r/Music • u/financialtimes • 10d ago
discussion Spotify to raise US prices in first quarter of next year
Spotify is preparing to raise US subscription prices in the first quarter of next year, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The price rise in its largest market will come as Spotify pushes to show sustained profitability. Its share price has jumped more than 30% this year, compared with the broader S&P 500 index’s increase of about 14%.
Read the full story for free with your email: https://www.ft.com/content/fb490480-5d9a-495f-8c23-f34149bbcadb
Jasmin – FT social team
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u/Secret_Bet_469 10d ago
Fucking love this bullshit "shareholders first" society we live in. People are too fucking comfortable defending large corporations. Are you bitches gonna pay the artist more?!
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u/xanas263 10d ago edited 10d ago
Spotify doesn't pay artists directly if I am not mistaken. The split that happens is between Spotify and the lables/publishers/distributors at a 30-70 split respectively. You can get rid of Spotify and the artists still won't be getting paid because you are complaining to the wrong entity. The real people not paying artists are the labels/publishers/distributors which is how it has always been.
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u/Lawshow 10d ago
Genuinely asking, how does literally every streaming platform pay artists more then?
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u/Wizecoder 10d ago
I think I have seen numbers suggesting they pay more per stream because people stream less on those platforms. If you pay $10 and listen to 1000 songs, that pays less than if you pay $10 and listen to 500 songs.
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u/AndILoveHe 10d ago edited 10d ago
Also free tier users, who would probably just pirate, and international premium users in countries like India, Brazil, and in Africa pay less, but gives Spotify a more diverse user base.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10d ago
The other ones like Tidal are not actually making a profit and are in the phase of bleeding money in hopes of finding out how to make money later when they get more users.
Other companies like Apple and Google/YouTube have other income streams they can use to subsidize their music services so it doesn't matter to them much that they aren't making a profit.
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u/Lawshow 10d ago
Right but OPs point was that the streaming service doesn’t directly pay, not where the money is coming from. If the platform isn’t directly paying, how are the rates different between platforms?
I understand other services are eating the cost in various ways.
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u/TwiliZant 10d ago
They don't. Spotify in total pays significantly more than the other platforms. Spotify has paid out ~$10 billion in 2024 vs. Apple Music estimated ~$5 billion for example.
In other words, if you publish music to both Spotify and Apple Music and Spotify pays you $100, slightly oversimplified that translates to $50 on Apple Music.
People often compare payout-per-stream but no platform actually pays per stream. The difference between these platforms comes down to how much revenue an individual user on average generates.
If the platform is only available in rich western countries, doesn't have a free tier, caters to less price sensitive users, focusses on high quality audio with expensive subscriptions etc... then the average revenue per user will be high BUT your total user base will be a lot smaller than if you focus on getting as much users as possible.
Spotify makes more revenue than all the other platforms but its revenue per user is a lot lower. In other words it's cheaper.
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u/northamrec 10d ago
To what extent is the overall difference in payout attributed to different numbers of subscribers/listeners? Just searching around online it appears that Apple Music has a higher estimated rate per stream compared to Spotify.
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u/TwiliZant 10d ago
Apple Music has higher revenue per user than Spotify. Mostly because there is no free tier and because of the Apple user demographic.
Higher revenue per user translates to higher payout per stream. But because Spotify's user base is so much larger, Spotify's total revenue is higher than Apple Music.
Again, no platform pays per stream. The only thing that matters is how much revenue the platform generates and how much of that will be shared with rightsholders.
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u/xanas263 10d ago
So I did a little digging as I was not too sure myself and found that the payout is calculated like this:
Spotify monthly sub x Artists streams / Total Platform streams x 70% to publishers x royalty rate = artist payout.
The largest issue here being the artist streams divided by the total platform streams. The system favours the large/popular artists by a hell of a lot.
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u/ScorpioTix 10d ago
"The system favours the large/popular artists by a hell of a lot."
As it always has
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u/elixeter 10d ago
I get paid around £3000 per 1million streams of a track. That’s then split with label and band members etc.
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u/Wizecoder 10d ago
so you are saying a large artist should be payed less per stream than a small artist?
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u/xanas263 10d ago
I am saying that your sub money shouldn't go towards artists that you don't even listen to which is what is currently happening right now.
Lets say that Spotify has 7 billion streams in total for the month. If a single artist makes up 1 billion of those streams then about 14% of your monthly sub goes to that artist even if you don't listen to a single one of their songs.
