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...

 

[FlightTestEngineer]

It’s so hard to be an executive these day - Lesson 1: Price increases that your customers don’t have to opt in to.
Lesson 2: layoofs

Please just send me the cancelation maze link

 

[Tridus]

At that pricing, Youtube's family plan looks like a significantly better deal since it also comes with no ads on Youtube in addition to the music.

 

[agt499]

I'm probably alone, but I miss Google Play Music...

Spotify's UI really grates with me (hey what was that song that just finished 3 seconds ago?), and as others noted above this is slightly mitigated by their api allowing a range of third party playback options (largely Squeezebox in my case, with sensible Queue control).

 

[MyBloodyBallantine]

I have been interested in Tidal, but last time I checked their library just wasn't that great outside of the hip-hop and pop genres.

I listen to a lot of fairly obscure punk/metal/ambient/etc artists, and I don't think I've ever had a situation come up where I couldn't find something.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Spotify was, for a long time, my go-to. Their recommendations were pretty good. Not great, but good. Before that, and I remain pissed at Microsoft for not spinning this out rather than killing it: Zune. The Zune player was (and maybe is) the best-looking media player, and certainly better than iTunes (at the time). Wish they had though of the name "Groove" (Windows 7/8/10 app, I think) earlier. That subscription, the same price as Spotify, gave you tons of streaming and let you designate up to 10 songs per month as "bought". Meaning you could stream an album a lot and then "buy" some of them as permanently yours, even after your subscription ended.

But I stopped using Spotify as it got less focused and a worse deal. Apple Music now costs $6 a month for students, $12 a month for personal, and $17 for family. Pandora, which remains the best recommendation engine for me, costs $11 personal and $18 a month for family. Apple One, which includes Music, TV, Arcade, and online storage is $20 personal and $26 family. Which means, for a family plan, Spotify is now more expensive than Apple and Pandora. And it means that for family, an extra $6 gets you all the premium Apple TV content AND Arcade, which remains...meh, but does offer ad-free versions of good travel games. Spotify isn't a great deal anymore.

If it went back to being a better deal that those that it's competing against, if it spun out podcasts as a separate subscription, I'd give it a go again. If it copied Zune and let you "buy" an album a month as part of the subscription? I'd go back right away.

But the value isn't there for me. So I migrated my stuff out. And without change, I'm not going back. I don't care about Joe Rogan.

 

[Tridus]

Never mind the price hike (it's still low enough for the value imo) but the user experience has been steadily degrading with every passing year as they shovel in junk like audiobook recommendations and tiktok autoplaying videos in between you and the playlist you want to play.

I'd like to see a good run down of alternatives to Spotify. What other service has a large selection of music, halfway decent recommendations, the ability to do offline listening with a phone app, a browser based client for listening while on a locked down corporate PC, and no advertising?

What counts as "decent recommendations" is probably pretty variable. I found Spotify's recommendations were awful for me and YT Music did far better, but I don't think thats the typical experience.

It does definitely tick all those boxes, though. Been using it for a while and it's done the job.

 

[NameRedacted]

I can't speak about AppleTV, but CarPlay for Tidal is just as good as Spotify's. Unsure when you've lasted looked at Tidal but in my experience since ditching Spotify not long ago it's a very nice move. Also cheaper.

It was a month ago, and I couldn’t get it to play track radio properly. And it wouldn’t continue playing when I got back into the car.

I didn’t spend that much time on it because the AppleTV app was that bad.

 

[mikeschr]

I don't subscribe to Spotify because I prefer a radio-style format and I rarely look to play a specific song that I don't already own, so I've been happy with Pandora for many years. This business of adding unwanted features and then raising the price is something I run into in other services I use, though, and it's driven me away from some.

 

[Fl3shy]

Tidal and Apple Product teams should have a poster on their walls that says "Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake"

 

[sigmasirrus]

Never mind the price hike (it's still low enough for the value imo) but the user experience has been steadily degrading with every passing year as they shovel in junk like audiobook recommendations and tiktok autoplaying videos in between you and the playlist you want to play.

I'd like to see a good run down of alternatives to Spotify. What other service has a large selection of music, halfway decent recommendations, the ability to do offline listening with a phone app, a browser based client for listening while on a locked down corporate PC, and no advertising?

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

 

[cryptowaste]

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?

I checked last year when I jumped off Spotify and Tidal's Japanese music selection is insanely terrible. Songs that would be in the top 100 karaoke songs simply weren't there. They also mix artists, so with this Japanese artist B'z you have some Spanish rap album 'Impuro' on top of next to no albums. Same deal with other streaming services with the exception of Apple Music when I went surfing for a new streaming service. I'm not a fan of big tech and how artists continue to be terribly paid which is why I'm shifting back to self-hosted gradually buying up albums again.

