No more time limits on Spotify

http://news.spotify.com/uk/2014/01/15/no-more-time-limits-on-spotify-freeyourmusic/

by mrhicks • 13 years ago

95 96 13 years ago

news.spotify.com

Taurenking• 13 years ago

WoW, I'm an avid soundcloud user, and this may be the right time to make an account on Spotify (since it also has beautiful smartphone apps, unlike soundcloud)

highlander2• 13 years ago

Interesting. Does anyone know whether this applies to Spotify on Sonos?

vincentkriek• 13 years ago

As far as I know you can't listen to spotify using 3rd party clients (like the Sonos).

highlander2• 13 years ago

You can, but it does indeed look like you still need Spotify Premium. https://www.spotify.com/us/sonos/

mrcarrot• 13 years ago

Doesn't using Spotify on Sonos require a premium account?

If not, I'm not sure why I'm paying any more.

iriche• 13 years ago

That's really the only thing I wonder too now, else I will cancel directly too

mzl2• 13 years ago

From the article: "We have removed these caps completely across all platforms"

lowglow2• 13 years ago

I don't pay for much online. But, Rdio has my money and I probably won't switch to Spotify. When I first joined spotify they scanned and left my entire itunes library corrupt -- it was a pain to say the least.

I see this as a swan song and it's simply unsustainable in real products, and is probably just a ploy to get me lulled into accepting their experience -- until it's too late.

madsushi• 13 years ago

The killer feature of Spotify over Rdio is the ability to sync and integrate your personal music collection. With Spotify, I can make playlists that combine their material with my own MP3s, and it all syncs seamlessly to my phone. Rdio locks you into their collection, while Spotify letse combine their collection with mine.

lowglow2• 13 years ago

I guess that's great. With Rdio I've just stopped collecting music. I'll check out the occasional independen" artist once in a while, but usually they'll be up on Rdio in no time.

I think Rdio was a game changer for me. It's the first time I've spent real money on a subscription for anything.

marban2• 13 years ago

I’m a regular subscriber but I’m getting more and more confused about what I’m actually paying for. Is it really 'just' about shuffle vs. selective play at this point?

kome2• 13 years ago

no ad.

ps4fanboy7• 13 years ago

That used to cost 50% less.

Argorak• 13 years ago

Also, offline use.

ps4fanboy7• 13 years ago

Looks like they removed the mid tier plan, and it is now the same as the top tier, did spotify just get twice as expensive?

k-mcgrady5• 13 years ago

I think the mid-tier features are mostly free now (mobile use was the big one I think).

louhike• 13 years ago

As said in another comment, you get a better audio quality and the avaibility to store music offline (I found it quite useful on my mobile phone). Of course, the quality will only matter to some people.

k-mcgrady5• 13 years ago

> "As said in another comment, you get a better audio quality and the avaibility to store music offline (I found it quite useful on my mobile phone). Of course, the quality will only matter to some people."

As you say the quality thing will only matter to some people. The ability to store music offline is also becoming a less important feature as mobile networks improve. I have to admit I still use it quite often but looking ahead a few years Spotify really needs to differentiate their premium product more.

splike• 13 years ago

I'm currently on their $10/month plan but I'm skeptical of the audio quality argument. Firstly, I don't think all songs have a high quality option, just more popular songs. Second is that its hard to argue that the improvement is worthwhile when the you've got the loudness war to compete with (just try listening to Snow Patrol - Run without feeling at least a bit annoyed)

Its hard to analyse this quantitatively without bias since there are no indicators of quality in the Spotify App while a song is playing.

joeblau3• 13 years ago

Good point. I did forget to mention better sound quality.

unklefolk• 13 years ago

The ads on the free version are fairly frequent and rather annoying so avoiding that is a big plus.

mschuster91• 13 years ago

Still, it's better than public radio stations.

joeblau3• 13 years ago

I stopped paying for Spotify back in August even though there was a clear benefit. The only clear added benefit you're going to receive is no ads. I think Google Music is putting pressure on them and they need something to compete.

josu• 13 years ago

And offline playlists. Apart from the US there aren't many countries that offer unlimited mobile data plans for a reasonable price. So for me, offline playing is a very big deal, since that's how I listen to most of my music when I'm away from home.

drivers99• 13 years ago

Also the ability to play whichever songs or albums you want which is more like owning the albums (or maybe more like being able to listen to whatever you want in a record store that you live and work in) rather than hoping songs/artists you like come up on shuffle.

ollysb• 13 years ago

Ads are completely unacceptable for me so I've always used it with a subscription. To be honest I hadn't realised the free version had other restrictions.

marban2• 13 years ago

So no-ads, no-shuffle, offline, high-qual it is. Still reason enough to pay then.

tobiasSoftware2• 13 years ago

Spotify doesn't have shuffle in the free version, you might be thinking of Pandora. Spotify makes you pay to get rid of annoying ads that come on every 10-20 minutes. They also offer higher quality music and an offine mode when you pay.

eshvk• 13 years ago

I think he/she is talking about the shuffle feature available for free users on Mobile.

hokkos• 13 years ago

As a paying customer I am fed up to pay for the free leechers and their war for customers.

