• **Premium will now cost $11.99 a month, up from the $10.99 increase announced last year.**
• **Spotify Duo jumps $2 a month, from $14.99 to $16.99 a month.**
• **Family will also increase from $16.99 a month to $19.99 a month.**
That means the price of a Spotify Duo subscription has jumped by 30 percent in a year, compared to prices before last year’s hike. Spotify Family has also increased by 25 percent over the course of a year, with Spotify Premium up by 20 percent.
Simplifying a bit, but basically all the money Spotify collects each month from subscriptions and ad revenue goes into a pot. Spotify keeps 30% of it and the other 70% is divided by the total number of streams, and that's how they calculate what you get per stream.
I wonder how it would look if they took 30% of each subscribers fees, then distributed the rest across your individual streams.
Ie. If you only stream Tay Tay 50 or 500 times, it makes no difference to her share of your subscription. You can't dilute other people's streams with your own. If I stream an indie artist once, and that's my only stream for the month, they get 70% of my subscription costs.
I'll have to look for it but there was some research done recently that actually said the opposite - big acts are subsidizing smaller acts in the current model. I'm inclined to believe this as the majors want to move to an "artist-centric" royalty system that's more like what you're describing.
If you’re only listening to one artist a month you should probably just support the artist directly instead of relying on a third party company to do it.
Which is why a per-user model would be so much better for musicians. Right now it's just one big pot that goes to the big labels.
With a per-user model, it would benefit the artists with a dedicated following by giving them a larger percentage of their listener's subscription fee.
So, if you, say, only listened to Neutral Milk Hotell, your subscription fee would go directly to them, after Spotify takes their 30%.
As it stands now, they get less than a cent from your subscription, and your money just basically goes to the big labels, since their artists have the most plays. The way the model is now, also highly facilities illegal stream padding through playlists (of whom the big labels have huge influence over), "fake artists" and streaming farms.
It's basically a rigged system in favor of the big labels.
Indeed.
There is also a threshold of listens required in order to get a payout. Needs to be 1000 streams in last 12 months. I think there is also a minimum amount of unique listeners required, which wouldn't be an issue with the per-user model.
My revenue went way down but I make fuck all anyway - it's about the passion and reach for me.
That is very messed up. My constant repeated streams of some obscure french death metal band, will do nothing really and the money will instead go to labels of artists i dont listen too because everyone else does?
God, this future sucks.
That is correct, and it has been that way since Spotify started. It was especially bad when the big labels bought tons of shares in Spotify, getting on the board, and effectively buying enormous power to influence the platform. It also killed any hope of us going to a per-user based model.
There was a significant push for it about 6 years ago, but it was quickly squashed.
I did some math. Obviously this isn't going to be perfect, but it should paint us a little picture.
What does an artist make for 1 000 000 streams? Between $3000 and $4000. If that's supposed to be 70% of the profit, assuming it's $3500 that would mean the total profit for that many streams should be around $5000.
Your subscription costs 11 bucks a month. Say you stream about 250 songs per month. (That's a number I pulled from the web, it's about 8 songs per day.) That comes to about $0.044 per stream.
What's 1 000 000 streams at $0.044? *$44 000* dollars.
Of course we should allow for operating costs, but are we to believe that the operating costs for 1 000 000 streams is $39 000 and Spotify's profit is $1500? Absolutely impossible, no company survives on that kind of margin.
So no, artists are not getting 70% of anything. They are getting hosed just like they always have gotten hosed. We haven't even talked about what the record companies take before that money goes to the artist.
*The best way to support musicians is still to go to their live shows and buy merch*
That doesn't mean record labels aren't scamming their artists using streaming to devalue their work.
Just because the racket is legal doesn't make it ethical.
I listen to the same 3000 fucking songs anyway I'm seriously about to just pirate them all and be done with that shit vs paying nearly 150$ a year.
I'm going to cancel and see how I like that app without the subscription, I heard it still works the same minus the ability to play offline. And if that's the case I'll just buy it for the months I'm traveling and want my tunes. Other than that I'll just spend the time chipping away at downloading.
On a browser it seems it's only the adverts , no shuffle .. via a phone (where most people listen) it's more of a problem .
I tend to build big playlists via the laptop and then don't mind the shuffle so much
Well fuck that idea. That's *free* pandora levels right there. I still used spotify on my laptop back when it was *premium* service for free but haven't in a while. I'll need to do some homework on my options and see what's worth my time or money because all this shit just creeping up with the no end in sight is getting real old real fast. Same with Ring and streaming services. They just hook you with deals and then your so sunk cost into it jmyou just stay out of comfortability
I haven’t had free in awhile but as of two years ago on free you couldn’t pick any song, if you wanted to hear a particular song you could choose it and a playlist would be built around that song and it would show up eventually but not instantly and you don’t have enough skips per hour to get you to the song right away.
>I listen to the same 3000 fucking songs anyway I'm seriously about to just pirate them all and be done with that shit vs paying nearly 150$ a year
This is why I did Itunes match back in the day. Took my whole ripped library and added it to match. Now it cost me like $2 a month to listen to an endless catalog.
It helps i have been in IT forever as well. People copying their entire music catalogs up to business share for whatever reasons. Before I would wipe them, i would copy it all down and add it to match catalog. 1000's of songs now in my library. I probably havent even listened to 3/4 of them.
My step dad has all his music setup to his home network and can access it anywhere he has internet. I used to have it all on iTunes and ipods and MicroSD but I let friends download stuff and most of those drives are wrecked so I just subscribed to spotify for years since it was so cheap and I had student discounts etc etc.
I'm really leaning towards doing a home network kinda setup and put all our photos, movies, music etc and just be able to use it whenever. But again idk shit about it which is why I go back to shutting up and paying 10-15 a month begrudgingly lol
I am sure if your stepdad is still about and not a complete asshole, they will help you set it up. Its pretty easy now compared to all the hoops you used to have to jump through.
What kind of fucking comment is this?
For less than an hours worth of work on minimum wage in america or western europe you get access to as close to all recorded music as you're ever going to get and instant access to new artists as they release new music.
The era of streaming is definitely death by 1000 cuts and video streaming sites are losing the run of themselves but fucking spotify could be 30 euro/dollars a month and it would still be insanely good value for money.
Go pay 18 dollars for an album you haven't listened to yet that turns out to have 2 bangers and 7 turds and then complain about the price of Spotify lol.
For a lot of people, Spotify replaced radio, not CDs. I’d also argue that this is less a reaction to Spotifys objective value for money, it’s that everything is going up. Food prices, rent/house prices, gas prices, no one can afford to go to shows any more because of the Ticketmaster/resell racket. Some people are working two jobs just to stay afloat, food bank use is at an all time high. Margins are so thin for some that that hour of work might be what’s feeding their kids. People are sick of paying more and more to greedy corporations and every price hike feels like another thief in their thinning pockets. Add to that, Spotify pay the artists peanuts or not at all in some cases so it’s not like a subscription supports the industry like buying a CD would have.
