Spotify’s 2nd price hike in a year raises prices in July by up to $3

Spotify last raised prices in July 2023.

See full article...

 

[Tridus]

Are Spotify's claims of non-profitabilty based on cash money or FASB / IASB smoke and mirrors accounting rules? I lean towards the smoke and mirrors.

They can afford stock buybacks, so they're not doing THAT badly. https://marketingreport.one/news/sp... of up to 10,000,000,expire on April 21, 2026.

 

[arc-tu-rus]

Tidal claims to have "110 million tracks." Spotify claims to have "Over 100 million." So maybe that's changed? How long has it been since you checked?

Tidal has an incredibly massive hip-hop, rap, r&b and also jazz collection with artists and albums that you will likely not find elsewhere. As soon as you move to other styles , the gaps start to appear, especially on music that is a few years old. And Tidal is very weak when it comes to classical music, which is the reason I dropped it after testing it for 2 months as an alternative to my Spotify Family subscription that I have been using for many years. Will now test out Apple Music and check if it is able to replace Spotify, which was great while they focused on serving music to their subscribers.

 

[solomonrex]

Contrary to what seems to be the prevailing opinion, I actually like having podcasts in with Spotify (obviously not Rogan). Can anyone recommend a good standalone podcast app?

I've been test-driving Tidal and the process of transferring over my music collection/playlists was pretty painless, although their library doesn't have some of the more esoteric tracks/albums. Mostly independent stuff missing, nerdcore artists in particular. The Tidal app works much, much better on my 2018-era phone and actually plays nice over BT with my car. Spotify's app is surprisingly bad in my experience.

I liked pocketcast for years.

 

[Ushio]

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.

Industry leading money losing product.

Music streaming is a terrible business for the music streamer though it's great for the record labels.

 

[Tridus]

Spotify: Still offering nothing that you can't build yourself with a $400 minicomputer and open-source software.

It's crazy to me that so many on what was formerly a site for techies pay monthly for things that are trivial to build. At least running your own personal video site takes a lot of storage. The same is not at all true for music. (And if you need a service to help you discover new music, it's time to reevaluate your peer network.)

Since most of Spotify's cost is content (aka: music) and this solution comes with none of that... yeah. Buy one CD a month to populate the content and you're now spending more than you would for Spotify/Apple/Tidal/Youtube/etc.

So unless what you're actually saying is "just pirate it", then you're proposing more expensive and larger effort solution while trying to sound smug about it.

 

[SubWoofer2]

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.

When considering "undesirable" you have to look at where your money is going and how it is used. Can you fund Rogan and sleep comfortably? Are you OK about Apple's supply chain labour practices? I suggest the Rogan thing is so egregious that it's an immediate deal-breaker, no question.

An under-discussed aspect is gender. My audiophile web sites seem male-dominated to the point where women and their ears and tastes appear under neutral or male names. Like being a female novelist in Victorian times. On the other hand, apparently when buying cars the final decision in a family often rests with the female partner, so thats who the salesperson talks to.

Who makes the decision about what gets listened to, and the app or subscription that delivers it? We've a 17-year old nephew living with us to get him out of his hometown for a while, he has been sharing his Rogan views sometimes with direct quotes. Nephew's male privilege and misogyny is stuffing his life and he can't figure out why.

I can't see why women would be supporting Spotify/Rogan by subscribing.

 

[abazigal]

I agree with the comments about "just do music," certainly, and stuff like Car Thing just reeks of terrible leadership. That said, prices have risen economy-wide (just based on CPI) by about 40% since 2011, Spotify doesn't pay artists very much, and per the article, they have yet to achieve a profitable year. I'm sure the CEO is overpaid, but probably not by enough to make much of a difference, and the boondoggles (which were designed to be profitable, with music as the loss-leader) mostly appear to have failed. They can't lose money forever, so they're probably out of options here. The anger seems misplaced.