TeMPOraL• 13 years ago

:(. And that's why we can't have nice things.

(also a paying customer, and I'm very happy if things improve for free users while not degrading the service I pay for)

michaelmcmillan• 13 years ago

In what way does it affect you?

timje1• 13 years ago

I'm a bit annoyed at the fact that the free user's plays dictate where my subscription cash goes.

But I don't see how the free users actually detract from my experience of the service...

ozh• 13 years ago

Blame the service, not the users.

poopsintub• 13 years ago

There wouldn't be a service without free users. Also, tell me you signed up for premium without trying it first.

ps4fanboy7• 13 years ago

I paid for mobile ($12) instead of standard ($5) now that mobile is available to everyone not sure why I am not just paying $5, but they removed that plan now.

timpattinson• 13 years ago

Premium allows 320kbps streaming and offline storage.

ps4fanboy7• 13 years ago

I had to disable offline storage, spotify maxes out my 50mbps uploads link if i use it (p2p crap), with no option in the app to disable that.

grudolf• 13 years ago

Free for everyone, everywhere, except in my country. Deezer seems happy with my money.

patrickaljord• 13 years ago

Do you realize that Spotify would be happy with your money if they had the licenses from the Majors? It's not up to them. Same for Deezer by the way, it's not available either in tons of countries such as Peru where I used to live.

krelian2• 13 years ago

As someone who wants Spotify to succeed I don't know if the recent changes are a good sign or not as to how the company is doing.

odonnellryan• 13 years ago

I feel good: I don't think they'd be able to make certain actions without some bargaining power.

k-mcgrady5• 13 years ago

I don't think they had to bargain with labels for this. They previously had unlimited free streaming - I think they chose to limit it to see if it would increase subscriptions. It's possible they were forced to do it by the labels but personally I don't think that was the case (although I have no evidence).

JadeNB• 13 years ago

It seems to me that they're following a very similar trajectory to [Pandora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_radio) (which, to me, indicates that it's probably a good thing).

RossM• 13 years ago

This is starting to feel a bit like a race to the bottom. There's not a lot left to charge for - offline storage, higher quality and ad-free playback. Offline storage is becoming redundant with an increasing WiFi presence, and audio quality isn't a huge draw (I hear enough people playing music through their phone speakers).

Rdio already offers ad-free playback on the web (6 months) - it's going to put these services in a tricky situation if one of them starts offering ad-free everywhere.

rikkus• 13 years ago

I'm guessing they make most of their money from the ads - and appreciate the extra they get from paying subscribers enough that it's worth giving them a few extra benefits over the ad removal.

tobiasSoftware2• 13 years ago

I think they are mainly charging for ad free playback. I've been putting up with the ads and they tend to be very annoying. There was one for a while where they would outright yell "Trojan Man" and talk about how thin and pleasureable it was while making gasping noises. Another would yell "Ad-vanced Auto Parts" at you. They are also smart enough that they pause when you mute the volume in an attempt to force you to listen to them (I have headphones so I just put the headphones down).

Grue3• 13 years ago

How about no country limits? Eh?

paddyoloughlin• 13 years ago

I think we can all agree that Country music should always be subject to the strictest of limits.

k-mcgrady5• 13 years ago

Seems like a reaction to the launch of Beats Music next week. Beats won't have a free service so Spotify seems to bolstering there's so that free customers have less of a reason to switch and they have more time to try to convert them to paying subscribers.

Goopplesoft• 13 years ago

What does Beats have over Spotify? I just checked out the site and it seemed they're almost identical. Only interesting thing I found is:

Exclusively with AT&T, you can get the Beats Music Family Plan with 5 accounts across 10 devices for $14.99/month.

Although I'm fine with paying $10/person using Spotify, that is a bargain...

k-mcgrady5• 13 years ago

Let's face it, all these services are pretty much the same. I've used Rdio, Spotify and Google Play All Access. They all have the same music and most of the same features - just with different UI's.

