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Spotify Retreats To Invite-Only In UK
Barence writes "Music streaming service Spotify has been forced to enact tight restrictions on new members in the UK, and revert back to an invite-only system. The company has decided to take drastic action following the release of its iPhone and Android apps earlier this week, which have created 'huge demand in the UK,' according to Spotify. People who don't want to put their hand in their pocket and don't have any friends can sign up to a waiting list instead."
The good thing is that Spotify premium (9euro/month) really isn't a lot for the service they provide. Since an year ago that I started using Spotify it's been pretty much my only music player. Now that they're getting the mobile clients out too its just getting better (also Symbian version coming soon, now just windows mobile!).
And like with every Spotify news here, for those who are going to ask why spotify is supposedly so much better than last.fm or pandora or other web radios. Spotify isn't a radio. It's more like a huge music library where you can search for any song and listen to them as you please. If you like to, you can even just repeat one song all the time. It's more like your WinAmp or other music player, just that the music is streamed and you have access to huge amount of songs.
Their technology seems to work great too. When you select a new song it starts playing *right away*. Just like listening from your own hard drive. The UI is simple and lightweight but still good. You can also easily paste links to songs, albums and playlists. For pretty much everyone I know its became the way to listen to music, and a great way for music labels to kill piracy. Finally a product that is actually better and more convenient than pirating, and I'm happily paying the 9 euros for the premium account.
As mobile side I'm just waiting for their Windows Mobile client for my HTC. The nice thing is that mobile 3g internet is really cheap here too: unlimited (yes, really) 384 kbit/s is 5e a month, while unlimited 5Mbit/s is 35e a month. Since I have them anyway, I can just stream all the songs normally while sitting in a car or anywhere.
And yes, its only available in Europe currently. But they plan to launch in USA this year too.
This type of problem should be seen as a good thing, and provide a clue for the music labels. They already serve the public when it comes to purchasing music with CDs and DRM-free downloads (finally!). Now they have an opportunity to serve the public with streaming music.
They tried something similar with rentals, but people don't really seem to like it that much. Streaming (for a fee) is a *lot* like renting, but since you never have the music on your hard drive or media player, it doesn't feel like you're losing anything once the subscription expires. Mixing owned and rented music doesn't seem to be that desirable. But with the clear demarcation between owned and streamed, it's much more enticing.
I know I'd prefer to stream than to rent. Hopefully the labels will see this as an opportunity, and not a threat, and bring this to the US.
Yeah, I know, placing hope on the intelligence of the music industry is a recipe for disappointment, but what the hell, right?
How is it cheap? At £8.73 per month that equates to roughly £105 a year. The BBC license fee is only £35 more than that a year.... !
If you could keep what you listened to and were able to play it outside of the DRM laden spotify client, I think £8.75 / month might be acceptable. But as it stands, if you're a premium user you get nothing much more than their "gracious" removal of ads and a slightly higher bit rate (which frankly isn't worth all the much more imho).
Seriously, I don't get it.
I didn't get it either, until a friend sent me an invite so that I could try it for myself.
a). you can only play it through spotify and lose access as and when you stop renewing your monthly subscription (as I understand it)
Sure, but it's the same thing with TV.
b). you have to surrender your bandwidth not only for streaming songs (although I think it does make use of a local cache) but also as a node in the spotify p2p network
I'm not sure how much bandwidth spotify uses, but it's not noticeable for me or anyone I know, OTOH we all have at least 10Mb in the wall. I can see that this might, possibly, be a problem in "developing" countries. But not in where Spotify is available right now (Europe).
c). you don't get access to some mega bands (e.g. Metallica, ACDC, Pink Floyd etc.)
Bah, listen to Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath instead!
Spotify isn't perfect, but it's the best legal alternative we have right now. Sure, my collection of 12000 mp3's (about half of them are pirated) is better if I lose my internet connection or if I want to listen to some really hard-to-find-stuff that I have in my collection, but Spotify has 99,9% of the music I like, makes it easy to find new music, makes it easy to share playlists with friends... etc. Which makes it better for me as long as I'm online.
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You have a huge catalogue of movies at your fingertips - as long as you pay for the right. I don't find the idea of paying a small fee to have a lot of content accessible pretty much whenever you want (as opposed to when the tv channels (movies) or radio (music) decides to play it) that outrageous.
I don't think this is relevant. I don't notice any bandwidth-problems at all. Maybe it would have been a point 10 years ago, but today, when my friends laugh at me for "only" having a 12Mbit connection, I don't think we need to worry about that.