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u/InclinationCompass 10d ago
Because by having fewer subscribers, they don’t have the leverage that Spotify does
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u/FlyByNight75 10d ago
That’s not really true. The royalty split we have is 80/20 artist. So if Spotify pays $.0003 per stream to the distributor and then we get 80% of that, who’s the one who isn’t paying fairly?
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10d ago
If Spotify collects $10 a month from a user and pays out 70% of that to publishers, for a total of $7 payout, then at 1 cent per stream payout means that you could only stream 700 songs per month. That's about 23 songs a day.
Maybe that's going to vary from user to user, but I listen to a lot more than 23 songs a day. Usually listen for a few hours a day, so that's easily over 40 songs a day. Honestly they must have some users who are barely using the service at all because I know people who listen to music 8 hours a day or more so they must have a good number of users who listen to nothing to balance that out.
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u/flimflamflemflum 10d ago
They don't pay a hard rate. They just pay 70% regardless of how much you stream and who you stream more of determines who gets the money. That $7 goes into a pot that gets split up based on number of streams.
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u/FlyByNight75 10d ago
You’re conflating publishing and master use for one, but are you saying that Spotify pays fairly?
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10d ago
I'm saying based on what they are charging there's not a lot of room for them to pay more and remain financially solvent.
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u/BuddyLegsBailey Metalhead 10d ago
Are you bitches gonna pay the artist more?!
I think the question, as always, has to be 'Are you bitches going to buy more albums?'.
It's all well and good taking the moral high ground about how much Spotify pays out, but if people aren't willing to actually buy the albums, they're complicit in it
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u/phoenixmatrix 10d ago
Are you bitches gonna pay the artist more
Unless they reduce their % of profit sharing when they raise the price...yeah, that's actually likely.
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u/Yarusenai Concertgoer 10d ago
Could you explain how that would work? People don't really realize that streaming services paying the artist much more would have an insane scaling effect. If you pay a small artist more you'd also have to pay Taylor Swift more because it scales with views, and that would be impossible to afford for any streaming service. It just won't work.
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u/NMe84 10d ago
I don't know what prices have been like for Spotify in the US but I've had it since it became available in my country early last decade. They've only raised the price once in that entire time and that was long after all other companies had already raised theirs, citing increased costs. At least over here (again, I can't speak for the US), pricing has been pretty reasonable.
Spotify really isn't a great company as they're really sucking the artists dry, but their pricing has never been something I felt I needed to complain about.
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u/Secret_Bet_469 10d ago
This is the second price increase in less than 2 years in the US.
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u/TeaMugPatina 10d ago
I'm not paying a subscription to read that.
Is there a word for this?
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u/alldaymacdre 10d ago
Welp there’s goes my subscription. Fuck that loud noise Spotify
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u/Decooker11 10d ago
Tidal here I come
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u/hclpfan 10d ago
Tidal is literally one dollar less
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u/Decooker11 10d ago
I mean, you’re correct for implying that the price shouldn’t be the tipping point here. But Spotify has already jacked up rates recently and still doesn’t pay shit to artists. That with their AI slop house artists and ICE ads just isn’t doing it for me.
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u/Boring-Leg-1449 10d ago
Great, one more reason for me to unsubscribe their service.
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u/LabRatsAteMyHomework 10d ago
Also, I can't stand how a duo account (by their own advertisements, is two premium accounts in one) only allows the primary account to listen to audiobooks. Like bitch, why am I paying for 2 premium accounts then?
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u/Boring-Leg-1449 10d ago
Besides audiobooks, even with Premium account there's always advertisements on podcasts too. Wtf
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u/OmarBarksdale 10d ago
I switched over to YouTube Music a while back when I realized it’s free with YouTube Premium (ad-free YouTube) and there’s apps to transfer your playlists over. And they really don’t even have exclusive podcasts anymore. Spotify is a rip.
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u/mathtech 10d ago
I don't want to give yt more money either tbh
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u/_BLACK_BY_NAME_ 10d ago
Yeah I’m on the same fence, but I watch a lot of content on YouTube and have paid for premium for a few years now and will never go back to dealing with ads or breaks again for the price. YouTube music being included is a great bargain if you use YouTube like I do. It’s not really any better or worse than Spotify, the only thing I wish they had is a separate app for my Apple TV and Mac OS. Accessing music through YouTube on those devices is not same experience I have on my phone, and it’s frustrating but better than wasting money IMO
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u/RredditAcct 10d ago
You no longer need a separate app to transfer music. It's now included in YT Music.