Realistically, $12/month for pretty much "all music" seems pretty fair---at least as compared to the absolute fragmented disaster that is TV/film. Having had Spotify for years, I've never had the urge to pirate music. For stuff I absolutely love, I'll buy the (wildly overpriced) CD and rip it, or I'll purchase FLACs from the labels that offer it (mostly classical). For everything else, Spotify seems pretty solid. I wish their app were better designed, but again, comparing it to the absolute trash that Hollywood streaming platforms have foisted on is, I really can't complain too much.

I am not sure what a "fair" or "sustainable" rate to pay for music streaming is, but I feel the price hike has rather poor optics for a couple of reasons.

1) Apple has not pushed through a price hike for their own music streaming service (yet). At the same time, Apple Music boasts features like spatial and lossless audio, better native support on Apple devices, and their music app has not become a catch-all basin for a hodgepodge of different audio services (in part because iOS devices come preinstalled with all the various apps from books to podcasts to music to TV+). Recently, Apple also released a separate app just for consuming classical music, but Spotify has been the news for...discontinuing their own streaming hardware.

For a company who only just recently went crying to EU regulators about how they are being bullied by Apple, Spotify sure doesn't seem to be doing anything to improve their image in the eyes of consumers.

2) None of the money from the price hike is going to songwriters or music right holders. On top of that, Spotify already pays some of the worst rates in the industry.

3) It's true that Spotify isn't really profitable yet, and how much of it is due to their own questionable business decisions? For example, we know that a majority of Spotify's user base is on the free tier, which is a loss leader. Jettisoning the free tier (something which Apple Music doesn't offer) should help improve their bottom line, yet Spotify insists on sticking with it because they hope these users will end up subscribing some day.

Understandable from leadership's perspective, but at the same time, is it really my problem as a subscriber? (Hypothetically speaking, I am currently using Youtube Music).

They raised over a billion dollars during the pandemic to go into advertising, a move which doesn't seem to have paid off.

Spotify has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars bankrolling exclusive podcasts (Joe Rogan being the most famous one), but has this really paid off?

It feels like at this point, Apple seems to be winning simply by not really doing anything at all, and just leaving Apple Music as a music streaming service. In contrast, Spotify finds itself being pulled in all directions in a bid to become profitable, and I feel this may just end up alienating its user base who don't really care for any of the new features Spotify is attempting to shove down their throats.

 

[gfmaebzhz]

I appreciate your rounding the prices to the dollar. Thank you!

 

[DBa]

Spotify seems to have taken a page from the YouTube Premium playbook by engaging in what can only be described as "Package Plague." This trend involves bundling their popular music streaming service with less demanded features like podcasts and audiobooks, reminiscent of YouTube Premium’s addition of YouTube Music.

While the idea of a one-stop-shop for all audio content sounds convenient in theory, in practice, it feels more like a forced upsell. Many users primarily subscribe to Spotify for its vast music library and are now finding themselves paying for additional services they might not necessarily want or need. This bundling tactic is seen by many as a way to justify price hikes under the guise of offering more value.

Just like with YouTube Premium, where users looking for ad-free video streaming were saddled with YouTube Music, Spotify’s latest move seems to be following the same path. Instead of offering these services as optional add-ons, the bundling forces users into a more expensive tier to access their favorite music, with the added content being more of an afterthought.

It's clear that these companies see bundling as a way to drive up their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), but it's worth questioning whether this approach truly benefits their user base. Many loyal subscribers are voicing their frustration, feeling trapped into paying more for features they didn’t ask for.

In an age where customization and user-centric approaches are valued, this "Package Plague" tactic might end up alienating the very customers these companies aim to retain. It’s high time for services like Spotify and YouTube to reconsider their bundling strategies and offer more flexible options that truly cater to their users’ preferences.

 

[mathguru]

Worth noting here, but there is no way that random function is actually a uniform distribution. Like seriously I have my heart list with 600 songs or something and it plays maybe 30 or 40 of them at best regularly and I never hear anything else

 

[siliconaddict]

I've been beefing up my plex music with the likelihood of dropping Spotify over the next year as this crap is starting to get intolerable. There is so much extra crap in the UI that I never touch. That said I may try another service. The problem is I don't want to support Amazon, or Google. Tried Apple a few years back...after two months I remembered why I don't like Apple's UI. Maybe Tidal, although I heard their selection isn't as comprehensive as Spotify.
Its been a while since I tried Pandora.