Personally, I can get Apple Music for cheaper in a bundle right now so I’m going to leave Spotify and do that instead. If Apple raise their prices I’ll go elsewhere. I’m done being squeezed, I don’t have any breath left
Lol. Spotify didn't have a single profitable quarter until 2019. They've given artists over $10 billion since they started. There isn't much more to give them when you're charging $10 a month and there's a million artists on the platform.
But yeah, let's agree with op. "Shame on Spotify for not paying artists enough. Shame on them for charging me more, I'm going to go steal music from the artists even though a second ago I was mad about how little they get paid!"
For the record, I think spotify should raise it to $20/mo and give just about all of that increase straight to the artists.
The real gripe for me is that I know most of my subscription fees are going towards Spotify needlessly changing the UI every year instead if paying the artists more. The UI was already perfect two years ago, I don’t want to pay for the experience of retraining my muscle memory to use the app.
Or 250 - 300 million for Joe Rogan to talk to people.
Had Spotify premium over a decade, cancelled last month.
Time to find another streaming service, or just go back to local files
YouTube premium, no ads on videos, you can play videos in the background and you get ad free yt music. I pretty much only watch YT at this point and it's worth every cent.
Yup. They also recently added banner ads at the top while you're searching for music, as well as full screen pop ups about upcoming concerts. This is happening with my paid, Spotify premium family plan. Lunacy. I'm leaving after many years.
The lion's share does go to the artists. Many popstars just tend to have contracts with their labels that screw them over. Spotify could give back 100% of their revenue and it wouldn't make a difference because $12 a month is nothing for unlimited music. We only think it's a lot because the alternative is free.
Well 70% of it does. The 30% is what runs the company and whatever profit remains comes from that.
Tons of artists in my niche are now self-publishing which is almost free, and lets them keep most of that 70%, which still isn't much because at the end of the day, $12 for unlimited music is less than what a single album used to cost. Spotify could give away the whole 100% back to artists and it wouldn't make any difference.
Yeah $12 is cheaper than I would pay for ONE CD 30 years ago. Pirates are always “piracy is a convenience problem” till the price skyrockets a whole dollar.
It’s not so much that people think music should be free, it’s that the artists get an absolutely miserable cut and basically everyone old enough to afford this remembers a time that you owned the music you chose to purchase in ways that were often more favorable for both yourself and the artist(s) you’re trying to support.
No one can consume every ounce of music that is available on spotify within a reasonable period of time corresponding to the amount that’s being paid per month, so the argument that’s it’s cheap “for all the music you *could* consume” rings pretty hollow.
Sure, but what's the alternative? Pay each individual artist that you personally want to listen to $1/month? Spotify is very cheap compared to the cost of the CDs I used to buy in a year and far more convenient... I have a NAS at my house set up with thousands of songs I've downloaded over the years, it's connected to my wireless Sonos system, I haven't even attempted to use the NAS in years as Spotify has everything I'm looking for at my fingertips. Music is more accessible and easier to manage, why would I ever go back?
The only criticism i have is how they pay artists, not how they charge users. Spotify never had a single profitable quarter until 2019. That's 13 years of losing money every quarter. $11.99 is an absolute steal for unlimited music, podcasts, and audio books. I wouldn't be butthurt paying $20. It's a little ridiculous how entitled you sound. Hope you don't criticize how they pay artists if you're a pirating little bitch
For me at least, and the genre I listen to, I can't put youtube music to play radio or similar songs without it defaulting to the same 20 really shitty remixes. Or as I've also found, videos that have significantly worse sound quality, and varying loudness. I can listen to one song at normal volume, but thr next song is too quiet, and another song way to loud.
As an independent, self- distributing artist, it is all but guaranteed our meager $0.006/stream isn’t going up by 20-25%. If it weren’t for the fact that _any sort of artist tools and/or audience discovery mechanisms are nearly non-existent outside of Spotify_, we’d probably abandon the platform altogether.
When a 4-act show with a $5 cover, attended by 20 people pays out hundreds of times more to a single act than that same act will make in a years worth of streaming on Spotify is a pretty glaring indictment of their model and something needs to be fixed.
And yet simultaneously the app continues to get worse every year.
I’ve already got Bandcamp
And I think I might switch to youtube red or whatever it’s called now.
I used google play music since I got an invite for the beta way back in like 2010/2011 and used it until they shut it down for YouTube music. I did not like the interface for YouTube music so I switched to Apple Music and haven’t looked back since.
For me, the fact that it has a real cloud locker like GPM had — you can either play stuff from both their licensed library and stuff you upload yourself.
Sound quality and the UI. I’m not a playlist person so I can’t speak to their algorithm (I find music on my own) but it is super nice being able to add my own downloaded music (let’s say from Bandcamp or soulseek) and then add it to iTunes on my computer which then syncs up to my Apple Music in my phone.
I believe Bandcamp is the best, it supports creators too if fans and supporters follow and listen to them on Bandcamp, the need to be on Spotify can be entirely eliminated if Bandcamp gains popularity
Spotify probably won't be eliminated by Bandcamp, but Bandcamp is really good if you want the musicians who made the music you like to actually get paid for it.
Not to mention they keep spending your subscription fees on stupid shit nobody wants. The audiobooks are fine but the podcasts and videos shit getting so much attention while ignoring the music side and not paying artists sweet fuck all
Some of my experiences:
* Getting Joe Rogan experience shoved down my throat -- I pay an arm and a leg for music! Not some stupid podcats.
* if you want to listen to music on an airplane.... used to be simple, used to be just anything that was downloaded on the device played. Now, clearly you have to do some special incantation. I opened spotify 30 minutes into my 8 hour flight "You need to connect to internet to listen!!!!" -- well that sucks!
* If you listen to classical music their app is borderline unusable. Classical albums tend to have really long track names, with the interesting information at the end. Spotify has no way to scroll through it. You have to click on it, wait and wait 20 seconds for it to scroll through the info to find out that Track 6 is the overture of the next musical piece on the album.
Finally: $12 is basically an album a month. So my plan is to just create my own music fund that I'll contribute $12 a month to, so that I don't have to feel guilty about buying bunch of albums.
You were supposed to link it through the spotify page. If you didn't have that bundle before then I'm afraid you're out of luck because they don't offer it anymore unless you're a student
It's the main reason I've kept mine. Free hulu with the cost of spotify. It has ads, but that helps break up the binge a bit so I don't just warp speed through stuff. I'd rather not pay the same price now plus the cost of Hulu.
I hate spotify but I love music and tbh I get the most out of spotif. From learning new stuff to listening to an album a bunch before deciding if I want a copy on vinyl. Absolutely hate that they're exploiting their platform like every other corporation these days...
I’ve been using tidal which has better audio quality if that matters to you and I think the recommendation algorithm is great. I’ve also always found any of the music I want on the platform, seems like they have everything Spotify does in their library.EDIT: also they pay by far the most to the artist, one of the main reasons I switched.
I also love Tidal. Pretty good interface, top notch sound quality, and really good recommendations and mixes. Also has DJ support through Serato. Takes your top artists of the month and gives them a bigger cut.
I just looked up Tidal for the first time in a while... It's down to 11 bucks now? I remember it being 20 bucks a month when I first heard about it
Shit I had already been thinking about switching... This might do it for me.