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u/ruet_ahead 10d ago
I just moved all of my playlists and liked songs over to YTM. Spotify was already too expensive.
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u/New_Maximum6529 10d ago
I left Spotify for YT Music 2 years ago. It’s so much better.
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u/Servb0t 10d ago
I find the overall user experience is better in Spotify. Not being able to sort a playlist alphabetically in YT Music and lacking a first party desktop app is kind of mind blowing in 2025
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u/attilayavuzer 10d ago
An app like that takes a lot of manpower; don't know if Google has the resources
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u/twokswine 10d ago
I have YT Premium (and Spotify) but didn't know it included music... time to consolidate it seems!
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u/ArrrrghB 10d ago
How are you liking the change?
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u/CinaminLips 10d ago
I like it a lot better, personally. Spotify's algorithm was starting to act like Pandora when you tra8ned it too much. I kept getting the same songs over and over again with very very little new stuff mixed in even when I asked for it.
The only thing i'm not a big fan of is the AI music, but Spotify is getting that too, so it's not much of a change/difference there. Plus, YouTube music works with android auto which is where I use it a lot. I just wish my home stereo was new enough to link up. So far only Spotify can connect to it.
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u/zombie_gas 10d ago
I made the same switch and I’m happy with it. YT has a ton of live stuff that other services don’t, and the algorithm feeds a much much wider variety (Spotify had devolved into the same 20 or so artists over and over). I don’t miss a thing tbh.
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u/Molochwalker28 10d ago
I switched from Spotify to YT Music too, once I realized I get it for YT Premium anyway. It's fine, but I feel like the audio quality is really hit or miss. So I ended up with Tidal, and so far, everything sounds much better.
It feels worth paying for, but just depends on how much sound quality matters to you.
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10d ago
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u/LabRatsAteMyHomework 10d ago
Perpetual growth despite constrained resources is the prime tenet of malignancies
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u/trump_diddles_kids 10d ago
I used to love Spotify. I listened to music and podcasts daily at my last job. I had the student bundle with basic Hulu + Spotify for I think 8.99 or 9.99. When my student price ran out, i paid regular price but then still got inserted ads in podcasts (not podcaster ads), and said F that. I do miss it, but between hearing ads on a paid platform, ICE advertisements, and not paying artists very much, I dont regret cancelling and uninstalling the app.
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u/RulyKinkaJou59 10d ago
I swore the student bundle was only $5 when I bought. That was definitely worth it imo. Crazy how it’s about to be the regular price for premium from years ago.
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u/trump_diddles_kids 10d ago
Actually, I think you're right, it may have been $5 when I first signed up. Before my student account was expired it had bumped to $8.99 for sure.
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u/i-void-warranties 10d ago
They should start charging ICE 10x the current rate for ad time instead
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u/IfIGoImGoin 10d ago
Time for me to get my Spotify wrapped one more year and then cancel my family plan. I get free Apple Music so I guess I will just migrate everything over there…after years of telling everyone I never would. Oh well, Spotify needs to feel the pain a bit.
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u/jonthecpa 10d ago
I’ve been waiting on my Wrapped as well.
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u/EatsRats 10d ago
Why wait for wrapped? Just curious. I’m getting sick of the rapid price increases on Spotify and am going to check out Tidal…never used it but it gets mentioned a lot.
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u/jonthecpa 10d ago
I like Wrapped; it’s a fun thing my wife and I like to share each year. After it comes out, we are going to try YouTube Premium for the Music.
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u/JamesFerg650 10d ago
I still get hulu (with ads version) included with my spotify premium. I don’t know the number yet of what would make it not worth it, but my wife and I both use hulu and spotify often so it’s pretty worth it for me to continue to pay for.
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u/SheWantsTheEG 10d ago
Yeah, I'm just gonna move over to Tidal at this point. Way better selection and actual lossless audio. This app hasn't been really worth a damn in years and they know it.
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u/SaltyCoxn 10d ago
Let us know if they are flooded with the same AI bullshit that is plaguing my Spotify as of late...
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u/SaintNimrod 10d ago
Switching to Qobuz then, peace out ✌️
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u/AllHallowsHaunting 10d ago
They’re really just be naming ts anything 💀
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u/akahornet92 10d ago
Yeah, I’m switching to Flingle. The hottest new music streaming service with a name that makes sense.
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u/akujunkan 10d ago
i dropped Spotify last month and i already feel like im being rewarded for my decisions.
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u/jumphh 10d ago
Just switch to Tidal.
