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Premium account needed to listen to music for more than 10 hours? Really?

Premium account needed to listen to music for more than 10 hours? Really?

I have downloaded Spotify a few months ago. Now that I have a lot of music and playlists on my computer, Spotify asks me to pay for a premium account, if I want to listen to music for more than 10 hours a month. Before there was only a request for being a premium member for not listening to the ads in between music switches.

I am guessing the strategy here was to get as much users for free and let them get used to the user interface of Spotify by creating playlists etc.

However, a forced change like this can mean that users fall away and go back to itunes and what not.

This change is annoying for users. Following that the business model did not work previously, one cannot force people to pay this price now. Why? There are countless other ways to pay and download music for much less than 13 Chf per month! Yes, users of Spotify have to switch again to another platform but they will do it nonetheless.

The only fun part in Spotify is that you can share music with friends from a limited stream of music instead of playing or representing tracks at home or through social web. 

So in pricing this product, you need to consider that this is the value for people using Spotify. One cannot make millions in providing a music sharing platform that costs this much, it is simply not reality. Especially, younger generations now how to download things for free but Spotify would know this.

 

 

Problems of Spotify:

 

1) Expensive premium account (I would say, 0,99 cent for a month!)

2) Changing business model frustration to users, this can turn users fast!

3) I have not found a lot of songs till now. Why would I pay if I cannot find new music or niche music?

 

Kind regards,

 

Elif

 

 

 

Reply
12 Replies

I think that Spotify are charging the right price for the service that they are providing, 99c for a month is just ridiculous.

 

Spotify themselves have to pay the artists for how many listens that a song gets, charging that little of a price would get them absolutely no where, I have listened to 10,000 songs now in the past 5 months of Spotify. Paying the small premium fee has saved me a couple hundred.

Hey 🙂

 

You actually don't need a premium account to remove the time limits and adverts. An unlimited account which is half the price will do that for you. You can read more about subscription plans here.

 

Personally for £10 a month (UK Premium) I think Spotify is underpriced. Access to so much music for such little cost is amazing, as well as the team making it available on so many different platforms. 

 

Peter

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


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No. For me, I am paying a download tool already each month. There I can already download movies, music and everyhthing I find in there. So I am not gonna pay for this service.

Yes. There are people who do not know about downloading or do not wanna spend a lot of time/have not a lot of time etc. but for me as a ''professional'' I do not see any value in doing this.

The most annoying thing is that like in earlier music platforms e.g. Napster, LimeWire this also happened. The user registered and as soon as you had your music sorted and created music lists, you were asked to pay for the service that you are using that much. Well, what about the freaking ads that you have to listen to as free user. And now the time limit is killing me.

Personally I switched back to my youtube account where I also had lists before.

You cannot pressure people to pay for something they do not see value in!

Even 99 Cents is ridiculous.

Hey again 🙂 

 

The comparison you provide is not a fair one. Both Napster and LimeWire where shut down because of massive copyright infrindgement and lawsuits. Spotify costs money because it is legal and therefore artists and labels have to be paid. If you want to use illegal sources to get your media from then that is your choice. 

 

The adverts and time limits on the free account might be annoying, but in the end of the day, that is free music you are listening to. I fully support Spotify in their attempts to at least make some money from the free version and push people onto the paid subscriptions, after all that is what the service is really here for. I think that £9.99 a month for unlimited high quality streaming from a library of millions of tracks is ridiculously cheap, I would be willing to pay more if they wanted! 

 

Peter

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


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I agree. However Spotify need to add more underground music to catalogue.

 

There is no way to purchase or get some UM-songs like from Darren Styles "Feel The Pressure" album. Album not released in any way (streaming, cd or mp3) in my Country (Finland) and I can't find this album from anywhere excl. Piratebay link in Google search or YouTube (not official downloads)... This makes me very crazy to get album that way, because there no legal way to do this...

 

I tried and used so much time to find legal way to get this album, but no... Need to use this time other way. 😞

 

So record label shooted itself here into the leg... But I enjoy Spotify and 9.90€ for this is awesome deal, but more music needed.

 

UM = Underground Music

I understand what you are saying, but that isn't Spotify's fault is it? 

Once again down to the stupid record companies who seem to be idiotic in releasing albums in different countries! 

 

Peter

Peter
Spotify Community Mentor and Troubleshooter

Spotify Last.FM Twitter LinkedIn Meet Peter Rock Star Jam 2014


If this post was helpful, please add kudos below!

I can search Lady Gaga and find it, but no Darren Styles. 😞

 

This is very very sad, I need this album so much.

 

Yes, the reason are those angry record labels that don't just know that there is no single way to get tracks legally if they don't even release albums as mp3... I'm ready to pay for Darren Styles album, but seriously there is no way to do it, so they don't want my money. 😞

 

I'm very soon in way to download uTorrent just to get this Feel The Pressure album as mp3 320 kbps. But heck, there is no legal way. Is there??? Sorry Darren, I love your music and want to Support you, but seriously no way to do it. 😞

 

Already asked from record label and artist and they don't answer. I do not want to wait forever, I want to enjoy that piece of great music right away!

 

Words fail me..

hpguru, your beloved album is available on Play.com as digital download. 12e per album 320k. Go for it. 🙂

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Ps. First site I checked.

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Please! Give "Kudos" to posts that you found helpful. Mark "Accept as Solution" if a post solved your issue!. Thank you!


Ow well, one can argue a lot about this topic and it has been going on for years since mp3's rule the world. I totally get why one would wanna or should support artists. I do this by going to their concerts and paying a premium since I am going in Zurich.

However, I do not have millions of dollars to support all of the Artists I like. Sorry! Maybe Mark Zuckerberg can or whatever.

What I also wanted to underline, is that Spotify has nice software engineering skills but not the best business skills. From a business perspective this is simply not going to work on a long term basis. One should never push to pay in any business, if there are so many more alternatives.

Also if you calculate 10 dollars/francs for each month per user, Spotify gains 120 dollars/francs from each individual each yer. Calculating by the likes on Spotify's facebook page -around 3.1 Million- you would get a profit of 372 Million dollars/francs. This is a huge sum and why would anybody invest in Spotify this much.

Tech companies are not trustworthy in terms of stocks etc. if it ever would be traded publicly. Even Facebook turned out to be a disappointment.

Coining trust as a key issue:

If you want to make a difference, show the amount you really pay to artists or how your business model works and let people now how their contribution is helping! Simply be transparent. Many companies do this and  especially in this sector it would work.

Ow and every commentor that comes from inside of Spotify should contribute in a better feeback giving way besides saying something like: '' I have no words.'' OR saying: '' This is such a good way to contribute to artist work because it is free music or because you can reach so much music!'' What is good about it seriously? This is not a reason enough for me and seems  insincere and aggresive/passive.

I am really trying to discuss this issue and try to get to the bottom of it because I would love for Spotify to overcome its issues! As I said the usability is nice but business wise there should be other ways.

 

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