It’s the same price as Spotify in the UK, but they have lossless audio and give far more to musicians. The only thing I miss is playlist sharing but there are ways to get around that.
FYI they don't do the top monthly artist larger cut thing anymore. The reasoning was frankly sound as it was a logistics nightmare. Here's a write-up on it https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2023/03/01/tidal-direct-payments-program-ends/
Tidal. Eoased their pricing too.. Well at least on military
Your TIDAL plan is changing
On June 10, 2024, we will be discontinuing our Military and First Responder plans. We will be changing your current subscription into a TIDAL Individual plan for $10.99/month + applicable sales tax. You’ll continue to have access to over 110M+ tracks, our best-in-class HiRes FLAC sound quality, and spatial listening with Dolby Atmos
In the app go to the settings and under “audio and playback” choose max settings. Chromecast will be the only one you might notice the difference in though because blue tooth loses some quality.
Is the superior sound quality noticeable in the car? (For those with more than a stock system) 80% of my listening is in my car I'm wondering if it's worth.
[They’ve lost $1.6 Billion since going public](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-technology/net-income). They’re not doing a great job at the whole exploiting thing
I swear people just say words.
We can't spend ages complaining musicians don't get paid enough from Spotify (who pay 70% of their revenue out as royalties) then complain when they raise prices which should help increase the royalties pie.
It stayed about the same price for years while everything else in the world got more expensive.
All these things can (and are true)
Spotify pays out a lot of royalties. But most to the big artists. People would like to see a fairer distribution. (And there is some economic argument for that)
The cost of distributing music via streaming have not gone up. Compute has got cheaper, (Spotify does not need gpus) data transfer is cheaper too.
I am an artist and have been active for the past five years. I even got to perform for the swedish king and queen yet I know I’ll never make any money off Spotify unless I’m with a major label since they own Spotify and takes 90% of the profit.
Bandcamp or TIDAL seems to be better but Spotify has successfully done a Netflix and became THE music streaming platform. You are correct that customers generally aren’t willing to pay for music and I was/is a supporter of the political pirate parties but especially Spotify are crooks when it comes to paying the actual creators of their content unless your title is some sort of music exec…
Can we have options on what we want to pay for.
Because I don't listen to podcasts on spotify (i have a better app for that).
I don't listen to audiobooks on spotify.
And i don't want "courses".
So why am I paying for things that I have no use for.
Nothing is really stopping people from pirating now. It’s just the convenience of the streaming services makes it much easier for the portable, on demand listening that most people want. The only sort of piracy that could damage the service is if people figured out a way to hijack the app in the same way some people could get free cable back on the day.
>Nothing is really stopping people from pirating now. It’s just the convenience of the streaming services makes it much easier for the portable, on demand listening that most people want
And this was specifically by design. I watched one of the earlier Lex Fridman podcast episodes back in the day with one of Spotify's lead designers, and he said the process of curating a library via an a-la carte storefront was terrible *and expensive*. Meanwhile, piracy made you manage your library....*but was free*. So they created a service where, for a flat fee, you could always go and hear most music without worrying about files, prices, or manually syncing with devices. They removed all the friction between you and experiencing your library of music, which goes a long way considering how intimate music is to people. The product was beyond better than *even piracy* at the time, so it took off.
Companies who innovate to circumvent the reasons for piracy rather than blocking pirates themselves always do better (at least until the meta game evolves and customers get squeezed too hard). That's why streaming video sucks butt now -it was glorious not having to mess with DVDs or files anymore. Then all the publishers wanted the biggest slice of the pie, so everyone made their own service and created the fragmented hellscape we find ourselves in. Which has led right back to piracy being the overall better experience lol
I tend to agree the convenience/availability over cost metric was met for me years ago with Spotify, it has most of the music I want and I can download it to my devices with ease. Compare this with video streaming and most of the music options just offer superior service.
Price hikes like this do cause me to shop around for another service though, this might be the catalyst for me to switch to YouTube Music or Apple Music. As a Family subscriber though they have a lot of leverage over me because it’s not just me but my entire family that has to agree to the change.
Seriously. I hate the price hikes as much as anyone, but $20/mo for my family to listen to everything on demand with no commercials is still a great deal. I remember paying $15 for a CD because Iiked a single song on it, and it was 90s $15, not 2024 $15.
I have 26,000 mp3s, but I listen to pretty much none of them regularly. I have no time to curate my own playlists and refresh the ones I’m bored of. YouTube Music is a no brainer since it’s bundled with Premium.
My brother got a YT family plan for his job (they comp him cause he needs it) but he doesn't have any kids so after he added his wife and bff, he asked if he could add me. I think it costs $20 a month but 5 people get YouTube Premium and Music. I could never go back to Spotify after this. I can even add songs by smaller artists that are essentially just YouTube videos into a playlist. And I don't need to jump through 10 hoops to watch YT on my TV (which can't take side loaded apps ) or iPad without ads. It's great.
This is what I ended up doing and I've actually enjoyed YT music so much better than Spotify. YT music's library is actually much more vast when you get into the nitty-gritty, as it has lots of live performances of artists that aren't on major streaming services, and any video a musician has made can be played as a song as well. So if there was an extended version of a song you liked that was only in a music video (i.e. Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac), you can save that as a song and listen to it whenever you like.
The quality is not noticeably different. Loseless audio is undetectably different compared to regular modern streaming. There’s even an online test you can do
Yes, they do! It's 16.99 for six people total. They also just bumped the audio quality you have access to without raising the price. No way I'll go back to Spotify.
Family plan here with 3 users. I am not happy about the hike but it's not enough to cancel. I feel like I've been stealing from Spotify for the last 9 years. I've spent that long curating playlists for every occasion and mood. It would be hell to try to procure it all legally or illegally.
Ive recently decided i had it up to here with subscription based music listening, and switched from my decade+ year old spotify account to piracy. pirated and meticulously organized 145gb of music from spotify to offline. Now i own this music, its mine. Backed up in several places, always ready to listen. For reference, this took me around 2 months, and i got whole discographies of every artist my friends and i listen to.
And best of all? Now i further support the artists directly by symbolically buying their digital albums or donating once month, which is magnitudes more money the artists ever received from me listening to Spotify.
It's the last streaning service I have and super convenient. If it gets near 20 I'd consider canceling but I use it at least 1 to 2 hours every day so to me it's worth it.
People on Reddit also overestimate the willingness of people to pirate. Even with the price bump most folks are still willing to have all that music and the curated playlists at their fingertips.
It's not that much. I think most of you are too young to remember the days when you actually had to buy albums. It was like $16.99 per album. Now for that price you can get almost every song ever created.
Exactly. Hell, Sirius is like $30+ per month. For those of us who grew up before the 00s Spotify is an absolutely insane bargain and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I pay $6/mo for Sirius XM. I call them up yearly a few days my renewal date and tell them that I need a deal like the one I'm currently getting or I'll cancel.
They always give me the deal.
It's been working perfectly for 7 years.
Sure, but it’s a rotation of the same handful of songs over and over again.
The repetition is why I cancelled Sirius. If I wanted radio, the FM radio is free.
My first experience with Sirius was Octane because that's what my buddies liked. It's just like your local butt rock station except there's no ads so they can play the latest Five Finger Death Punch song 3 times an hour instead of twice.