What Beats has over Spotify is marketing. This is the company that convinced a lot of people to spend a lot of $$$ on headphones. I've already read about Superbowl spots they have ready as well as promotion on major talk shows. If they can convince people to spend hundreds of $ on headphones surely they can convince them to spend $10 per month on music to listen to through those headphones. It's also a great opportunity for a tie-in (buy the headphones and get the music service half price for 12 months). They also have the backing of quite a few major artists some of whom (Trent Reznor for example) supposedly worked on the project.

The thing Spotify has over Beats is their free service. By making that even better they are improving their biggest differentiator over their new competitor.

theanimation• 13 years ago

They claim they'll be able to make better music recommendations (curated by humans rather than algorithms) and on-the-fly playlists than Spotify.

From http://blog.beatsmusic.com:

We tried to remember a time a robot found us magic but all we could find were the times the robot made us laugh: “You like Pantera? Have you heard of Black Sabbath?” “You like Mumford and Sons? Here’s another song with banjos!”
Just tell Beats Music where you are, what you feel like doing, who you’re with, and what kind of music you’re looking to hear and we’ll take care of the rest by delivering you an endless playlist for your context, be it real or imaginary.

dysoco• 13 years ago

Hm... I've been using Grooveshark because Spotify wasn't aviable on my country, however it seems to be now... why would I switch to Spotify?

robmcm• 13 years ago

Try it and let us know :)

hobbes78• 13 years ago

Grooveshark isn't really legal, otherwise they wouldn't be being taken to court by just about any record companies. By using Spotify you're really rewarding the artists you listen to.

techtalsky2• 13 years ago

Zero dollars flow to music license holders via Grooveshark. It operates in a legal grey area. Also the file metadata is set up by uploaders and is a lower quality than Spotify in most cases. I don't know what the Grooveshark Android/iPhone client is like, but Spotify's is decent.

circa• 13 years ago

I really cannot stand the UI in Spotify. Also, making albums "playlists" just to listen to them is incredibly annoying. Maybe that is gone now but I have been a very happy Rdio subscriber for over a year now. I am really excited for Beatsmusic.com to launch on the 21st as well.

ajtaylor• 13 years ago

I agree with the album playlists issue. My account has a ton of playlists for exactly this reason. That said, the browse and discovery screens have found quite a bit of interesting music for me so I'd call it a wash at this point.

Dewie4• 13 years ago

Yeah, I either have to make playlists or search for the things I want each time. So I end up with a ton of playlists, with no way of searching or filtering them.

invisible• 13 years ago

You may want to give Grooveshark a try as well to be able to control you queue.

techtalsky2• 13 years ago

I don't mind having playlists for albums but the biggest problem is that enough playlists impact performance and slow the client to a crawl, especially on Windows.

Renaud• 13 years ago

I just noticed that there is a huge variation on the premium price depending on where you live:

  US: USD 9.99
  UK: GBP 9.99, that's about USD 16.30
  FR: EUR 9.99, that's about USD 13.60
  HK: HKD 48,   that's about USD  6.20

I'm in Hong Kong and I recently subscribed to premium. I can see that some songs are not available (about 5% seem greyed out but most of what I want to listen to is accessible), but I can't believe that I'm paying nearly 3x less than the UK!

lukasm• 13 years ago

yeah Poland: 4 quid

nkvoll• 13 years ago

Norway pays around $16.09 monthly and still has around the same amount of songs that are unavailable as well. It's getting better -- a year or so ago around 7-8% of the top 100 everywhere were unavailable to us. Still cost the same.

Same story with Netflix. Costs more here than in the US, but the content is waaay worse. It's often 2-3 years behind the original airing of the episodes in US, so it's not in any way useful to stay current.

epipsychidion• 13 years ago

The Netflix bit is not completely true; the number of films/episodes available is lower but you get quite a few high-profile movies unavailable stateside eg. Argo, Batman + The Matrix trilogies, The Departed etc (http://www.moreflicks.com/home/movies?utf8=%E2%9C%93&provide...). Blame licensing arrangements.

Netflix is pretty VPN-friendly from my experience, so if you have a US or Canadian one you can still watch what you'd like.

workhere-io2• 13 years ago

Same story with Netflix. Costs more here than in the US, but the content is waaay worse.

Use the US version of Netflix instead. Try https://unlocator.com (currently free because it's in beta - works like a charm) or http://unotelly.com/.

Here in Denmark it's completely legal to use the US Netflix. I don't know about Norwegian laws, though.

Deathmax• 13 years ago

Malaysia is MYR 14.90, about USD 4.5.

Or with a data bundle with a mobile carrier, MYR 10, about USD 3.

Then again, many songs are unavailable due to licensing.

danielhonigman• 13 years ago

I'd still pay for Rdio before Spotify. Just my two cents.

No more time limits on Spotify

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