 

[akial]

Wait do you get ads in Spotify even when you pay?

Some yeah. That guy's list is just skimming a bit too. They don't typically halt playing stuff to play ads though - the ads appear when you interact with the app primarily, like when you pull up search or the like.

They'll occasionally do a big pop-up in the app, when you tap something, like, "tap the screen to listen to this performer you've never expressed interest in" (especially when you first open the app). I don't typically see this more than once a day but it is always jarring. Sometimes it'll be a new feature like the dumb tiktok thing. The only one I really like is the end-of-year-summary, but they could really benefit from giving the graphic artist that makes that some sedatives lol. Originally these ads were rare but they made them harder to push aside, fewer obvious points of interactivity. Also the search page and other screens try to push things when you open them.

 

[colecovizion]

I wish I could move to Apple Music, but it completely screwed my carefully curated local library organization. Did they ever add the option so that Apple Music subscription is separate from and doesn’t touch the local library? I would love Spatial Audio.

 

[DaveSimmons]

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.

Many of us listen to amazon / apple / spotify / tidal for discovery, to find new music. Then we buy it.

I buy from Qobuz for anything available in lossless FLAC format, then buy CDs for the few things that are not.

My Amazon Music sub has let me find dozens of albums to buy that I'd never have heard without it. Some people listen to internet radio or other things, but I can't stand the ads and chatter and not being able to skip or stop if that new song I'm hearing is not my cup of tea.

 

[psarhjinian]

I did the same thing. Apple music is pretty good but Spotify definitely had a better app

I have Apple Music as a result of Spotify's antics, but I really don't like the Apple app: it's comparatively slow, glitchy and resource-intensive on every platform except iOS, and it's vaguely unpleasant to use. It's all lacking integration with other apps, and it's version of Connect is very weak.

It's bad enough that I gave up on using Apple's locker feature, which is the other big reason I used it, because it would screw up my library and metadata periodically. I use Plexamp instead now.

I really, really wish Tidal would offer a locker.

 

[rharris]

Does anyone else see more people dropping it for other options, such as their own MP3 libraries, or PIRATING?

 

[Snarky Robot]

Spotify: Still offering nothing that you can't build yourself with a $400 minicomputer and open-source software.

It's crazy to me that so many on what was formerly a site for techies pay monthly for things that are trivial to build. At least running your own personal video site takes a lot of storage. The same is not at all true for music. (And if you need a service to help you discover new music, it's time to reevaluate your peer network.)

On the flip side, it does not surprise me that a certain group of neckbeards don’t understand the difference between Spotify and streaming your own music. Or that they’re so lacking in the ability to appreciate being able to see tons of potential new artists without needing to also get hundreds of new friends.

I mean, I still have my old Plex setup intact. All the movies and music I burned eons ago. You know how often I actually use it? Not because it’s bad, but because it’s superfluous. I like not having to buy every movie I might want to see. I like being able to discover new music, things that people recommend, AND things that sound similar based on the shared experience of millions of people (Apple/Spotify) or over an analysis of the actual music (Pandora). These are things you can’t replicate with any ease. If the open-source stuff works for you...fine. But it’s not that Ars is no longer a site for techies, it that the shit you’re talking about is mostly useless for what people actually want these days. It dates you tremendously to not grasp that difference.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'm adding shares of Spotify tomorrow morning. This is just like Netflix where a dominant technology company receives overwhelming hate and criticism online... because they are the best.

They've raised prices 20% in 13 years total, that is not outrageous.

My personal anecdote, which is worth just as much as the anecdotal comments getting 99% upvoted in this thread, is that they could raise their prices way more and I would still prefer this app over the days of napster and limewire.