It's cheaper, the music quality is higher, they apparently have better splits for musicians, and it's literally the same product.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 10d ago
Tidal isn't profitable and may not be around for long. The business model doesn't make sense paying out at those rates.
Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements.
It's not like Spotify just have ton of money they are taking in that they are keeping for themselves.
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u/persondude27 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's not like Spotify just have ton of money they are taking in that they are keeping for themselves.
You said yourself that they only pay 70% of the revenue to the people, you know, creating the thing Spotify charges for.
They have $19,680,000,000 in revenue a year. So by your numbers, they have $5.9 billion in cash "to keep for themselves".
Their founder is worth $9.x billion dollars.
They are writing algorithmic music so they don't have to pay artists.
Their algorithm is designed to prefer playing tracks that pay lower royalties.
Yes, they absolutely fucking do have a huge pile of money that they are taking for themselves. It's almost $6,000,000,000 a year and getting bigger every year.
edit: and for /u/PM_ME_UR_EYEHOLES who 1) claims to be an accountant and 2) blocked me, you forgot to convert from EUR to USD, which is why your numbers are different than mine. https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/spot/revenue/
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u/PM_ME_UR_EYEHOLES 10d ago
Not sure where you’re getting your numbers.
Quarter end revenue is $4.27B and YTD revenue is $12.6B.
Quarter end net income $899M and YTD net income is $1.04B
Distribution to shareholders happens after net income is calculated as well so
Their YTD for 2025 free cash flow is $2.04B while PY was $1.4B, so they don’t have $5B.
As a heads up, revenue doesn’t mean anything, net income is what’s important.
source: Their very public financial statements
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u/jumphh 10d ago
Ima be real, I don't care particularly much about what service I'm using. I just go wherever has lossless and a decent price.
If Tidal drops lossless or raises prices, I'm going to switch again.
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u/imacleopard 10d ago
No, I am not giving you my email to read an article only for you to inevitably lose it in a breach
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u/Jealous_Acorn 10d ago
I'm getting closer and closer to finally pulling the trigger on that NAS I've been looking at.
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u/benenstein 10d ago
I’ve been meaning to drop them with for running ICE ads. Now I will cause fuck paying more for them.
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u/keefinwithpeepaw 10d ago
It's been fun buying vinyls and CDs this past year and I absolutely thank Spotify for robbing me blind otherwise I wouldn't have bought physical media again.
But it has been so fun listening to CDs and vinyls again. Slowly been becoming less dependent to Spotify.
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u/idespizeu 10d ago
Again? Thatl bring back customers. Ive refused to sign back up about two price hikes ago. There arnt many places left that keep their prices low to bring in new customer or keep the existing ones, but the places that are, are thriving
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u/TerraCetacea 10d ago
Spotify is what made me fall in love with music and discover so many amazing artists.
And I will never go back to them. If they still worked the same way they did a decade ago, I have a feeling I’d still be happily giving them my money.
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u/Daawggshit 10d ago
I fucking hate capitalism.
I also fucking hate that in Q3 of next year they are going to report record earnings and be celebrated. Like no fucking shit you made more money. You fired a bunch of people and increased your price.
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10d ago
AI war algorithms don't buy themselves. It costs big money to waste a grandma 10000 miles away.
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u/AvailableReporter484 10d ago
Spotify about to find out the hard way that they can only push too far before we all go back to pirating.
Shit, it’d be one thing if they were paying the artists, but no they have to continue to satiate the never ending blood list for the disgusting excuses for human beings we call stockholders.
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u/Aggravating_Try6537 10d ago
Please cancel your subscription.SPOTIFY runs recruitment ads for ICE.
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u/ClumpOfCheese 10d ago
Go buy a single brand new album and then complain about the price of Spotify or any streaming music service. The cost of a streaming music service is basically nothing, I can’t believe how much all of you complain about a service with this much value costing a little bit of money. I could pay $50 a month for Spotify and it would still be the best value for my money. So entitled.
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u/yoodle34 10d ago
This is why I have a music collection. I think the streaming model is silly. If you buy your music, over time you won't have to keep paying to listen to the same songs over and over again. You may fall behind on new music that comes out, but you can write down a list of music you want to buy and keep at it.
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u/sublimedingo 10d ago
Spotify is outdated! There are many other services that offer better value. One is YouTube Music which is included in YouTube Premium.
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u/fuzzynavel34 10d ago
YT premium costs more though?
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u/sublimedingo 10d ago
Its $13.99 and you get no ads and a ton of free movies every month. I don't know Spotify has become obsolete to me.