 

[nehinks]

Slightly offtopic, but I just wanted to say I appreciated the quotes from users being sourced from various forums, rather than embedding the most popular tweets (which I can pretty much guarantee is what would have happened 2 years ago).

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

What counts as "decent recommendations" is probably pretty variable. I found Spotify's recommendations were awful for me and YT Music did far better, but I don't think thats the typical experience.

It does definitely tick all those boxes, though. Been using it for a while and it's done the job.

I originally tried YTM when Fi offered a free Premium trial, and it's been pretty good in that regard for me. I don't necessarily love everything in the Discover Mix, but I rarely ever skip tracks in it because they're usually pretty good at finding things similar to my searches. It also helps that YTM is bundled with Premium, because I don't think I'd be willing to pay $14/month for either one, but together I get no ads on YouTube and a decent music service.

That said, if audio quality is important, just use Deezer or Tidal. YTM is usually decent in terms of audio quality, but I've definitely found some tracks that sounded like they were recorded by holding a phone speaker to a gaming headset mic.

 

[blank0]

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.

 

[Scone Muncher]

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.

 

[Marcus Andreus]

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 mean, yes, music streaming is a better consumer environment than movies and TV, but I'm not sure your point of comparison for fairness and cost should be Disney+ and Netflix. Spotify has competitors in the music streaming space that (now) cost less.

If you think $12 Spotify is a good deal for music, you should really be jazzed about Tidal's and Apple's price.

 

[Rachelhikes]

Shittier product, higher prices. It’s all about making number go up for investors, and is the business model for our age.

 

[ChesterCardigan]

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

No

 

[Rachelhikes]

No

You mean: Not YET. But it has to happen. Number needs to go up.

 

[objectofconstantwidth]

Remember when we didn't have Spotify in the U.S., and we couldn't wait to get it?

Now with all the unwanted extras, popup ads and price increases, I can't wait to get rid of it. Unfortunately for me, I thought it would be nice to put my elderly parents on my family plan. Now it's going to be rough switching them to Apple Music and teaching them how to use it.

 

[jandrese]

During Spotify's Q1 2024 earnings call, Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek called 2024 Spotify's "year of monetization" and said the company would focus on "strong revenue growth and margin expansion" via "ambitious plans."

If you have not cancelled your subscription yet this is what you have in store. Apparently they're not feeling pressure from competition and have gone full monopolist.

 

[Einlanzerous]

Their biggest podcaster's stance that vaccines need a debate or aren't needed for "healthy" people or whatever he's yammering about at the moment tells me all I need to know about what price Spotify is worth.

(spoiler: it's not worth it)

Yeah and their heavy support of him is why I dropped the service and deleted my account. I had been paying for years. I also don't want my music app to do lots of random shit. If they want that, maybe they can have a tier for, "I want to pay extra for a grab bag of content".

 

[objectofconstantwidth]

No

What do you call the pop ups and banners for merch and concert tickets? I'm not expert, but those seem like ads to me.

 

[DaveSimmons]

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'd be fine with paying $12 a month if the extra $3 went to the musicians I listen to instead of Joe Rogan.

 

[Zeebee]

It seems to me streaming music is just not profitable. Apple, google and Amazon have other revenue streams they can tap into to compensate for low streaming revenue.

The problem migh not be the revenue. They have 220 million premium subscribers and had €13.24 billion revenue in 2023... but still a loss of €532 million. The problem could the operational costs of the 300 million non-subscribers using the free trie; if they don't make much on ads, that could be what's losing so much money, and they might not want to cancel that their for fear of losing relevance.

As for the price increase... from 2011 to 2024 inflation was roughly ~35%. So I'm not so surprised by this price increase; it was pretty unlikely that they'd be able to keep their 2011 prices while also being unprofitable.

 

[icwhatudidthere]

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've been using Pocket Casts for years but they started offering a subscription a few years ago. Even without the sub, it's pretty good and still supports local file playback. It also has CarPlay support and an app in the Android Automotive Play Store.

I've moved what I could to YouTube Music Podcasts since I have Premium and thus no ads. But the podcast support is hackish and incomplete.

 

[emag]

I find Spotify's music discovery to be pretty awful (but I moved over from Pandora). The thing that keeps me subscribed is that Spotify hasn't yet cracked down on households for family plans so I can still share with my spouse and our siblings, despite some of them living in different states. Apple Music and Google/YT family subscriptions are tied to accounts that control broader Apple and Google service ecosystems, which makes them nonstarters. So I guess I'll have to take the $3/mo hit (for now).

