Offline device limit

[Rikkely]

Hello spotify community.

I recently bumped into this device limit, I had no idea it even existed until now.  I have been using Spotify for years, and I have recently added some devices to my collection.

I understand that this has something to do with the greedy companies in charge of licenses. Here I was thinking that piracy was a done deal regarding music, but apparantly I was dead wrong.

Luckily there are other services out there, which do not enforce this outdated model, and I am going to try them out before returning to the past and downloading illegaly again. Judge me all you want, I respect the work of the artists, and I will buy some records, the ones that I enjoy the most of course. I don't make enough money to buy all of them, which is a pity.

I  strongly advice others to take action as well. Limiting offline mode to only three devices in the year 2014 is outdated at best.

[Peter__]

It might just be me, but I really don't see the need for more than 3 offline devices.

[Merik]

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@Peter wrote:
It might just be me, but I really don't see the need for more than 3 offline devices.

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1. Laptop
2. Mobile phone
3. Tablet
4. Friend's phone so he/she can have her playlists offline using the same account...just kidding that's against the Terms and Conditions! 😛

It's not just you, I feel the same...but hey maybe Spotify can add a higher limit for the other users...for a price? I don't know .-.

[Peter__]

But then I think to myself, where do I ever go anywhere with my laptop where it would need offline playlists that I didn't also have my phone on me. 😛

[sportsdave]

Wow - "may have to go back to stealing music".  

You are the reason that artists are starving - they get a few pennies from spotify if you play the music you bought.  99.9% of musicians make less then you.  Device limit is there so that you do not have one account and 100 devices from all of your friends downloading tunes.  

Stick to your local pizza place with free refils of soda and the waiters will cash thier checks for  $1.33 from spotify and wait for a break - 

[Peter__]

@sportsdave - Excellent point. Are you an artist on Spotify?

[oscarolim]

Yes I think is just you. Had no idea of the 3 device limit.

Let's see:

- Desktop

- Laptop

- 2 phones

- TV

That's 5 devices right there.

[kbrooksc]

I'm just curious as to why everything would need to be available offline on those devices...I have:

1. A Laptop

2. An iPhone 5S

3. A Samsung Galaxy S5

4. Samsung TV (Hooked up to home internet)

5. Hitachi TV (Hooked up to home internet)

Not judging anyone...just curious. At some point, you could just use WiFi to access your music, right?

[oscarolim]

Because it's handy. If you keep listening to the same playlists, what's the point of downloading the songs over and over again, if you can just have them cached (offline)?

It's better for you since you don't waste your bandwidth (not everyone has unlimited bandwidth) and is better for spotify as it doesn't put a higher strain on their servers.

[Peter__]

You will actually find Spotify does cache a lot of the content inside the app to save on bandwidth, even if you haven't marked the playlist as available offline - it just stops you from accessing it offline if you aren't on an offline device because of licensing.

[crowmanic]

goodbye ...

[Jhayter]

I have a PC, a MAC, an iPad, an iPod and an iPhone. 5 devices. It would be good to be able to listen to offline Spotify on any one of them. Of course, I can listen on one while using another but that's not the issue. I should be able to use Spotify offline with my log in and access should not be device driven.

[user-removed]

tl;dr - Spotify supports way too many plaforms and devices to force paying users to choose 3 devices to store offline music on.

_______

Personally, the problem this creates is having to constantly re-download songs. There's a computer in my office with Spotify, and I cache the playlist we listen to for offline listening so it's not using bandwidth that's being shared across 20+ computers.

That leaves 2 more devices. I have a work laptop that I like to offline-store music (for similar reasons above) and to listen to while working if co-workers are using the shared laptop to stream music.

So that's two devices, and I haven't included my home computer or mobile device yet. While many will claim I'm an outlier, I would argue that Spotify is available on SO MANY platforms. iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Echo, wearables, multiple televisions, etc. Limiting users to three devices is very limiting. You can easily justify wanting to store a playlist of your favorite songs on your mobile device, laptop, and television - but what about your computer in your office? What about the Amazon Echo in the rec room? What about the iPad that's shared with all the family and you like to use on the road?

You have to constantly re-download music between devices. It's inconvenient. It's not worth using offline music for me, and it'd be nice if the limit was upped to eight, even five devices.

[geno14]

My issue with this is that no they have bumped the "Family Plan' up to 6 users an only allow 3 offline users. it should be 1 per account.