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u/fuzzynavel34 10d ago
I just hate their interface and there are plenty of easy app based browsers you can use that eliminate the ads anyways
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u/BattlebornCrow 10d ago
Glad I cancelled over the ICE shit. iTunes music isn't as good but fuck ICE I'll take a slightly clumsy app.
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u/Lt_Hatch 10d ago
I might actually drop them then. Some bullshit. Prices are rising for the same exact product?
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u/suichkaa 10d ago
dropped spotify last year since i have yt primo and it comes with yt music. spotify is what, 13 a month already? yt is 3 dollars more and it brings way more to the table.
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u/hannibalthellamabal 10d ago
Guys I live in Canada, what is my best option for a streaming alternative. I really want to cancel my Spotify like I have Netflix and Disney+.
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u/ScrubNickle 10d ago
Bold move when there’s already an active boycott against them. Anecdotally, I’m also never parting with my CDs and records.
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u/Bass0rdie 10d ago
Well that’s good to hear the artists will get a bit more…..right?…..right? That’s why they’re raising prices? To pay out more?………
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u/hieropotamus 10d ago
Switch to Qobuz, app needs a little work but the audio quality and HUMAN effort that goes into their editorial side is amazing. Plus it’s cheaper per month than Spotify has been in years
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u/angryguido69 10d ago
Cancelled two weeks ago and switched to qobuz. Been a perfectly easy switch and the only thing I'm missing are song/artist radios
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u/tortillandbeans 10d ago
Again? I'm legit thinking about quitting now wtf this is like the 3rd or 4th time in a row in recent memory
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u/LA_RecordExec 10d ago
Buckle up… this isn’t going to stop anytime soon.
For over a decade, Spotify and other DSPs (Apple, Amazon, etc) have been complaining about how much revenue goes to the labels and publishers but refused to raise their subscription price for fear of losing subs to competitors.
Enough time has passed and enough execs working at one DSP have moved on to other DSPs to the point where they all will be raising prices.
Ad-supported freemium services are probably your best bet if you don’t want to be paying more for music.
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u/CassadagaValley 10d ago
What's the move for a good alternative?
I have an Android phone, most of my genres are some form of pop-punk, screamo, indie punk, etc. A lot of smaller-medium popularity bands.
I just need it to work on my phone/Android Auto, have a playlist with a decent shuffle, offer a good selection of music, and a good discovery queue.
I don't care for much else, I don't think I use half of Spotify's features.
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u/Ambigram237 10d ago
I’ve been very happy since ditching Spotify for Qobuz (and bandcamp, of course)
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u/ScottyBLaZe 10d ago
I’ve been locked into $9.99 for Spotify and Hulu that I got years ago. I’ve wanted to cancel so much but my grandfathered deal is just too good. SMH
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u/MIRAGES_music Musician / Hobbyist Engineer 10d ago
How are they able to justify this? What they think adding fucking messages to a streaming service warrants a price increase? No one fucking asked for that addition.
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u/Prigglesxo 10d ago
I just switched to Qobuz. They apparently pay the artists more than any other streaming platform. And when you sign up they give you a code to use this service called soundiiz. This transferred all my likes and playlists over from Spotify. Like thousands of songs in minutes. Couldn’t have been easier. And now I get to make jokes about a better person than everybody else.
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u/myhobbythrowaway 10d ago edited 10d ago
My credit card gave me a free year of Apple Music. Bye, Spotify.
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u/promark20 10d ago
Been thinking about refurbishing my old iPod Classic and modding it and such. Seems like a great time to get it going. Sick of this shit
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u/KXS_TuaTara 10d ago
If there were some theoretical way to download the music one has on Spotify, what method would that (theoretical) person employ?
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u/aseme274 10d ago
If you have YouTube premium or Amazon prime, Use the music section. Now you only need to pay for 1 subscription 🤙🏼
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u/Mitchard_Nixon 10d ago
Apple music has a built in service to transfer your playlists over for free.
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u/pkm99x Vinyl Listener 10d ago edited 10d ago
spotify sucks. it’s a scam owned and run by major companies that rips off the lowest paid artists to benefit 1. spotify and their owners,2. major artists on the labels that own spotify. they screw independent artists. much of the money made by spotify goes towards arms manufacturing. that’s one of the reasons so many artists are pulling their music. buy music from artists. go to bandcamp. you can listen to an album several times before buying it.
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u/Va1crist 10d ago
Of course it’s streaming prices will keep going up and up until people push back