Spotify stopped selling download credits

[haikow]

Hi,

Noticed a couple of days ago I was no longer able to buy credits to buy MP3's."(At this moment it's not possible to buy downloads from Spotify, click here for more information)"

The link provided only said: "At this moment we don't offer an option to buy new downloads on spotify however you can still use download credits you already have".

-> When will Spotify again allow us to buy download credits?

PS. really bad timing to stop this before X-mas

[ramhurts]

hi @one_deal

I have a feeling that their downloaddepartment is just that - revenue and no profit. there is no point in having lots of cashflow when thats not enough to pay for expances.

eya - there is a lot of revenue but they need to translate that into profit

I guess that downloads are too cheep - just saying dont have to high expectations

nice to know that someone is reading my post 🙂

[mikael710524]

Its really bad they take away the download option its a great value for a dj, its seams they made som misstake when upgraded to the new release:

Hi Mikael,

We recently updated Spotify to further simplify the service and pave the way for new features announced at the end of last year. In-app purchases aren't part of this update but we're not ruling out their return.

Best Wishes

Calvin

[bjornhamra]

So let's assume there's politics involved. And money. Ofcourse there is. I don't know what it is, but I'm assuming it's got something to do with either spotify or 7digital being arses, and a contract disagreement. In any case, this is bad. Really bad. Having to go through other vendors or to manually map tracks between 7dig and spotify is time consuming and annoying.

This and the lack of a proper android tablet app is really getting in the way of an otherwise decent platform.

[livestrong]

This is absolute a shot in the wrong direction..Spotify gathered everything I needed into one service; a large track-base, incredible fast and userfriendly interface, a store aka the possebillity to download the songs for a decent price etc. Now they ruining it by removing services...2 bad, I thought this was it.. Users WANT all services at same place.. It's like if spotify had a small track-base, and you needed to farm tracks from 5 other providers(early days)- we don't want that sort of service...(and yeah i'm aware that the root cause is probably money/political - just saying what's on my mind.)

[EarlPurple]

This is no good for me. There was no warning - how long have I not been able to purchase here?

They could have said they were going to end the service before just cutting it.

I buy lots of music and I get the £50 download packages and use them in a month. That's £600 a year. And they're expecting me to pay double that to buy music from **bleep**etunes? 7-Digital probably only has a subset and it isn't any cheaper.

I've been through various digital stores over the years and they all kept upping the prices.

I want to know the music I have now will still be available in 10 years time. The only way I can guarantee this is by buying it. I am not into stream-only, I use only to listen to the music initially to decide what I am going to buy.

[ramhurts]

well, ive unsubscribed now and told them that its because of their unwillingness to talk about them shutting down their download section and no news of whats next.

any good pages i can buy music with good quality?

[Peter__]

---

@ramhurts wrote:

well, ive unsubscribed now and told them that its because of their unwillingness to talk about them shutting down their download section and no news of whats next.

any good pages i can buy music with good quality?

---

I'd suggest having a look at 7digital, I've been using them for years 😉

Peter

[niccoleman]

Cancelled Premium one month after subscribing due to being misinformed by Spotify about music purchases.

I don't want to be tied to using the spotify client. 

Disgraceful lack of proper information about this change of policy demonstrates a total, and short-sighted, disregard for their customers. Must have a death wish.
Music industry is living in the past. I have spent more cash on downloads in the last year than I ever spent on cd's/45's/even 78's, over the last 55 years of my life

[EarlPurple]

but 7Digital charge 99p a track. Spotify you could get a 100-track package for £50. That's nearly half the price.

Plus not all the tracks I wanted were there anyway, in addition to which I would have had to go through searching for every track individually rather than clicking to buy them from my playlist where I already have them.

I have been buying music for years and yes, it is better than it was in 2007 when they were all poor bitrates and full of DRM but once you get something you don't expect it snatched away and made to pay nearly double for something worse than what you had before.

[EarlPurple]

This is the list of 71 songs I had queued up to buy:

I would need another 29 but am certain that would happen within the next month.

[Simian]

OK, so for whatever reason this business decision has been taken, and there is clearly a compelling reason.  Just would have been nice to have a little information.  Honest up-front explanations can really help keep loyal fans on-side.  I just wonder if anyone from Spotify is reading these posts?

A much more serious issue for me is something raised earlier. What if Spotify has to pull the plug on the whole operation?  I have become dependent on my now vast Spotify on-line library,( for which I pay, as a premium member).  I would be devastated if one day I tried to log in, only to find the site had been taken down.

So, my question, in the hope that someone has a good idea....  How can I make a record of all the tracks I have on Spotify, without having to go through each playlist manually, which would take forever!  So that if Spotify does disappear I have something on which to base my reconstruction.  Any ideas please?

[Sam]

Simian - I don't think we're planning on disappearing soon, don't worry.

[Mevs]

Okay, so now that we've confirmed that someone from Spotify is reading this, can we have an explanation as to why downloads have been shuttered? I'm still fuming about this, as has already been mentioned by others the 50-track download package is extremely attractive to those of us that want to use the music we've discovered in other ways (DJing, video editing, etc), and to have it taken away with no explanation is unfathomable.