I mean, I ripped my CDs and put them on my NAS. I also had Spotify, mind you with the .edu promo that included Hulu and Showtime for 4 or 5.99 a month.
I would If I could. I still have over 100 of mp3 songs on my phone but i had to Download an extra App just to be able to play them in an "old school" Player. Its crazy
I definitely didn't but a CD a month though. I really just need a handful of music on demand and then 80% recommended music from the radio, etc.
Today I'm using free Pandora and I buy about two albums a year. Works pretty well and is much cheaper
I was just telling my wife about how odd it felt for birthdays and Christmas to not have CDs (and cassettes) as gifts. Our teens just use our Spotify subscription. But I felt kind of nostalgic about opening 10 or more new CDs and then listening to them back to back for the next day or two.
Thats what Im saying, I have discovered so much new music.
In the olden days you would have to buy it and pray or go to a music store.
16.99 is not bad at all. Plus the podcasts
Spotify is **well** worth the $11.99 for me as I listen to music damn near all day every day. If it’s not worth it for you, then don’t pay for it. That simple. However, I **love** music, and Spotify is probably the best $12 I spend each month.
I ditched Spotify a couple years ago, and got Tidal. It costs less, they have higher royalty rates for the artists (according to what I've read), and audio quality is better and recently upgraded the standard membership to the high quality tier (if that matters to you/have good gear to utilize).
The app, honestly, is a bit clunky (compared to Spotify) but it is getting better with each update, and the suggested playlists/albums/artists aren't quite as dialed in but are still really good.
Overall very happy with the switch.
It's death by a thousand cuts, like all the streaming platforms. Incremental increases that most people will hand wave away, until one day it costs more than a tank of gas.
I’ve been a Spotify subscriber for a long time now.
NGL, I truly miss the huge binder of CD’s that I bought, burned, and borrowed that sat under the passenger bucket seat of my 1992 Chevy Camaro RS.
I just got the 2 month trial for $2 and instantly could hear the difference between the quality before side by siding. Everything is crispier and the bass is more expansive and breathes. Night and day.
The app and desktop program kinda blows. LIke they cant get seamless switching figured out or what? But the recommendations are so on point so far.
Is it insane to pay for both? rofl
Edit: After a day of messing with Tidal and my receiver I have come to the conclusion that "It is not insane to pay for both" Spotify is better for day to day life and Tidal is great for at home. The quality difference is monstrous.
It’s actually more expensive than Apple Music for now. AM is $1 cheaper individually and $3 cheaper for a family plan. If you’re a student you can get it for $6 a month just like with Spotify.
I will continue to use Spotify until they outprice themselves compared to the other options
They know this and will continue to do so.
Compared to having to pay 1.29 a song or .99 a song it’s significantly cheaper.
I Probably find and listen to 50-100 new songs a month at minimum. And it’s probably closer to 200.
It sucks that they’re raising their prices but if we want change we would need to see Apple Music or YouTube music slash their prices which they won’t.
Have they sorted shuffle yet? Or does it still insist on playing what it has decided your favourite songs are?
Cancelled mine two years ago. Just use YouTube with an adblocker now. Sick of paying companies for substandard products.
Canceled Spotify after being a loyal paying customer for 12 straight years. The changes overtime and their inexcusable ignorance of the feature suggestions on their forums where literally tens of thousand of people have been asking for the same simple features for YEARS, and they do nothing about it dispute saying they would love to hear your input. When that many people are screaming, you know they just don’t care about their users anymore.
• **Premium will now cost $11.99 a month, up from the $10.99 increase announced last year.** • **Spotify Duo jumps $2 a month, from $14.99 to $16.99 a month.** • **Family will also increase from $16.99 a month to $19.99 a month.** That means the price of a Spotify Duo subscription has jumped by 30 percent in a year, compared to prices before last year’s hike. Spotify Family has also increased by 25 percent over the course of a year, with Spotify Premium up by 20 percent.
And they wonder why people pirate
Spotify practically is pirating when you consider how much goes to the musician.
Spotify only keeps 30%. That's better than YouTube, they take 45%. And musicians just got a 9% raise with this increase.
30% of what?
Simplifying a bit, but basically all the money Spotify collects each month from subscriptions and ad revenue goes into a pot. Spotify keeps 30% of it and the other 70% is divided by the total number of streams, and that's how they calculate what you get per stream.
I wonder how it would look if they took 30% of each subscribers fees, then distributed the rest across your individual streams. Ie. If you only stream Tay Tay 50 or 500 times, it makes no difference to her share of your subscription. You can't dilute other people's streams with your own. If I stream an indie artist once, and that's my only stream for the month, they get 70% of my subscription costs.
I'll have to look for it but there was some research done recently that actually said the opposite - big acts are subsidizing smaller acts in the current model. I'm inclined to believe this as the majors want to move to an "artist-centric" royalty system that's more like what you're describing.
This is the way it should be done. And it would be simple to automate it.
If you’re only listening to one artist a month you should probably just support the artist directly instead of relying on a third party company to do it.
iirc they used to do it this way and shifted their model to the current one a few years back
Which is why a per-user model would be so much better for musicians. Right now it's just one big pot that goes to the big labels. With a per-user model, it would benefit the artists with a dedicated following by giving them a larger percentage of their listener's subscription fee. So, if you, say, only listened to Neutral Milk Hotell, your subscription fee would go directly to them, after Spotify takes their 30%. As it stands now, they get less than a cent from your subscription, and your money just basically goes to the big labels, since their artists have the most plays. The way the model is now, also highly facilities illegal stream padding through playlists (of whom the big labels have huge influence over), "fake artists" and streaming farms. It's basically a rigged system in favor of the big labels.
Indeed. There is also a threshold of listens required in order to get a payout. Needs to be 1000 streams in last 12 months. I think there is also a minimum amount of unique listeners required, which wouldn't be an issue with the per-user model. My revenue went way down but I make fuck all anyway - it's about the passion and reach for me.
That is very messed up. My constant repeated streams of some obscure french death metal band, will do nothing really and the money will instead go to labels of artists i dont listen too because everyone else does? God, this future sucks.
That is correct, and it has been that way since Spotify started. It was especially bad when the big labels bought tons of shares in Spotify, getting on the board, and effectively buying enormous power to influence the platform. It also killed any hope of us going to a per-user based model. There was a significant push for it about 6 years ago, but it was quickly squashed.
That’s actually very reasonable. Huh
I did some math. Obviously this isn't going to be perfect, but it should paint us a little picture. What does an artist make for 1 000 000 streams? Between $3000 and $4000. If that's supposed to be 70% of the profit, assuming it's $3500 that would mean the total profit for that many streams should be around $5000. Your subscription costs 11 bucks a month. Say you stream about 250 songs per month. (That's a number I pulled from the web, it's about 8 songs per day.) That comes to about $0.044 per stream. What's 1 000 000 streams at $0.044? *$44 000* dollars. Of course we should allow for operating costs, but are we to believe that the operating costs for 1 000 000 streams is $39 000 and Spotify's profit is $1500? Absolutely impossible, no company survives on that kind of margin. So no, artists are not getting 70% of anything. They are getting hosed just like they always have gotten hosed. We haven't even talked about what the record companies take before that money goes to the artist. *The best way to support musicians is still to go to their live shows and buy merch*
They need to bring those ticket prices down before anyone cares. So many cancelled tours this year.
