
Upcoming changes to Spotify Free/Open - yesbabyyes
http://www.spotify.com/se/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-changes-to-spotify-free-open/
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ladon86
I really don't understand how people can find such little value in music that
they don't think it worth paying £10 or even £5 a month to listen to unlimited
amounts of it on their computer and mobile.

Spotify is easily the best thing I subscribe to, it's fantastic value.

People's perceptions of price are just weird. They will pay £5 for a cocktail
they can enjoy for 5 minutes, but not £5 for a whole month of music. People on
the comments are complaining that it's not fair to students. Students always
seem to have money for beer.

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thehodge
I completely agree with this, I pay for premium and £9.99 is the sweet spot,
its about what I would normally spend on music a month (a lot more than in
recent months).

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robertgaal
There's some heart breaking stories in the comments. A young student,
supported by his lonely mother, is now forced to be a pirate again. Honest
hard-working individuals now have to drink two whole beers less every month to
pay for a subscription. It's a sad, sad day for cheapskates ;'(

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joelhaasnoot
My brother (17) has 4 accounts. There's tricks to everything.

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christkv
I would wager that they are cutting bleeding so they can afford to launch in
new markets. The current model would have killed them if they ever launched in
the us with the number of users they would attract.

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mcdaid
Well it was nice while it lasted!

As a heavy user who rarely clicks the ads I could never understand how they
could keep the service as it was. But on the bright side at least it is still
free albeit with more restrictions.

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afletcher
Have been expecting this for a while, and I think their paid subscriptions are
good value, but I wish companries would be more honest and open with
anouncements like this rather than trying to spin it as a positive change.

They probably think this change sucks, lots of their user's certainly will but
the truth is ad revenue can't support free users streaming unlimited tracks.
Spotify needs to be profitable to continue the service. Just tell us that.

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TamDenholm
Personally i'm a paying user because i want the mobile version and i find the
ads annoying, but i'm happy to pay for it and i do think its good value.
However, you can understand why people find this crappy, because they'll just
take the path of least resistance, which is to pirate music again.

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JCB_K
It sucks, but I do understand, they have to pay their bills as well. I mean,
£5 a month for unlimited music without adds is not bad.

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Argorak
It mostly sucks for people that cannot get a premium account but have neat
tricks to get free.

Living in germany, I usually head to starbucks (their access points are routed
through the UK) to refresh my 2 weeks travel time on my free account every now
and then. I would buy premium, because 'spotify is not available in this
country'. We have Simfy, but they are far worse (especially their AIR client).

But in the end, its a hack with no benefit to spotify (I get advertisement for
british social health plans) so I can understand they are cracking down on
this.

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tehwalrus
so it is true - free plans never work.

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guelo
The one service that euros had over us yanks and it's pulled away from them,
muahahaha! Now they must look upon us with envy once again!

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chrisjsmith
IMHO, a subscription for music is completely worthless.

If spotify had for example a 10 year lifespan, that's £600 I'd have spent in
subscription fees (minus potential inflation) for something I can no longer
use at the end of the day.

I'd rather spend £600 over the time on CDs which I can do what I like with,
including ripping to whatever media device and format is currently
fashionable. That's 60 good albums potentially which will last until you die.

The value proposition is just silly on the risk basis. That's why they will
die.

[addendum] I use spotify to find music I want to buy - that's the sweet spot.

