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.

-7 points

People still use spotify? Huh, TIL.

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2 points

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

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8 points
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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.

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-3 points

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

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1 point
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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.

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2 points

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

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1 point

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

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0 points

What’s “spotify”?

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-3 points

It’s the “we have Apple Music” at home of streaming services.

Basically: more expensive, shitty UI, no lossless or high-res audio. Oh, and they pay the least to artists of all streaming services.

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13 points
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It’s a paid alternative to “Spot-X” and “BlockTheSpot” 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

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1 point

Tell me more.

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6 points

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.

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18 points

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).

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1 point
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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.

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2 points

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.

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3 points
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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.

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6 points

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.

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7 points

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.

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

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0 points

The problem is that creators aren’t getting paid their fair share, and these platforms leech off of their creativity. I hate to be “that guy”, but this is where NFTs actually have a use case. Give power directly to the creators of their music by allowing them sell directly to fans. This gives power to the creators and to the listeners who own the NFT. Embracing new technology is a way to break beyond corporate enshittification. We must break past “you will own nothing and be happy” and it seems like blockchain is one of the only ways to do it technologically.

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1 point

People have a negative image of NFTs because of the speculation and early (crappy) implementations of the technology. It’s just a technology. I think web3 will be the answer to a lot of the corporate enshittification issues we see today. Community owned and operated networks and organizations are the future.

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4 points

Why not just use Bandcamp? Even with nfts someone has to maintain the CDN. Alternatively, run your own site.

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4 points

Because then they wouldn’t be able to evangelize NFTs. You see this constantly with crypto/NFT tech, a solution in search of a problem

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2 points

Blockchain is used for Xbox royalties.

The problem is that legacy rights holder (the middlemen) have no incentive to use blockchain to cut themselves out. They have the legal high ground and are not going to give it up.

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