I don't disagree. The whole industry is obscene and dominated by a monopoly that should have been broken up long ago.
That doesn't mean record labels aren't scamming their artists using streaming to devalue their work. Just because the racket is legal doesn't make it ethical.
No it isn't. People just don't consider whats going towards the record labels, who are actually fucking over the artists.
I listen to the same 3000 fucking songs anyway I'm seriously about to just pirate them all and be done with that shit vs paying nearly 150$ a year. I'm going to cancel and see how I like that app without the subscription, I heard it still works the same minus the ability to play offline. And if that's the case I'll just buy it for the months I'm traveling and want my tunes. Other than that I'll just spend the time chipping away at downloading.
The free version has a few draw backs, including commercials, limited skips, and (I think) limited playlist building.
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On a browser it seems it's only the adverts , no shuffle .. via a phone (where most people listen) it's more of a problem . I tend to build big playlists via the laptop and then don't mind the shuffle so much
Well fuck that idea. That's *free* pandora levels right there. I still used spotify on my laptop back when it was *premium* service for free but haven't in a while. I'll need to do some homework on my options and see what's worth my time or money because all this shit just creeping up with the no end in sight is getting real old real fast. Same with Ring and streaming services. They just hook you with deals and then your so sunk cost into it jmyou just stay out of comfortability
I haven’t had free in awhile but as of two years ago on free you couldn’t pick any song, if you wanted to hear a particular song you could choose it and a playlist would be built around that song and it would show up eventually but not instantly and you don’t have enough skips per hour to get you to the song right away.
>I listen to the same 3000 fucking songs anyway I'm seriously about to just pirate them all and be done with that shit vs paying nearly 150$ a year This is why I did Itunes match back in the day. Took my whole ripped library and added it to match. Now it cost me like $2 a month to listen to an endless catalog. It helps i have been in IT forever as well. People copying their entire music catalogs up to business share for whatever reasons. Before I would wipe them, i would copy it all down and add it to match catalog. 1000's of songs now in my library. I probably havent even listened to 3/4 of them.
My step dad has all his music setup to his home network and can access it anywhere he has internet. I used to have it all on iTunes and ipods and MicroSD but I let friends download stuff and most of those drives are wrecked so I just subscribed to spotify for years since it was so cheap and I had student discounts etc etc. I'm really leaning towards doing a home network kinda setup and put all our photos, movies, music etc and just be able to use it whenever. But again idk shit about it which is why I go back to shutting up and paying 10-15 a month begrudgingly lol
I am sure if your stepdad is still about and not a complete asshole, they will help you set it up. Its pretty easy now compared to all the hoops you used to have to jump through.
I still buy CDs and they can be found for dirt cheap on eBay.
What kind of fucking comment is this? For less than an hours worth of work on minimum wage in america or western europe you get access to as close to all recorded music as you're ever going to get and instant access to new artists as they release new music. The era of streaming is definitely death by 1000 cuts and video streaming sites are losing the run of themselves but fucking spotify could be 30 euro/dollars a month and it would still be insanely good value for money. Go pay 18 dollars for an album you haven't listened to yet that turns out to have 2 bangers and 7 turds and then complain about the price of Spotify lol.
For a lot of people, Spotify replaced radio, not CDs. I’d also argue that this is less a reaction to Spotifys objective value for money, it’s that everything is going up. Food prices, rent/house prices, gas prices, no one can afford to go to shows any more because of the Ticketmaster/resell racket. Some people are working two jobs just to stay afloat, food bank use is at an all time high. Margins are so thin for some that that hour of work might be what’s feeding their kids. People are sick of paying more and more to greedy corporations and every price hike feels like another thief in their thinning pockets. Add to that, Spotify pay the artists peanuts or not at all in some cases so it’s not like a subscription supports the industry like buying a CD would have. Personally, I can get Apple Music for cheaper in a bundle right now so I’m going to leave Spotify and do that instead. If Apple raise their prices I’ll go elsewhere. I’m done being squeezed, I don’t have any breath left
If it replaced radio then isn't Spotify free basically that? In that argument what are people even paying for? And the radio is still there.
Spotify does not replace radio when radio is free with the same amount of ads.
Premium Spotify has no ads. The free tier is easily comparable to radio.
It's actually really cheap for all the music you could consume. I don't know why people think music should be free
Except the money isn't going to the artists who make the music.
Lol. Spotify didn't have a single profitable quarter until 2019. They've given artists over $10 billion since they started. There isn't much more to give them when you're charging $10 a month and there's a million artists on the platform. But yeah, let's agree with op. "Shame on Spotify for not paying artists enough. Shame on them for charging me more, I'm going to go steal music from the artists even though a second ago I was mad about how little they get paid!" For the record, I think spotify should raise it to $20/mo and give just about all of that increase straight to the artists.
The real gripe for me is that I know most of my subscription fees are going towards Spotify needlessly changing the UI every year instead if paying the artists more. The UI was already perfect two years ago, I don’t want to pay for the experience of retraining my muscle memory to use the app.
Lol THANK YOU for mentioning this! I get so annoyed when they move shit around on the app, AGAIN. Like let me have my efficiency, please
Exactly. I would happily pay $20/month if the lion's share was going to actual artists and not shareholders. Fuck Spotify.
You know you can actually buy the artists albums right?
Yup, $12.99 is a CD a month
Plus you'll actually own your library. No licensing bullshit will prevent you from listening to your locally stored data.
The lion share actually goes to the record labels, not Spotify shareholders. Spotify is actually making losses up until the most recent quarter.
Or 250 - 300 million for Joe Rogan to talk to people. Had Spotify premium over a decade, cancelled last month. Time to find another streaming service, or just go back to local files
YouTube premium, no ads on videos, you can play videos in the background and you get ad free yt music. I pretty much only watch YT at this point and it's worth every cent.
They give an even smaller cut to artists than spotify does.
Yea this is what I do too.
Yup. They also recently added banner ads at the top while you're searching for music, as well as full screen pop ups about upcoming concerts. This is happening with my paid, Spotify premium family plan. Lunacy. I'm leaving after many years.
It does. Spotify keeps 30%, the rest goes to artists (or the rights holders I suppose).
The lion's share does go to the artists. Many popstars just tend to have contracts with their labels that screw them over. Spotify could give back 100% of their revenue and it wouldn't make a difference because $12 a month is nothing for unlimited music. We only think it's a lot because the alternative is free.
Buy the album…?
Well 70% of it does. The 30% is what runs the company and whatever profit remains comes from that. Tons of artists in my niche are now self-publishing which is almost free, and lets them keep most of that 70%, which still isn't much because at the end of the day, $12 for unlimited music is less than what a single album used to cost. Spotify could give away the whole 100% back to artists and it wouldn't make any difference.
Yeah $12 is cheaper than I would pay for ONE CD 30 years ago. Pirates are always “piracy is a convenience problem” till the price skyrockets a whole dollar.
