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Spotify is raising the cost of Premium subscriptions, again

Spotify is officially raising its Premium subscription rates in the US come July, following reports of the move in April. The platform is increasing its Individual plan from $11 to $12 monthly and its Duo plan from $15 to $17 monthly — the same jump as last year's $1 and $2 price hikes, respectively. However, its Family plan is going up by a whopping $3, increasing from $17 to $20 monthly. The only subscribers getting a break are students, who will continue to pay $6 monthly.

Spotify announced the price hikes less than a year after its previous one last July. Before that, Spotify hadn't raised its fees since launching a decade and a half ago. I guess it was too optimistic to hope the next increase would also take that long, especially with Spotify's continued focus (and money dump) on audiobooks.

Premium subscribers should receive an email from Spotify in the next month detailing the price hike and providing a link to cancel their plan if they would prefer to do so. Users currently on a trial period for Spotify will get one month at $11 after it ends before being moved up to a $12 monthly fee.

jpeps ,

For anyone who hasn't checked their Spotify subscription for a while, I recently discovered a new basic tier created underneath the premium one that is a little cheaper simply by not including the 'free' 15 hours of audiobooks. I've never used it and don't intend to. YMMV.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

Is the audio quality the same?

jpeps ,

Yeah! It's 'premium' in all ways except that audiobook offer. Prettttyyyy shitty behaviour from them.

anthony ,
@anthony@lemmy.cif.su avatar

Who else is still using YouTube Music ReVanced?

Caesium ,

I gotta start direct downloading my music again soon. Spotify has just left me feeling so frustrated lately.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

I've emailed support thrice for intrusive full screen ads. "these are promotions". Yeah, ads... "Sorry you don't like our promotions, we will note it"

Uh huh.

talentedkiwi ,

I can't updoot you enough. I hate that so much too.

BigMacHole ,

It's a good thing we haven't risen Wages between last Price Hike and this Price Hike. Otherwise Spotify might be forced to Raise Their Prices!

bbuez ,

Im just happy my cracked apk somehow still works. Lol

kandoh ,

Quality isn't good enough to justify the price. Apple Music and Tidal have better quality of sound.

Lianodel , (edited )

even apart from audio quality, Spotify is just plain terrible as a music library.

For someone who lives in playlists, it might be fine. But I like to pick and choose albums and songs, and be able to sort the whole collection on the fly. Spotify, and unfortunately a whole bunch of the competition, will have three separate lists for "liked" songs, albums, and artists. Only want to save the studio tracks, and not the demos and live versions? Fuck you, you can like the album or not, it's all or nothing! And the special edition is the only version we have! enjoy the solid hour of shittier versions of the songs you actually wanted!

Wahots ,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

I wish we could offload podcasts and audio books. I have zero interest in them, or paying for them.

madcaesar ,

And fucking Joe asshole Rogan. We're paying for his Neanderthal 150 million contract.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

I like them but not on my music service. It's in my way all the time. I have audible and I use a different app for podcasts. At least give me the option, but they won't because I'm sure they get an incentive.

Qwaffle_waffle ,

I use libby via local library for audiobooks.

IzzyScissor ,

Prices will continue to go up until the number of subscribers lost due to the price increase outweighs the additional profit from the subscribers who agree to pay the higher amount.

Capitalism machine goes brrrrrrr

art ,
@art@lemmy.world avatar

I'm sure this is the last time. 😉

jeremyparker ,

Surely it's because they want to increase the amount they pay the musicians.

x0chi ,

In the early 90s I used to pay around 10 to 15 euros (20 to 30 with current inflation) for each CD release.

And still we still complain nowadays.

We got a problem with the streaming industry but it's not the price we pay.
We must be reasonable, say that the price is 15 bucks, is that really unreasonable for getting at your fingertips and everywhere most of the music even produced?
I don't.

I think the major problem with Spotify isn't Spotify problem, but an industry problem.
If I remember correctly, Spotify gets around 30%, then there's the distributor, and it gets around 40%. Whatever's left of the cake is divided between the label and the artist depending on the contract.
The industry created something that didn't need to exist, another intermediate, the distributor. First apple used them cause of the work they do arranging all the needed metadata and keeping it tidy. The industry created them, now it can't get rid of them, and they "eat" the most part of the money.

Spez ,

Then why does tidal for the same price as spotify with way less users pay four times as much to the artists than spotify? Spotify has the largest market share and now they are trying to milk the cow as much as they can because people are too lazy to switch. Most people don’t even know that you can transfer playlists. Same with Netflix (although they at least have more exclusive content).

TheOakTree ,

I don't really like Tidal, but this is why I have stuck with Tidal instead of switching back to Spotify. At least the artists get more money, and I get my higher bitrate. Now it seems that prices are getting even closer to parity, so that's less of a reason to switch back.

I considered trying Qobuz or Deezer, but I'm too lazy to switch right now.

redcalcium ,

Then why does tidal for the same price as spotify with way less users pay four times as much to the artists than spotify?

I wonder why too. Spotify takes a 30% cut, but even if Tidal takes 0% cuts, how come it can pays 4x as much to artists? There must be more to the math to make it check out.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

Royalties come out of profits.

Profits = revenue - costs.

Inflate costs (pay 3rd parties you also own) and pay less royalties.

At least that's how the movie business works.

return2ozma ,
@return2ozma@lemmy.world avatar

If your library supports it, there's Freegal music. It's the library version of Spotify.

https://freegalmusic.com

BonesOfTheMoon ,

Nice!