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?

Overcast (iOS) is excellent, particularly for lightly editing output (gap reduction, smart speedup, volume normalizing). Pocket Casts (Android) is also pretty good (apart from the messy UI).

 

[nom3ramy]

Spotify has previously declined to specify to Ars Technica the exact criteria required for receiving a full refund on Car Thing.

This is a give-away that they have no set policy, work hard to discourage or derail refund requests, and/or negotiate whatever minimum any given customer will settle for.

 

[WD40orTape]

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

Yes. My home page is filled with sponsored content that someone is paying Spotify to place there. It was impossible to get Joe Rogan off of my suggestions for months, despite never using Spotify for podcasts and definitely never listening to Rogan.

There's a fine difference between a suggestion algorithm and advertising, and Spotify has fallen more and more heavily on the advertising side over the past several years.

 

[gommer]

They're not even getting the music part right. Whenever an OST(Original Soundtrack) of a video game or a movie appears on Spotify, why aren't the OSTs of the expansion packs included?

Fix that and then maybe I'll come back. Until then I can find the music on YouTube better than from Spotify.

 

[Deleted member 440187]

I'll keep Spotify because, even at $20, the family plan for the five people I have on it, is a good deal and it would be frustrating to have to tell my kids all to switch to something else. I hate the interface, primarily because when I hit search, it doesn't put the cursor in the search box and, instead, makes me tap there, then type. I'm sure I'm using it wrong, but I just want something simple.

It seems that Spotify isn't making a profit, artists aren't being paid well enough (?), and executive pay may be reasonable (https://www.comparably.com/companies/spotify/executive-salaries). So, this doesn't seem unreasonable, and I appreciate they are putting the cancel link out in the open. Pretty straightforward - no gimmicks.

Like so many firms, the "get them hooked on free" model doesn't work because you can't make it up on volume with free. So, at some point you have to charge (or have advertising - should they have had ads instead? Another popular thing with Ars commenters!) but the baseline price remains $0 in people's heads. Certainly if podcasts were subsidizing music, they should stop that, but that may not be the case.

What should it be? I remember paying $10 for an album in the 1980s (got Dark Side of the Moon for $5.99 at Record World on sale!) or about $40 in today's money. Six albums a year gives five people in my family access to pretty much any song they want.

For some reason I don't get advertisements on my home page on my computer; it sounds like others do. Once in a while there is a concert announcement for a band on my playlist, but I don't mind that so much because I'm glad to hear they're still around and making some money.

 

[ikjadoon]

https://www.nme.com/news/music/musi...-of-creating-content-is-close-to-zero-3761004
These clowns.

In more ways than one. This was announced last month:

https://techcrunch.com/podcast/spotify-to-spend-1b-buying-its-own-stock/

 

[schnackenpfefferhausen]

Hey Siri:
Play A Pirate’s Life for Me on Spotify.

 

[EBone]

Hard to make a profit when a huge chunk of company income gets shoveled to a misogynist anti-vax shitweasel.

 

[Scone Muncher]

I hate the interface, primarily because when I hit search, it doesn't put the cursor in the search box and, instead, makes me tap there, then type. I'm sure I'm using it wrong, but I just want something simple.

On my phone if you double-tap the search icon (at the bottom of the screen) it puts the cursor in the box.

For some reason I don't get advertisements on my home page on my computer; it sounds like others do. Once in a while there is a concert announcement for a band on my playlist, but I don't mind that so much because I'm glad to hear they're still around and making some money.

Same here. I wonder if my Pi-Hole is eating the ads...?

 

[Super King]

I'm probably the only here who uses Spotify for podcasts and it's terrible at that. It will auto play the same podcast I just finished listening to, even when I filter already played, all the podcasts that I already listened to still show up. The worst is when it autoplays a podcast I am not subscribed to that is either not really NSFW or super embarrassing, I listen to science and infotainment then it will play some murder or other real world violence thing that I do not want to hear about.
Definitely down for suggestions for an alternative

 

[DelvenDarcaine]

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 second the Overcast recommendation. I still use the Apple Podcast app cause I like the UX, but I use Overcast as my podcast storage cause I don’t like my APC app to feel cluttered with a bunch of podcasts I’m not currently listening to, but I use it on occasion and it works really well.

 

[schnackenpfefferhausen]

Only reason I still have a Spotify subscription is the integration with my Bose soundbar (Bluetooth, of course, is an alternative.. but that plays all sounds from my phone, not just the music I want..)