Spotify

AlbertC

Just got an email that Premium is going up to £11.99 a month. 

Doesn't seem that long ago they increased it from £9.99 to £10.99 but perhaps it was more than I remember. 

No doubt Apple will follow suit. 

Grunfeld

Hmmm.  Might be time to cancel this subscription too. 

Thanks for the heads up.

monquixote

It isn't they are just making audio books cost more.

Bod

It's fine.  They're going to use the extra cash to pay the artists fairly (like f**k they are!)

The price was increased less that 12 months ago - July 2023.  I have the family sub and it went from 16.99 to 17.99 in July, now it's going up to 19.99.

thecolourbox

It's been really annoying me of late - loads of duplicates in my Liked Songs playlists where new versions of albums have been uploaded but it's still pulling through the previous versions, and the shuffle is absolutely abysmal as it seems to pick one or two favourite artists each day then play them every two or three songs. Yesterday it was bloody Little Richard which I've now deleted from my Liked Songs but they were still coming up.

Time to get a trial of Apple Music I think

duotone

I usually sign up when they do a 3 months for £10.99 deal. Otherwise I just put up with the adverts on my desktop PC.

crunchman

We have the family plan.  £19.99 for all four of us isn't so bad.

The individual plans do seem very expensive.

Devil#20

I cancelled my Tidal account because it seemed an unnecessary expense having that and Spotify. Tidal is more expensive but much better quality and more 'sleeve notes'. However, now prices are getting similar it might be time to bin spotify and re-activate my Tidal account or maybe try something different. I was thinking of trying Qobuz. Anyone on here use it? I usually stream through my hifi which is why i opted for Tidal originally. 

fretmeister

monquixote said:

It isn't they are just making audio books cost more.

Yup.

And apparently if independent authors upload their books, the T&C gives Spotify the rights to do what they like with the book IP as well, for no payment.

Blueingreen

I was an early adopter and paid £9.99 for premium when I first signed up around 2009/10.  It saved me a fortune on buying music because I was probably spending at least £50 a month on cds.  I haven't bought a cd in years.

Since then they've enabled downloads so I can listen to stuff offline while out and about without paying for streaming.  They've also added loads of podcasts and 15 hours a month of audiobooks.  I listen to it quite a bit more now because I'm getting the spoken word element as well as music.

In other words I'm getting a massively better service for which the price will have gone up about 20% in about 15 years.  Inflation has gone up nearly 50% in that time.

Obviously strong competition for market share has kept prices low.  That was never going to last forever but I don't see anything to complain about yet.

thecolourbox

Does anybody else find the shuffle really rubbish and not-random?

strumjoughlamps

I’m back to iOS so have gone from Spotify to Apple Music as Apple One at £18.95 pm is unbeatable. 

I see the good and bad in all the services, there is no perfect service IMO but I must say Apple Music Sing is out and out genius. 

Bod

thecolourbox said:

Does anybody else find the shuffle really rubbish and not-random?

Yep, I'm really tired of the same old songs, but my daughter told me about the Daylist which works really well at serving unheard stuff.

RocknRollDave

Interesting to see how we have threads moaning that Spotify doesn't pay artists enough, but when they put their prices up, we start saying we'll ditch Spotify...

There's no way artists are going to get more money out of Spotify if it doesn't hike its prices up.*




(*I am fully aware of the fact that they won't get more out of Spotify if they DO hike the prices up either, but at least the argument is that they have increased revenue and have more money to split.)

GoFish

Maybe the issue is not to trust monpolostic entities to manage, protect, pay and store stuff for us? They'll always seek to exploit a captive market.

RocknRollDave

GoFish said:

Maybe the issue is not to trust monpolostic entities to manage, protect, pay and store stuff for us? They'll always seek to exploit a captive market.

But...we must obey our robot overlords...

thecolourbox

Bod said:

thecolourbox said:

Does anybody else find the shuffle really rubbish and not-random?

Yep, I'm really tired of the same old songs, but my daughter told me about the Daylist which works really well at serving unheard stuff.

It's not that I want to hear new music as such, I just think that when shuffling a 20,000 plus Liked Songs playlist, I'd prefer it to not play one of the 20 Little Richard songs I previously had in there every 4 songs...

Albeit today it's favourite was Eva Cassidy, presumably because I removed the bloody Little Richard songs

thecolourbox

RocknRollDave said:

Interesting to see how we have threads moaning that Spotify doesn't pay artists enough, but when they put their prices up, we start saying we'll ditch Spotify...

There's no way artists are going to get more money out of Spotify if it doesn't hike its prices up.*




(*I am fully aware of the fact that they won't get more out of Spotify if they DO hike the prices up either, but at least the argument is that they have increased revenue and have more money to split.)

It's not necessarily the same people saying both things though in fairness

Revolutions

Neil Young is back on Spotify.

i tried Tidal a few weeks back. Seems built on Spotify UI (just like Qobuz) so it was intuitive to use. But I’m just so wedded to Spotify after 15 years or so it still felt weird to consider moving all my collection of saved albums & playlists across. Although for me it’s actually the way I use Spotify to find new music that I would miss the most. So I stuck where I was.

Would recommend Tidal as the most natural replacement though. Qobuz was slow & unusable on mobile network & Apple Music layout doesn’t make any sense to me.

NelsonP

Somewhere in California there's a ridiculously wealthy tech investor reading this and chuckling at the ignorance of the sheeple.

He'll probably go for a swim in his infinity pool overlooking the Pacific shortly, and after that he'll  head into his personal studio to blast out a few riffs on his '59 Les Paul, which is plugged into his Dumble. He's got Norm Harris and Mark Agnesi's numbers on speed dial in case of any GAS attacks.

Later, he'll take his ridiculously attractive wife for dinner at the club. Sunny day, so he'll probably take the convertible Ferrari.

While we all rant and rave about the prices charged by the company that he made his billions from.

But yeah, all of these companies are the same. Hook people in on cheap subscriptions then gradually push up the price until the company is profitable. Of course, people will moan but they won't bother to change (gotcha!). In the meantime the company had nice, predictable recurring revenue AND profit and everyone gets rich beyond their wildest dreams (see above).

PS He does not give a shit that the artists don't get paid. Dumb fucks should have worked harder at school.

stickyfiddle

1. Tech bros introduce "disruptive" new business model, selling at a loss
2. Company make losses for years to grow user base and inflate share value
3. Put almost every competitor out of business
4. Increase prices every year until the cost of service is no less than it ever was before but the people providing the service get fucked over harder << YOU ARE HERE
5. ???

#latestagecapitalism