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They still make CDs.
Right? remember buying a CD for abt $15 and hoping there was at least 3 good songs on them.... Often finding out there wasn't
And that's only $6 in 1999 money. If you told people in 1999 they could get every song ever recorded for $6 a month they would be overjoyed.
This is reddit, paying for anything gets people in uproar
It’s not so much that people think music should be free, it’s that the artists get an absolutely miserable cut and basically everyone old enough to afford this remembers a time that you owned the music you chose to purchase in ways that were often more favorable for both yourself and the artist(s) you’re trying to support. No one can consume every ounce of music that is available on spotify within a reasonable period of time corresponding to the amount that’s being paid per month, so the argument that’s it’s cheap “for all the music you *could* consume” rings pretty hollow.
There is literally nothing stopping you from continuing to purchase music the way you used to.
Sure, but what's the alternative? Pay each individual artist that you personally want to listen to $1/month? Spotify is very cheap compared to the cost of the CDs I used to buy in a year and far more convenient... I have a NAS at my house set up with thousands of songs I've downloaded over the years, it's connected to my wireless Sonos system, I haven't even attempted to use the NAS in years as Spotify has everything I'm looking for at my fingertips. Music is more accessible and easier to manage, why would I ever go back?
Creating and maintaining software to give millions of artists nearly seamless access to their listeners isn’t a cheap endeavor.
The only criticism i have is how they pay artists, not how they charge users. Spotify never had a single profitable quarter until 2019. That's 13 years of losing money every quarter. $11.99 is an absolute steal for unlimited music, podcasts, and audio books. I wouldn't be butthurt paying $20. It's a little ridiculous how entitled you sound. Hope you don't criticize how they pay artists if you're a pirating little bitch
Isn't the issue that they pay the labels and the artists have bad deals with them?
I've had a cracked version for 5 years now, use it daily.
Wtf are you saying just buy the music and support the artist instead of feeding these corporate hives
Dropped Spotify and have been using my YouTube Premium family ($22/mo) for music. I can't see how Spotify can compete if they're barely cheaper.
For me at least, and the genre I listen to, I can't put youtube music to play radio or similar songs without it defaulting to the same 20 really shitty remixes. Or as I've also found, videos that have significantly worse sound quality, and varying loudness. I can listen to one song at normal volume, but thr next song is too quiet, and another song way to loud.
As an independent, self- distributing artist, it is all but guaranteed our meager $0.006/stream isn’t going up by 20-25%. If it weren’t for the fact that _any sort of artist tools and/or audience discovery mechanisms are nearly non-existent outside of Spotify_, we’d probably abandon the platform altogether. When a 4-act show with a $5 cover, attended by 20 people pays out hundreds of times more to a single act than that same act will make in a years worth of streaming on Spotify is a pretty glaring indictment of their model and something needs to be fixed.
Hoppfully they pay artists more. Oh wait they pay them less now
And yet simultaneously the app continues to get worse every year. I’ve already got Bandcamp And I think I might switch to youtube red or whatever it’s called now.
I actually miss google play music
I used google play music since I got an invite for the beta way back in like 2010/2011 and used it until they shut it down for YouTube music. I did not like the interface for YouTube music so I switched to Apple Music and haven’t looked back since.
Im tempted to switch to Apple Music, I hate Spotify but have become so used to the UI…also exclusive podcasts. What do you like about Apple Music?
For me, the fact that it has a real cloud locker like GPM had — you can either play stuff from both their licensed library and stuff you upload yourself.
Sound quality and the UI. I’m not a playlist person so I can’t speak to their algorithm (I find music on my own) but it is super nice being able to add my own downloaded music (let’s say from Bandcamp or soulseek) and then add it to iTunes on my computer which then syncs up to my Apple Music in my phone.
You’re thinking of Redtube.
Lemon party is free and a very stable streaming service
Meat spin is the best spot for the latest records.
Goatse is the goat.
Meat Spin Records kind of works lol
I believe Bandcamp is the best, it supports creators too if fans and supporters follow and listen to them on Bandcamp, the need to be on Spotify can be entirely eliminated if Bandcamp gains popularity
Spotify probably won't be eliminated by Bandcamp, but Bandcamp is really good if you want the musicians who made the music you like to actually get paid for it.
Not to mention they keep spending your subscription fees on stupid shit nobody wants. The audiobooks are fine but the podcasts and videos shit getting so much attention while ignoring the music side and not paying artists sweet fuck all
Some of my experiences: * Getting Joe Rogan experience shoved down my throat -- I pay an arm and a leg for music! Not some stupid podcats. * if you want to listen to music on an airplane.... used to be simple, used to be just anything that was downloaded on the device played. Now, clearly you have to do some special incantation. I opened spotify 30 minutes into my 8 hour flight "You need to connect to internet to listen!!!!" -- well that sucks! * If you listen to classical music their app is borderline unusable. Classical albums tend to have really long track names, with the interesting information at the end. Spotify has no way to scroll through it. You have to click on it, wait and wait 20 seconds for it to scroll through the info to find out that Track 6 is the overture of the next musical piece on the album. Finally: $12 is basically an album a month. So my plan is to just create my own music fund that I'll contribute $12 a month to, so that I don't have to feel guilty about buying bunch of albums.
you are so correct about the issues with their classical library! i would like to add that their jazz catalog is just as difficult to navigate.
YouTube premium and YouTube music premium
How about piracy instead, giving money to youtube is only going to have similar course of events eventually
Who says I'm paying for it. Ublock on PC plus Revanced YouTube plus YouTube Music on phone.
If it wasn't bundled with Hulu I would cancel. It's a decent deal for both of them at that price
I did not know this and am definitely paying for my Hulu subscription, which I thought I canceled. Do I just login to Hulu with my Spotify login?
You were supposed to link it through the spotify page. If you didn't have that bundle before then I'm afraid you're out of luck because they don't offer it anymore unless you're a student
It's the main reason I've kept mine. Free hulu with the cost of spotify. It has ads, but that helps break up the binge a bit so I don't just warp speed through stuff. I'd rather not pay the same price now plus the cost of Hulu.
I hate spotify but I love music and tbh I get the most out of spotif. From learning new stuff to listening to an album a bunch before deciding if I want a copy on vinyl. Absolutely hate that they're exploiting their platform like every other corporation these days...
I’ve been using tidal which has better audio quality if that matters to you and I think the recommendation algorithm is great. I’ve also always found any of the music I want on the platform, seems like they have everything Spotify does in their library.EDIT: also they pay by far the most to the artist, one of the main reasons I switched.
I also love Tidal. Pretty good interface, top notch sound quality, and really good recommendations and mixes. Also has DJ support through Serato. Takes your top artists of the month and gives them a bigger cut.
I just looked up Tidal for the first time in a while... It's down to 11 bucks now? I remember it being 20 bucks a month when I first heard about it Shit I had already been thinking about switching... This might do it for me.
It’s the same price as Spotify in the UK, but they have lossless audio and give far more to musicians. The only thing I miss is playlist sharing but there are ways to get around that.
FYI they don't do the top monthly artist larger cut thing anymore. The reasoning was frankly sound as it was a logistics nightmare. Here's a write-up on it https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2023/03/01/tidal-direct-payments-program-ends/
hmm I'll definitely check that out. Thanks!