InternetUser2012 ,

People still use spotify? Huh, TIL.

kworpy ,
@kworpy@lemm.ee avatar

literally just get audio files of whatever you wanna listen to and plop it on funkwhale

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

You.... Are kidding right?

You would have to be living under a proverbial rock to have no inkling that Spotify is a product still in use, or be willfully ignorant.

It's like saying:

  • People still use Google?
  • People still drive cars?
  • People still use Windows?
  • People still go to churches?

...etc

Not that I agree that we should use Spotify. But playing pretend that they are small, irrelevant, and have no effect on the industry they are in isn't doing us any favors when it comes to pushing back against it.

InternetUser2012 ,

You on their payroll? You sound like you're on their payroll. Everyone I know ditched that garbage years ago.

TheOakTree ,

Ah yes, you know so many people that it somehow becomes equivalent to a healthy sample size of the entire human population. Got it.

InternetUser2012 ,

You ok? You seem really triggered over this.

TheOakTree ,

Not at all! I had fun typing out the comment while considering the implications of your comment! :P

Thanks for the good time.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

Most people tend to be triggered by ignorance paraded as knowledge and petulant personal attacks due to an inability to engage like an adult.

To be fair.

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

fails to see reality

Reality is shown to them

Doubles down on their ignorance of reality

This thread is a textbook example of:

Don't argue with morons. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Instead of actually arguing the topic at hand you are trying to drag all repliers down to your level, act in bad faith, and beat them with personal attacks 🤣

Classic.

InternetUser2012 ,

That was a lot of typing to avoid a simple question. You're either a shill or you're on their payroll.

NikkiDimes ,

Spotify is the only good music app my car supports. It is what it is.

murmelade ,

https://github.com/Team-xManager/xManager/releases for Android

https://github.com/spicetify for PC

Neato ,

Does this get rid of ads? It just looks like a UX redesign.

Zidane ,

The android app for sure gets rid of ads. I just use browser + adblock for PC so unsure there

murmelade ,

Yes the PC one has adblock and you can re-skin and use widgets from their marketplace (free)

SadSadSatellite ,

You're supposed to vaguely imply the existence of those, not just give away secrets in public bruh

murmelade ,

It's Lemmy, we're all friends here.

cyberpunk007 OP ,

What is this? I can't find a description anywhere on GitHub of what this is

murmelade ,

Removes ads with the free accounts. You will be limited to free sound quality and other premium features are missing but ya know, good enough for free without ads.

JSens1998 ,

I don't understand why people pay for a music subscription when you can just use YouTube Music (ReVanced or FOSS YTMusic clients) for the freezies.

soloner ,

Do those things give you DJ and radio options? I'm too lazy to go find the songs I want. I'd rather just let the app put on tunes and learn what I like based on feedback and behavior.

JSens1998 ,

SimpMusic allows you to login to your Google account, and will sync your YTMusic recommendations. It also has radios. :)

AhismaMiasma ,

Got the email of subscription increase, just cancelled.

Been trialling Tidal and we're both pretty happy with it. Integrates almost as well as Spotify with Android Auto and the sound quality is far better.

Grilipper54 ,

I might make the move to tidal as well, I just have a crazy big playlist though on Spotify that would be sad to lose.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

On your Spotify account page, you can request a copy of your personal data which includes your playlist data.

GbyBE ,

When you create a tidal account they tell you how to transfer your playlists automatically via a 3rd party service (Limited to 500 tracks, unless you pay). Qobuz does the same, but if I'm not mistaken actually partners with the 3rd party service to offer it for free without the 500 track limit.

Grilipper54 ,

I downloaded the app for a trial today. It's already missing artist and albums that appear on Spotify for me which is a little upsetting. I was hoping a majority of the content was available on both platforms.

LycanGalen ,

Take a look at Deezer, too. It's what I went with because it offers high fidelity FLAC audio for paid subscriptions, and integrates with Google home voice commands, which Tidal didn't when I was looking.

killabeezio ,

I went with deezer for this reason as well. But deezer has gotten really bad and the interface is just God awful. I recently moved over to tidal and love it. It's way better than deezer at this point

LycanGalen ,

I haven't had any issues with it personally (not invalidating your experience) What has gotten bad about it?

killabeezio ,

Had issues downloading for offline. Recommendations are meh. Sometimes I can't search. Sometimes the app won't load when on cell data.

I never had issues like those before and then all of the sudden, it's not even usable. I get having bad cell coverage somewhere, but I would have a strong signal and it will still do it. I had to uninstall and reinstall the app multiple times for it to work.

Tidal is now cheaper and it has everything I would listen to. Before they were missing some bands and deezer had them. Doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

LycanGalen ,

Sounds like they missed some QA testing for your device or something. That sucks.

I do notice that the recommended music at the end of a playlist tends to skew more to whatever the last song was, rather than overall vibe of the playlist. Assuming it didn't end on a really annoying song, though, I don't personally mind changing directions a little. That said, can completely appreciate their algorithms not working for everyone.

I do think they've been working on improving the algorithms though, as they are definitely not as wonky as they were when I first joined a couple years ago. Nice to know at least some of my payment is going towards improving the platform, unlike Spotify, where it's going towards buying podcasts I don't want to listen to.

I pay for the annual subscription, so Deezer is still cheaper for me by about $2/month, but I'm glad you've found what you're looking for in Tidal. And thanks for humoring my curiousity.

jeremyparker ,

iBroadcast is what i use. That plus rutracker and you can sail the high seas like it's 1699.

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