My personal anecdote, which is worth just as much as the anecdotal comments in this thread receiving 99% up votes, is thar Spotify has helped me to read again at this stage in my busy life and career.

I won't receive lavish internet points and visibility for my anecdotes like all thr bland criticism thats saying the boring things people want to hear, but Spotify, like Netflix, knows what they are doing and will thrive despite near unanimous social media hate.

Stonks to the moon! I'll stick with low-expense-ratio mutual funds and ETFs like the S&P 500 (VFINX) instead of gambling on individual stonks based on feelings.

Also, the paragraph in bold seems to be trying to say that the only choices are Spotify and piracy. My Amazon Music Unlimited sub is working just fine.

 

[Yarrum]

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.

They actually pay out more than that to the record labels, as that 63% figure only includes the income assigned against streams - leaked documents (Sony leak?) revealed they also have to pay major labels millions upfront to secure/retain contracts to the labels catalogues, offer them free ad slots, and in the early days had to give the labels equity in Spotify.

Despite what everyone claims, Spotify actually accounts for the majority of music revenue - they paid out $9Bn last year, which is a third of the total music revenues.

If artists aren't making money it is (yet again) down to the music labels keeping the majority of the revenue.

It's also one of the reasons they put money into Podcasts, as it turns out Podcasts was what actually drove them to profitability.

 

[Malister]

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.

Ugh, the latest Twitch update is so awful. I cancelled turbo and my subs and uninstalled the app. Openning the app is stress inducing now. Not something that should be said about your UX.

I understand that it likely makes them more money overall, that's why this crap happens. But shouldn't there be room for good things to exist too? I was willing, and luckily able, to actually pay for something I found worth while and they replaced it with something that feels hostile because they need to chase that freemium, attention black hole. I was hoping over the weekend that enough blow back would happen that it would make a difference, but it hasn't seemed to get enough traction. So I guess I keep more of my money, but what's the point of money if you can't actually buy a temporary escape from this foresaken planet?

 

[jeremy2020]

...and I'm out.

 

[trevorashman]

I too want JUST A MUSIC application

But no companies are willing to provide it. Everything needs to be bundled and it is annoying. Youtube Music is now bundling Podcasts as well. It SUCKS.

 

[Eldorito]

It's also one of the reasons they put money into Podcasts, as it turns out Podcasts was what actually drove them to profitability.

There's nothing in there that clearly states it is what drove them to profitability, just that it's a profit centre now. Stopping the bleeding on it may be a big part of it, or they're simply referring to it deriving revenue itself now - they sell the rights/advertising to other platforms as part of their podcasts now. Joe Rogan is no longer exclusive, but other platforms buy it from Spotify rather than Rogan directly (basically a sign it wasn't making enough money, so they'll share the pain).

I think a bit much is being made of the price hikes being due to podcasts (I think the podcasts caused losses, the headcount cuts and price increases caused profits), but the lack of focus at Spotify is a real concern.

 

[Yarrum]

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.

For the Musician, that actually depends on how many times you listen to their songs - if you pay $1 a song from Bandcamp they got paid once, but with Streaming they get paid per play - Spotify look to pay $2 - $4 per 1000 streams, so on the low end you are looking at ~500 plays to match the revenue of a purchase.

500 plays sounds a lot, but with one play a day it only takes 18 months for Streaming revenue to exceed the purchased revenue, if you listen to a song three times a day then Streaming pays more after six months.

 

[Chmilz]

Tidal is looking more and more attractive by the day. I have little interest in lossless music, but I have even less interest in streaming anything other than music through Spotify.

Give the free trial a go. Use one of the free websites that syncs playlists and such so you don't have to rebuild your collection.

Tidal is easily the best pure music streaming service, but it doesn't have the most mature app ecosystem. As a music fan, I can live with that tradeoff.

 

[Tancred]

How so? If they were spending money on artists, sure, but instead they’re spending it on spreading alt-right fascism instead.

I have every right to be angry that they’re going to start charging more to support people who want to destroy the world.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Your reason to hate Spotify is.. Joe Rogan? Holy crap, maybe I need to get a Spotify family plan to support them..