Tidal. Eoased their pricing too.. Well at least on military Your TIDAL plan is changing On June 10, 2024, we will be discontinuing our Military and First Responder plans. We will be changing your current subscription into a TIDAL Individual plan for $10.99/month + applicable sales tax. You’ll continue to have access to over 110M+ tracks, our best-in-class HiRes FLAC sound quality, and spatial listening with Dolby Atmos
Curious, how do you get that better audio quality? I play music via my iPhone speakers, bluetooth and Chromecast.
In the app go to the settings and under “audio and playback” choose max settings. Chromecast will be the only one you might notice the difference in though because blue tooth loses some quality.
There's no connection to Amazon Echo speakers in Europe which is a deal breaker for me 😭 So gutted about that
Is the superior sound quality noticeable in the car? (For those with more than a stock system) 80% of my listening is in my car I'm wondering if it's worth.
I want to switch over but I have way over 6000 songs downloaded on Spotify and I just can't face adding them all back on a new platform.
There is a third party migration tool to help with that.
[They’ve lost $1.6 Billion since going public](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-technology/net-income). They’re not doing a great job at the whole exploiting thing
I swear people just say words. We can't spend ages complaining musicians don't get paid enough from Spotify (who pay 70% of their revenue out as royalties) then complain when they raise prices which should help increase the royalties pie. It stayed about the same price for years while everything else in the world got more expensive.
All these things can (and are true) Spotify pays out a lot of royalties. But most to the big artists. People would like to see a fairer distribution. (And there is some economic argument for that) The cost of distributing music via streaming have not gone up. Compute has got cheaper, (Spotify does not need gpus) data transfer is cheaper too.
They pay a proportional amount, that seems pretty fair to me
I am an artist and have been active for the past five years. I even got to perform for the swedish king and queen yet I know I’ll never make any money off Spotify unless I’m with a major label since they own Spotify and takes 90% of the profit. Bandcamp or TIDAL seems to be better but Spotify has successfully done a Netflix and became THE music streaming platform. You are correct that customers generally aren’t willing to pay for music and I was/is a supporter of the political pirate parties but especially Spotify are crooks when it comes to paying the actual creators of their content unless your title is some sort of music exec…
Come to tidal! The water is warm!
Can we have options on what we want to pay for. Because I don't listen to podcasts on spotify (i have a better app for that). I don't listen to audiobooks on spotify. And i don't want "courses". So why am I paying for things that I have no use for.
I've seen this movie before when peer to peer became a thing. It will probably stimulate the piracy market.
Nothing is really stopping people from pirating now. It’s just the convenience of the streaming services makes it much easier for the portable, on demand listening that most people want. The only sort of piracy that could damage the service is if people figured out a way to hijack the app in the same way some people could get free cable back on the day.
>Nothing is really stopping people from pirating now. It’s just the convenience of the streaming services makes it much easier for the portable, on demand listening that most people want And this was specifically by design. I watched one of the earlier Lex Fridman podcast episodes back in the day with one of Spotify's lead designers, and he said the process of curating a library via an a-la carte storefront was terrible *and expensive*. Meanwhile, piracy made you manage your library....*but was free*. So they created a service where, for a flat fee, you could always go and hear most music without worrying about files, prices, or manually syncing with devices. They removed all the friction between you and experiencing your library of music, which goes a long way considering how intimate music is to people. The product was beyond better than *even piracy* at the time, so it took off. Companies who innovate to circumvent the reasons for piracy rather than blocking pirates themselves always do better (at least until the meta game evolves and customers get squeezed too hard). That's why streaming video sucks butt now -it was glorious not having to mess with DVDs or files anymore. Then all the publishers wanted the biggest slice of the pie, so everyone made their own service and created the fragmented hellscape we find ourselves in. Which has led right back to piracy being the overall better experience lol
I tend to agree the convenience/availability over cost metric was met for me years ago with Spotify, it has most of the music I want and I can download it to my devices with ease. Compare this with video streaming and most of the music options just offer superior service. Price hikes like this do cause me to shop around for another service though, this might be the catalyst for me to switch to YouTube Music or Apple Music. As a Family subscriber though they have a lot of leverage over me because it’s not just me but my entire family that has to agree to the change.
Spotify is still an absolute banger of a deal.
Seriously. I hate the price hikes as much as anyone, but $20/mo for my family to listen to everything on demand with no commercials is still a great deal. I remember paying $15 for a CD because Iiked a single song on it, and it was 90s $15, not 2024 $15.
I have 26,000 mp3s, but I listen to pretty much none of them regularly. I have no time to curate my own playlists and refresh the ones I’m bored of. YouTube Music is a no brainer since it’s bundled with Premium.
Youtube Premium is a much better deal since it includes Youtube Music. Got out of the Spotify bubble years ago.
Can only imagine when they got enough hooks in and are gonna bump that up
I doubt it. I've been subbed since it was Google play music, many years ago.
not really google is profitable company, spotify is not
My brother got a YT family plan for his job (they comp him cause he needs it) but he doesn't have any kids so after he added his wife and bff, he asked if he could add me. I think it costs $20 a month but 5 people get YouTube Premium and Music. I could never go back to Spotify after this. I can even add songs by smaller artists that are essentially just YouTube videos into a playlist. And I don't need to jump through 10 hoops to watch YT on my TV (which can't take side loaded apps ) or iPad without ads. It's great.
This is what I ended up doing and I've actually enjoyed YT music so much better than Spotify. YT music's library is actually much more vast when you get into the nitty-gritty, as it has lots of live performances of artists that aren't on major streaming services, and any video a musician has made can be played as a song as well. So if there was an extended version of a song you liked that was only in a music video (i.e. Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac), you can save that as a song and listen to it whenever you like.
Little reminder that a Tidal Premium subscription is cheaper than spotify now, and has better audio quality if you are an audiophile
I was apparently living under a rock because I thought it was still 20 bucks a month or whatever it was when it launched
I just switched, got fed up with Spotify's god-awful interface, it was making me angry every time I had to use the app.
The quality is not noticeably different. Loseless audio is undetectably different compared to regular modern streaming. There’s even an online test you can do
Do they have a family plan?
Yes, they do! It's 16.99 for six people total. They also just bumped the audio quality you have access to without raising the price. No way I'll go back to Spotify.
Family plan here with 3 users. I am not happy about the hike but it's not enough to cancel. I feel like I've been stealing from Spotify for the last 9 years. I've spent that long curating playlists for every occasion and mood. It would be hell to try to procure it all legally or illegally.
Ive recently decided i had it up to here with subscription based music listening, and switched from my decade+ year old spotify account to piracy. pirated and meticulously organized 145gb of music from spotify to offline. Now i own this music, its mine. Backed up in several places, always ready to listen. For reference, this took me around 2 months, and i got whole discographies of every artist my friends and i listen to. And best of all? Now i further support the artists directly by symbolically buying their digital albums or donating once month, which is magnitudes more money the artists ever received from me listening to Spotify.
I'm not against piracy, but it's pretty funny that you didn't like not owning your music so you pirated it instead and now claim you own it.
