
Spotify Finally Coming to U.S. in July - davethenerd
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/spotify_finally_u.s._coming_in_july/
======
Toddward
I kind of wonder about the relevance of Spotify in the current market - with
locker offerings from Google and Amazon (and forthcoming from Apple), it seems
like the need for services like Spotify (for me, at least) is dwindling.

Spotify was a great idea before the emergence of music lockers - if I wanted
access to music on the go, I could use a streaming service. But now that I can
use a locker service to stream my own music library, I'm far less likely to
pay for a Spotify subscription.

Case in point - I would have instantly sprung for a Spotify subscription two
or three years ago had it been available in the States, but now that I'm using
Google Music (albeit for free for now), there is no incentive for me to switch
to Spotify as anything more than a semi-casual user.

~~~
bonaldi
Lockers of your own music are completely orthogonal to what Spotify is great
at: social music.

I have lots of shared playlists with friends, and when one adds a song to a
playlist we all instantly get it. It's like live, endless mixtapes, and
transforms discovering and sharing music.

Spotify may need to market this more, but cloud storage and iTunes match don't
come close to its killer app.

~~~
Toddward
That's a good point that I hadn't considered - in fact, after reading some of
the responses here, I'm rethinking my original position on the issue. While I
may prefer the music locker model, that certainly doesn't mean Spotify is any
less relevant for everyone else.

------
helipad
After a hiatus I fired up Spotify here in the UK today. It's awful.

The software works just fine and the number of songs is commendable, but there
are audio ads every couple of songs, intrusive display ads and free users only
get 10 hours a month of listening.

Sure, you get what you pay for, but it's certainly a much, much worse
experience than I had remembered it.

~~~
kenneth_reitz
The free service is awful, because you're supposed to pay :)

I've been using paid Spotify from the US for a year and a half now, and I use
it everyday. It's perfect.

~~~
helipad
Spotify got its traction in Europe though because of the free service.

Whether or not the paid version good value, the free service is essentially
just a free trial now - which is fine, but there's a heck of a lot of
competition in the paid area.

------
joblessjunkie
How is Spotify different from Rhapsody, which has been offering subscription
streaming in the US for almost a decade?

~~~
mikemaccana
Maybe Rhapsody has this, but Spotify has all my FB friends on the right hand
side and we drag and drop music to each other all day and browse each other
playlists. It's like Ping done right.

It also has an API.

Also IIRC Rhapsody is a Real product, so it may not actually work properly.

------
anonymoushn
Awesome, I'll finally be able to search their library so I can know whether
I'm missing anything.

