Slashdot Mirror
Spotify Is Planning a New Version of Its Free Music Service (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Spotify Technology is developing a new version of its free music service, the first big product change since the streaming company went public last week, according to people familiar with the matter. The company is tweaking the free service to make it easier to use, especially for customers on mobile phones, said the people. An announcement is expected within a couple weeks. Spotify needs to attract large numbers of new listeners to satisfy investors who value the newly public company based on user growth. The free service generates customers that the company can steer into its paid offerings. The paid version accounts for less than half of Spotify's customer base, but generated about 90 percent of its 4.09 billion euros in 2017 revenue. [...] With the updated service, free mobile listeners will be able to access playlists more quickly and have more control over what songs they hear on top playlists, mimicking Spotify's ad-free subscription product. The basic package is $9.99 a month.
And here lies the problem. If I can subscribe to Netflix and watch TV shows and movies for less than $10 per month, then I want to pay less than Netflix to listen to music.
At $5 per month I'd start to think about it. At $3 per month I wouldn't even think about it and just subscribe.
#DeleteFacebook
This is hardly "news", isn't for "nerds", and doesn't "matter". Slow news day, eh?
It would help a lot if they'd fix the bugs in the player. I'm not going to pay anything for a buggy app. Also, they need to do a much better job differentiating artists with the same name.
When I can use my unlimited data plan on my mobile whilst in the car and stream any number of curated YouTube playlists. Cost? Free!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If they keep giving stuff to people who don't want to purchase a sub, why would I continue paying the same price? I had an active subscription because the free version was annoying and quite limited, but if they remove those limitations what's the incentive to keep paying?
I just cancelled it, won't re-sub until they explain to me why I now pay the same price for less stuff. (less means that some of stuff I paid money for will now be included for free, so I'm actually paying for "less")
I was thinking about subscribing, then they ruined the web player and removed most of its functionality.
Unless they have a complete library of music and TV, its still a bad deal.
And they wonder why people keep pirating things.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Paying customers amounting to close to half is a pretty good ratio in software, they aren't going to be able to increase that by much. I guess they realized that trying to annoy users into paying just drives them away. Now I would be willing to pay if Spotify also served as a store, that is if it allowed me to purchase albums/songs and then be able to listen to them without ads interrupting it, and save them to drive so that it can be played offline by Spotify or any other music player. From what I've heard Spotify is experimenting with features like that, but in an example of record labels shooting themselves in the foot, they are only allowed to offer that feature in a select few countries.
I have invested in quite a large CD collection (which I keep adding to), which I've ripped to MP3.
It's mine. I don't need to pay data plan rates to stream it, I don't need to be dependent on someone to keep giving me music, I don't get ads, nobody gets to have analytics against what I like ... my relationship to the music publishers is "one and done", and then they can go fuck themselves.
The artists get paid when I buy the album, and then the relationship is between me and my music collection. And that's none of their business.
Subscription services? No thanks, not interested.
And, if you don't think Spotify is spying on you as much as Facebook, you're an idiot. All of these 'free' services are, and I expect the paid services are as well. Because collecting your data is where the real money is.
I have heard of Spotify for many years, but every time I forget and someone mentions it again, and I go to look at what it is, I laugh. Turns out, it's just another proprietary streaming service.
I realize that proprietary streaming services are good enough for some kinds of people, but to think it would have broad appeal (or even acceptability) is a mistake. The people who are willing to tolerate such a thing, are probably already using it. If I worked at Spotify and I were tasked with "attracting large numbers of new listeners" I would be terrified and already looking for another job,
And if any friend of mine were a Spotify investor and said they were told the customer base would grow, I would suggest to them that they had been defrauded. I'm not saying the service can't have customers, but what reason is there to suspect, that people who are getting by in other ways (e.g. msuic purchases) are suddenly going to be willing to settle for less?
Rewrite the entire application. Start by adding SIMPLE FILTERS and views, so I can sort by rock, and the year the album was released. SEESH!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
10,000 items? Fucking ridiculous. It's just a list of pointers.
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Increase-maximum-songs-allowed-in-quot-Your-Music-quot/idi-p/733759
Comment removed based on user account deletion