You can play it back from your own device, or run a NextCloud container and stream it to yourself.
I am gutting my old iPod to put in 1TB of storage and a chonker ass battery this weekend. Parts are on my desk right now.
I am gutting my old iPod to put in 1TB of storage and a chonker ass battery this weekend. Parts are on my desk right now.
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I quit them a long time ago because of podcasts. Went to Tidal. Not everything is roses, but I'm still happy.
Also, their podcasts include trash like voice transcribed reddit porn, which they are (apparently) happy to let pass on to child accounts on family plans... /smh
Also, their podcasts include trash like voice transcribed reddit porn, which they are (apparently) happy to let pass on to child accounts on family plans... /smh
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I think most are aware of that.
The issue is new music discovery for me. And the problem is that I would require purchased music and streamed discovered music to be on the same service so I can manage playlists. Not sure where I can get this...
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Podcast creator (and Spotify user) here. The majority of people in the USA listen to podcasts via Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Other platforms have way lower listenership. So if Spotify were to give up doing podcasts, that leaves a de facto monopoly for Apple, which feels undesirable for creators and listeners.
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I buy drm free music from Bandcamp (and occasionally other sources) and I feel pretty good about it. Musicians get a better cut, I get to keep the music, and I build up a library that I don't have to keep paying for.
Sure, some people are more of a "I never listen to the same track twice" user that might benefit from rental model. But I'm confident there's a chunk of users who are paying Spotify every month for the privilege of listening to the same couple albums.
Sure, some people are more of a "I never listen to the same track twice" user that might benefit from rental model. But I'm confident there's a chunk of users who are paying Spotify every month for the privilege of listening to the same couple albums.
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When I bought a few songs from Amazon I noticed they were also added to a playlist available in the streaming service. I believe the same is of Apple Music (and maybe Qobuz).
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SONGSHIFT is a playlist / song sync app.
I've sync'd my Spotify playlists with youtube playlists, and am cancelling my Spotify sub right after posting this comment.
For anyone else wanting to tell Spotify to kiss their ass, and move to a different service, try out Songshift.
F.Y. Spotify. Your service was one I barely liked, now I don't like you at all. AT ALL. CYA.
I've sync'd my Spotify playlists with youtube playlists, and am cancelling my Spotify sub right after posting this comment.
For anyone else wanting to tell Spotify to kiss their ass, and move to a different service, try out Songshift.
F.Y. Spotify. Your service was one I barely liked, now I don't like you at all. AT ALL. CYA.
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Completely agree. I only use it for music and somehow Spotify keeps getting worse. The navigation is difficult now with so many menus. Half the songs in my curated playlists are no longer playable and show up greyed out, or magically disappear from my saved music folder. Don't even get me started on the fact that you literally cannot see a list of songs by an artist anywhere in the app. WTF.
The rest of my family uses Spotify, and I've been using it since it was beta. Maybe this will give me the push I need to migrate.
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I just use adblock on pc and a spotify mod on my phone, I never paid one single cent to spotify.
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On a similar note, Tidal just ended their discounted rates for military and first responders. I had been paying $6.99/mo since I dumped Spotify after they hired Rogan, but it will be $10.99 now. Annoying, but at the same time I know they didn't have to offer it at all and I'm not aware of any other service that did.
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I've been a Spotify subscriber since their US launch ~13 years ago, and I upgraded to a family plan as soon as it was available. I'm genuinely shocked by how badly they've bungled the Car Thing discontinuation, and now back-to-back price increases. This is a company which has lost its way. I want literally one thing from Spotify: provide access to high-quality streams of music. Not podcasts. Not audiobooks. Not "AI DJ's." Not short-lived hardware. Not whatever other dumb fad comes along. JUST DO MUSIC. THAT'S IT. BE A MUSIC SERVICE.
The way they've handled the Car Play discontinuation could not feel more like a giant middle finger to their customers, and the repeated price increases hardly helps. Seriously, get it to together Spotify, you're not the only game in town.
The way they've handled the Car Play discontinuation could not feel more like a giant middle finger to their customers, and the repeated price increases hardly helps. Seriously, get it to together Spotify, you're not the only game in town.
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I kind of agree, but am not a fan of articles going "hey look at what this random person said" as a lazy proxy for sentiment analysis. (I also hate the frequent politician xyz says blah without a remote effort to fact check). So plus for not using twitter, but I would prefer something broader unless the random quote is meaningful.