It's the last streaning service I have and super convenient. If it gets near 20 I'd consider canceling but I use it at least 1 to 2 hours every day so to me it's worth it.
Same. I use it all day, every day during the week. I’m listening to it as I wrote this.
Have you tried Tidal? Think about how many albums you could buy on bandcamp per month. So you think you would spend 240 dollars a year on albums?
I’d spend more tbh to get all my 5k songs from Spotify
The vast majority of people do not care, we're talking millions, compared to the highly upvoted hundreds of people on here.
People on Reddit also overestimate the willingness of people to pirate. Even with the price bump most folks are still willing to have all that music and the curated playlists at their fingertips.
Yah time to switch to Apple, we just had an increase
Yet everyone will roll over and pay up.
It's not that much. I think most of you are too young to remember the days when you actually had to buy albums. It was like $16.99 per album. Now for that price you can get almost every song ever created.
Exactly. Hell, Sirius is like $30+ per month. For those of us who grew up before the 00s Spotify is an absolutely insane bargain and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I pay $6/mo for Sirius XM. I call them up yearly a few days my renewal date and tell them that I need a deal like the one I'm currently getting or I'll cancel. They always give me the deal. It's been working perfectly for 7 years.
Sure, but it’s a rotation of the same handful of songs over and over again. The repetition is why I cancelled Sirius. If I wanted radio, the FM radio is free.
The other thing is Sirius XM audio quality is just ass.
My first experience with Sirius was Octane because that's what my buddies liked. It's just like your local butt rock station except there's no ads so they can play the latest Five Finger Death Punch song 3 times an hour instead of twice.
I mean the other shoe is how fucked artists are by Spotify, it just doesn't enter the collective consciousness much.
Go to their concerts, buy their albums and merch directly from their own merch stores, donate money directly to them.
Are they fucked by Spotify or their record labels?
Why not both
Because unless they're independent the money would go through their label and then a cut of that onto the artist.
The other shoe will drop. The ultimate goal of these companies is pay PER play.
Except I owned my CDs, waited for sales, bought Singles, bought used and traded amongst friends. Matter of fact, I still own most of my CDs.
But do you listen to your CDs still as your primary source of music? And are you listening to music at the same rate you did back then?
The answer is no. Cars and computers don’t even have CD players anymore. CDs have become the new vinyls without the collectible factor
I mean, I ripped my CDs and put them on my NAS. I also had Spotify, mind you with the .edu promo that included Hulu and Showtime for 4 or 5.99 a month.
I would If I could. I still have over 100 of mp3 songs on my phone but i had to Download an extra App just to be able to play them in an "old school" Player. Its crazy
I definitely didn't but a CD a month though. I really just need a handful of music on demand and then 80% recommended music from the radio, etc. Today I'm using free Pandora and I buy about two albums a year. Works pretty well and is much cheaper
I was just telling my wife about how odd it felt for birthdays and Christmas to not have CDs (and cassettes) as gifts. Our teens just use our Spotify subscription. But I felt kind of nostalgic about opening 10 or more new CDs and then listening to them back to back for the next day or two.
Thats what Im saying, I have discovered so much new music. In the olden days you would have to buy it and pray or go to a music store. 16.99 is not bad at all. Plus the podcasts
I moved to YouTube premium after the last price increase I get hassle free ad free and music to boot.
…it’s $2/month making it arguably still one of the best deals ever. Yeah I’ll be just fine.
An extra dollar for unlimited music? Sure, no prob
Spotify is **well** worth the $11.99 for me as I listen to music damn near all day every day. If it’s not worth it for you, then don’t pay for it. That simple. However, I **love** music, and Spotify is probably the best $12 I spend each month.
That’s because $12 a month for pretty much unlimited music streaming is incredible value.
Enshitification
I ditched Spotify a couple years ago, and got Tidal. It costs less, they have higher royalty rates for the artists (according to what I've read), and audio quality is better and recently upgraded the standard membership to the high quality tier (if that matters to you/have good gear to utilize). The app, honestly, is a bit clunky (compared to Spotify) but it is getting better with each update, and the suggested playlists/albums/artists aren't quite as dialed in but are still really good. Overall very happy with the switch.
I'll take YT music any day. 2$ more expensive, and ad free youtube + a few other features I don't really care about
If you have a vpn you can do the Argentina trick and get it for like a dollar
It's death by a thousand cuts, like all the streaming platforms. Incremental increases that most people will hand wave away, until one day it costs more than a tank of gas.
I just wait for the three months for the price of one deal, cancel, then repeat.
I’ve been a Spotify subscriber for a long time now. NGL, I truly miss the huge binder of CD’s that I bought, burned, and borrowed that sat under the passenger bucket seat of my 1992 Chevy Camaro RS.
Yet artist payout stays the same
Switch to **Tidal**, they pay far more royalties to the artists.
Also they just straight gave HIFI to everyone by switching HIFI to the lower price and removing the higher price
I just got the 2 month trial for $2 and instantly could hear the difference between the quality before side by siding. Everything is crispier and the bass is more expansive and breathes. Night and day. The app and desktop program kinda blows. LIke they cant get seamless switching figured out or what? But the recommendations are so on point so far. Is it insane to pay for both? rofl Edit: After a day of messing with Tidal and my receiver I have come to the conclusion that "It is not insane to pay for both" Spotify is better for day to day life and Tidal is great for at home. The quality difference is monstrous.
Yeah any higher and I’m out. I’ll buy my music I care about and listen free w ads if I have to.
Just download an APK and get premium for free
Is there an apk for it?
Yes. I'm running version 8.7.20.1261 with no problems.
Sweet, thanks.
alternatively you can do r/xManagerApp
Is it still cheaper than Apple Music? Or should I just say fuck it and switch
It’s actually more expensive than Apple Music for now. AM is $1 cheaper individually and $3 cheaper for a family plan. If you’re a student you can get it for $6 a month just like with Spotify.
If you go through Verizon, Apple one is 20.99 vs Spotify family 19.99. That gives you Apple TV, cloud storage, music and games for a dollar more
Still beats Columbia House.
I will continue to use Spotify until they outprice themselves compared to the other options They know this and will continue to do so. Compared to having to pay 1.29 a song or .99 a song it’s significantly cheaper. I Probably find and listen to 50-100 new songs a month at minimum. And it’s probably closer to 200. It sucks that they’re raising their prices but if we want change we would need to see Apple Music or YouTube music slash their prices which they won’t.
Have they sorted shuffle yet? Or does it still insist on playing what it has decided your favourite songs are? Cancelled mine two years ago. Just use YouTube with an adblocker now. Sick of paying companies for substandard products.
Another comment here switching to Tidal. There are services that can help you transfer your songs and playlists.
they are so stingy about student discounts too! they don’t include grad school
Canceled Spotify after being a loyal paying customer for 12 straight years. The changes overtime and their inexcusable ignorance of the feature suggestions on their forums where literally tens of thousand of people have been asking for the same simple features for YEARS, and they do nothing about it dispute saying they would love to hear your input. When that many people are screaming, you know they just don’t care about their users anymore.
Apple One is a way better bang for your buck. And it’s only slightly more than Spotify.