Yes, it is a very smart thing to hate-spend because someone has a different opinion than you. You truly demonstrate what it is to be a Joe Rogan fan.

 

[Durf]

I'm entirely on board with the folks who don't want to pay more for crap they don't want to use, but at the same time I can sort of understand the POV of the "we need to try new things and/or raise prices because we've never made a single cent" company.

 

[OrvGull]

Worth noting here, but there is no way that random function is actually a uniform distribution. Like seriously I have my heart list with 600 songs or something and it plays maybe 30 or 40 of them at best regularly and I never hear anything else

Apple Music likes to take my massive driving playlist and "randomly" shuffle all the songs by one artist into one group.

 

[dread pirate nancy]

The goals of publicly-traded service companies (profit-seeking) do not mesh with the goals of the consumers of said service (affordability, usability, stability).

This is just the tip of the iceberg. It's only going to get worse as they have to chase profits to build content. We began using "enshitification" way to early. We aren't even ankle deep yet.

 

[laserman5000]

Does it still hog resources? Honestly I use Apple Music mostly because it's so lightweight and haven't looked back.

 

[jesse1]

Stock buy backs and podcast with awful RoIs. The buybacks are just a bribe to ignore terrible management.

 

[L0neW0lf]

I already have Amazon Prime, and while it's imperfect, since I get the shipping, Prime Video, free Grubhub (don't use it much but it's useful occasionally) and free basic Prime Music...I might as well use it when I'm not going through the music collection I already have and save buying myself another service. That, and no Joe Rogan for me.

 

[xWidget]

Well I gave Apple Music a try since they have the free two month trial. I'll note that I'm on Windows, and ye olde iTunes was never great, but this is outright dysfunctional...

Something is getting played at like 4x the volume before it hits a brickwall limiter in the app. Any bass-y parts of songs are having their volume reduced for the first 2 seconds. Disabling their loudness compensation doesn't help... Other songs are extremely quiet, even when the loudness compensation is on. This will even happen between two songs on the same album?

And then double-clicking on a playlist doesn't play it? Double-clicking a song while shuffle is turned on instead plays a different song in the playlist? You can't sort by e.g. artist or song name in a playlist??? (Edit: also spacebar doesn't play/pause the active song)

Which honestly sucks, because of the 400ish (mostly fairly niche) songs I've tried moving over via Soundiiz, it only lost 4 of them, one of which was because iTunes censored the name and it still exists there. Deezer and Tidal had about a 70% hit rate for me. Rdio was like 40% but maybe they're better now jk they're dead now.

Edit: And when you cancel it from inside the Windows app, you get stuck with a webpage dialog that has no close button, the "done" button does nothing, and the app itself won't take input because it's waiting for the dialog...

 

[xWidget]

How does it feel to ripoff artists?

Don't worry. No matter how much you pay the labels, the artists will still get nearly none of it.

If you actually want to support artists, go to shows and buy merch.

 

[burnerlikeme]

Let me tell you a non-secret secret...

The reason they are raising prices is they like money. "Because we can".

Nothing more. They are making money hand over fist, it is never enough.

 

[agt499]

I’ve switched over to Apple Music for one simple reason - I often listen to music on a train with very patchy mobile coverage, which means that my phone is mostly at the edge of reception with zombie internet - technically it’s there but mostly times out. Spotify just keeps pausing, despite all the music being downloaded and ready to play offline, but Spotify prefers to use the internet when available. So I’m left with choice: either turn off mobile data to have music playing or turn mobile data so I can slowly browse some internet but have constantly pausing music.
The solution was to use Apple Music which is more than happy to play music from downloaded files on my phone. Spotify didn’t care about my problem at all.

I thought it was just me.
In my case not a train, just patchy cellular coverage while driving.
Plays downloaded stuff if you explicitly select offline mode, but otherwise ignores it.

I don't think the developers ever use the product outside their office.
To be fair I had the same issue with Tidal, and in both cases it seems brain-dead to not always prioritise the download.