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Really wish Tidal would get their software game together. I tried to switch and couldn't make it my daily driver. Lack of a spotify connect alternative and no google assistant integration (to avoid using the horrible car interfaces) killed it for me
And unfortunately I think the streaming business model sucks. Especially for the artists obviously... but they are going to just keep jacking prices because number must go up, and there's a saturing point in subscriber numbers seems like.
I'm glad I still maintain a sizeable mp3 collection with a personal streaming server. I'm basically hedging against the day some of these services just disappear
And unfortunately I think the streaming business model sucks. Especially for the artists obviously... but they are going to just keep jacking prices because number must go up, and there's a saturing point in subscriber numbers seems like.
I'm glad I still maintain a sizeable mp3 collection with a personal streaming server. I'm basically hedging against the day some of these services just disappear
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I wasn't aware that a $400 minicomputer and open-source software offered me legal access to over 100 million songs. Clearly I've been out of the loop.
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SubWoofer2
Ars Tribunus Militum
Also that they're still not lossless. Fascism over fidelity, in a music company? It's shit.
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I really hate the ongoing enshitification of services for the sake of „line goes up“.
Spotify is slowly destroying an industry leading product, the last Twitch mobile re-design is channeling a Wish-version of TikTok and is rage-inducingly horrid and companies are breaking great apps and great services left and right on the altar of „growth über alles“.
May the shirt sleeves of the persons responsible for this always slide down when washing their hands.
Spotify is slowly destroying an industry leading product, the last Twitch mobile re-design is channeling a Wish-version of TikTok and is rage-inducingly horrid and companies are breaking great apps and great services left and right on the altar of „growth über alles“.
May the shirt sleeves of the persons responsible for this always slide down when washing their hands.
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I cancelled a number of years ago, but hilariously my 2020 spotify wrapped was just:
Tool: Fear Inoculum for literally every metric. The top 10 songs was just the full track listing
.Their deep analytics were able to tell me that I like to listen to Tool a lot. I've known that since the mid-90s.
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I switched from Spotify to youtube I think when the last price increase occurred. It is not polished but the bugs are less annoying than Spotify. I am absolutely dumbfounded though how Playlists are played in random order and then they insert random songs in between. Sure after changing a few awkward settings in different places I can play a WHOLE Playlist in order
But WTF who is programming this garbage, millennials?! Only joking... Maybe
The only thing I have yet to satisfy is listening to Japanese Original soundtracks. YouTube has some probably illegal versions lol, but is there any legitimate English source that has these standard?
But WTF who is programming this garbage, millennials?! Only joking... Maybe
The only thing I have yet to satisfy is listening to Japanese Original soundtracks. YouTube has some probably illegal versions lol, but is there any legitimate English source that has these standard?
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If you're willing to support artists more directly and listen to some more adventurous music, I would still suggest Bandcamp. Be more picky with your music, find Pay What You Like albums and build a library of tunes that will last you a lifetime.
I do still use Spotify daily and I am in its top 0.01 percentile of users, but as a musician who works from home that is an exceptional use case! For more meaningful interactions with music, I still can only think of a couple of much smaller services that do what Bandcamp does.
There's more to be said on the tumultuous history of Bandcamp's various acquirers/owners over the last few years but that's probably for another day.
I do still use Spotify daily and I am in its top 0.01 percentile of users, but as a musician who works from home that is an exceptional use case! For more meaningful interactions with music, I still can only think of a couple of much smaller services that do what Bandcamp does.
There's more to be said on the tumultuous history of Bandcamp's various acquirers/owners over the last few years but that's probably for another day.
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I used them right after their awkward "every single station eventually leads to some obscure indie band who doesn't demand high royalties" phase, and they were alright. The main trick to using the free version was to pick either Grateful Dead or other prog rock stuff so you could game their "3 songs per ad" system by getting the 15+ minute live versions.
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i’m guessing you are out of the loop because you have not re-evaluated your peer network recently.
/s
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So you want the library of Spotify but with none of the parts that subsidize it (the audiobooks/podcasts are bigger profit centers than the music).
You could always just use whatever the most recent version of ReVanced is available to get ad-free YouTube so that you get your music without giving money to Google. Definitely more clunky, but considering you're a "no-frills" user I'd imagine that wouldn't bother you.
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