Think of it as cable TV with on-demand movies available, except for music. You don't have every movie ever made available, but you don't expect that either. The point is that you do have a lot available - when you want it. If you really want to listen to Metallica, buy their CDs or wait for the Spotify catalogue to grow.
Noone said Spotify would be the alpha and omega of all your music needs. It just provides a large catalogue for you - either for free, or for a small fee (for which you also get better sound quality btw, 320kb/s instead if 160kb/s if you wish). If a song you want to listen to is not on there, or if you really want to own it so you can listen to it everywhere, noone's stopping you from buying the CD.
Personally, I use the free version (for now). I like the idea that I have a lot of the music I listen to available and that I can listen to it at work. I like the fact that if a friend recommends a band to me, I can more often than not just check it out immediately.
why in the hell would you pay a monthly subscription for access to music
If Spotify dropped the ad-supported model, I'd stump up for the monthly subscription in an instant. It's so convenient, I even fire up Spotify rather than playing a CD that I already own. I used to file share to find music that I'd been recommended. Nowadays, if they're not on Spotify, I just can't be bothered going through the hassle of LimeWire/BitTorrent.
Someone in the recording industry once said "You can't compete with free". Well, Spotify proved him wrong; you can compete by making it free and more convenient.
Disclaimer: i haven't used spotify so if some of my points are totally wrong, please tell me.
You're not wrong, but until you actually use Spotify, it's hard to appreciate just how great the user experience is.
Squirrel!
The BBC license fee is cheap for what it is. Just because it's obligatory, people develop a false sense of expense about it.
The most basic package on Sky (our satellite TV provider) costs more than DOUBLE the license fee (including fitting in first year), and the commercial channels are full of advertisements. The BBC is commercial free and raises the quality of broadcasting as a whole in the UK.
Spotify doesn't supply as much content bandwidth as the BBC, but does let you choose from a large selection of music. That choice probably balances the fact that it's music-only.. I wonder what it would cost if it fell under the arm of the BBC? They presumably have a great deal of the infrastructure already, so that would be a reduction in overhead costs.
Do you pay for cable subscription? Do you go to movies? Do you eat food? Those are something you pay once but after that they're gone forever.
If you want to keep the products, you buy a cd or digital download for 10-20 euros an album. But if you're fine with streaming and just listening to what you feel like then, it makes a lot more sense to pay the 9e/month and listen to as much as you want, even if you cant keep them. It's a cheaper and I dont understand why you except to keep the music you listen on a (cheap) streaming music service.
I like the idea of the "day pass" system. For £1, I get access to everything for 24 hours.
That would be excellent for parties. My collection is 95% music I like, but it's not to most peoples' tastes -- and it's quite narrow (e.g. only certain sub-genres of a few genres). I'm happy to hear other stuff though. Typically, someone plugs in an iPod or brings along a few CDs, but it'd be much easier and more flexible if everything could stay on the computer.
Unfortunately, you need an account to buy a "day pass".
The P2P part is used mostly for just the most popular tracks, it would be too slow and unreliable otherwise. For that matter I havent ever noticed it using upload bandwidth so much that I would, well, notice it. It makes sense to try to P2P the most listened tracks, as theres probably thousands of people listening them at the same time.
Do they have any website, representation or payment processing ?
I personally like http://www.jamendo.com/
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Maybe if you look at it a different way.
There are 4.5million tracks on Spotify. That is over 25 years of never hearing the same track twice. (At 3mins a track listening 24hrs a day). It would cost you about £3000 to listen to Spotify for 25 years. If you were to buy each of those tracks say at 1p each that is £45,000. Obviously this is an extreme but it works on the small scale too.
If you want to listen to an hour a night for a month without hearing the same track, that is £10 on Spotify. If we assume about £2.50 for a 1 hour album, we need 30 albums, that is £75.
Yes, if you only like a select few artists, or like listening to the same stuff over and over, paying for Spotify probably isn't for you. I know most people aren't going to be the extreme of my examples, but paying for Spotify is not as crazy as you think if you want access to a massive music library.
And you don't even need to pay for Spotify, the adverts are not that intrusive, or long.
I bought have hundreds of CDs which I've paid a LOT of money for and in just a few months with Spotify Premium I've already listened to more songs than I've bought through the years up till now and for a relatively small amount. If Spotify goes down after three years, then I've "lost" the equivalent of 18 CDs but I've been able to listen to the music equivalent to thousands of CDs. Seems like a good deal.