If I hadn't already invested so much time into building playlists I would have cancelled my premium subscription, but I'm still holding out for the possibility that they will be reinstated (or even offer a simple way to purchase tracks from another supplier like 7Digital). I *really* don't want to search for 50+ tracks individually and then pay double the amount to download them :-((

[Sam]

Mevs - We apologise for not commenting on this sooner. We recently updated Spotify to further simplify the service and pave the way for new features announced at the end of last year. In-app purchases aren't part of this update but we're not ruling out their return. Credits/gift cards already purchased are still redeemable.

[JackieHighland]

Can I join in with the dissatisfaction at the way this was handled. An announcement would have been helpful. In my case, I had mistakenly done a double purchase late November and thought no problem, I will just renew them after the 30 days by buying a couple of my credits. But then I found I couldn't purchase any more credits, and I was in danger of losing the 30 or so unused ones. Fortunately, customer services did renew them for me, but some warning and announcement would have been helpful. And would have stopped some of us feeling so badly treated.

As to the new announcements - I am wondering what they are? I don't have any mobile devices or use apps. And I have a limit to my broadband so don't want to listen to online all the time. I just want to be able to listen to music online and if I like it, be able to purchase it. Anything that will keep me happy?

So glad someone from Spotify is replying to us now.

[DieFishboy]

Sam at Spotify,

As others have said we appreciate your reply, but you're not telling us anything that wasn't on the website the day you stopped selling download credits.

Spotify has become the only place that I buy music. I've bought hundreds of download credits from you. The downloads are excellent quality, the system is simple and combined with the streaming service it's an excellent way to shop. That's how as I use Spotify; as a shopping site first and a streaming site second. I realise I might be in the minority.

The expiry of download credits was obviously a bit of a rip-off (despite any marketing balls you might use to justify it), but I could live with that.

I need to know what's going to happen. Or I need to know when you will know. Do you know when you will know if the download store is returning? I am researching which site I should use now that Spotify is useless to me. Napster? 7Digital? EMusic? Rhapsody? As soon as I find one that I like the look of I'll be ending my Premium subscription with you.

However, I will hang around if you can adequately answer our questions about the download store. Please answer them like a person addressing a person rather than a marketing executive addressing a child.

Regards,

David

[Ghostland]

Places I can't stream my music.

On holiday,

at work,

in the car,

when DJing,

when I have limited bandwith allowance,

in my room at university,

If I'm in the armed forces,

... I only came to Spotify to purchase music.... 79p per song, bump it up, whatever... 

But all people want to know is will this ever return, and if you want us to hang around then let us know why.....  I stuck at it when you forced facebook on us but this is not the service I signed up for anymore.

[Fuzilah]

This is terrible news... As a DJ i must say that the whole way i worked with spotify was very rewarding, and the only reason i had premium, to investigate and search for music, discover related artists and compilations and then organize playlists to later buy. It it was not even about the price, i wouldn't mind paying a bit more. I seriously cannot understand, why take off the ability to buy, it is the most respectuf thing to do with the artists (that already receive a lot less in this service per stream) to let people buy them songs. Also, if users are buying music, money is getting in. Why finish the option? Is it really that complicated to let it be?

Business divergence has had to happen for them to retire the option. Somebody asked more per download, not able to buy bundles anymore, business pressure to negotiate prices based on service market share...whatever. At least let the users synchronize buys with 7digital like before... or was it with them that business got ugly?

What really saddens me is the utter disrespect for its community and users, not ever telling the truth or being transparent. The robotic replies by moderator Sam in this thread (it could be any other moderator) are an indicator of how Spotify is completely **bleep**ting on their user base and community. They know what we are asking and wanting to talk and understand, but instead just pumping the pr "its over" phrase all over again.

And i could get started with the android app which just misteriously stopped supporting the SD card offline playlist music destination folder and then never got the option back again, rendering Spotify as completely useless on Android phones. Months and months of completely ignoring the issue, which is clearly not a programming issue, onle reveals the deep **bleep** lying pr stunts Spotify is involved right now. Several months of "it is being worked on" forum answers, dozens of threads on the subject!  

Bull**bleep**. Spotify is utterly opaque to its users, playing hidding and lying games. Alghough i don't know about the real reason for this Android issue, it has to do with major labels stuff, spotify-vs google stuff, apple whatever... not programming. But the lying continues and the standard robotic "working on it" continues. (how can you not solve something that you already had programmed?!? do you have the worst android programmers in the world at your service?)

Sadly, Spotify is starting to fall down, and being in the US market maybe was the very start of this fall down... Big players with big interests to **** you up in there... I am probably removing my subscrition as soon as i backup my downloads and copy the playlists in txt format for future reference.

Only one last thing, words of appraisal to the Spanish support service of spotify, that rapidly and extensively gave me and give me support and answers. Probably the best support service i ever experienced. Pity it is only the Spanish support that acts human and wants to work seriously. Gracias!

my much more than two cents,

Fuz

[LaetitiaSoubies]

Spotify can you tell us why can't we buy anymore downloads with a clear answer?!

[slinkymalinki]

Yeah, go on! I've managed with 7Digital but want downloads back. The situation's still pissing me off!