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Music Businesses

Spotify Plans To Sell a More Expensive Version of Its Music Service in Scandinavia in a Test To See Whether It Can Raise Prices Around the World (bloomberg.com) 32

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Spotify plans to sell a more-expensive version of its music service in Scandinavia, a test to see whether it can raise prices around the world, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Spotify will raise the price of its family plan by about 13%, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the increase hasn't been announced. The test doesn't mean Spotify will raise prices elsewhere or do so permanently in Scandinavia, they said. Raising prices could boost revenue in markets where Spotify already has a strong presence. The company is based in Stockholm, and its music service is the dominant player across Northern Europe. The current family plan costs about $15 a month and lets up to five people use the service. Spotify has also tested a plan called Premium Duo that offers two subscriptions for 12.49 euros ($13.91) a month.
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Spotify Plans To Sell a More Expensive Version of Its Music Service in Scandinavia in a Test To See Whether It Can Raise Prices More

Spotify Plans To Sell a More Expensive Version of Its Music Service in Scandinavia in a Test To See Whether It Can Raise Prices

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  • Dear Spotify,

    You are not as crucial to life as you think you are. Just thought you should know.

    Regards,
    The Rest of Us

    • I listen to the free tier once or twice a month. To me, the service isn't worth a dollar month, because I just don't care that much about music (I do blow $400/year on Audible though).

      When I do listen to the free tier, I find their commercials hilarious. It sounds like they believe everyone listens to them 24/7 and people find a continuous flow of music slightly more important than a continuous supply of air. When I cancelled my 3 month trial (which I think I used for less than an hour total), they po

      • I liked the free tier when they gave you the 'next hour is ad free after you listen to this sponsor's commercial'. I really didn't mind a 1-2 minute ad followed by 1 hour ad-free. But I guess that was too good to last, I don't get that anymore so I've stopped using it.

    • Don't drink the music industry kool aid. They are making heaps of money, more today than in the past. But that money is commonly kept by the labels and not distributed to most artists. The large artists have their own labels to avoid this.

      How can this be true? The labels make headlines all the time with declining revenue stories. The music industry tries to make you feel sorry for the artists by complaining about decreasing revenues. But you never hear a peep about their strongly increasing profits. How can

  • I'll go back to my own MP3's, or use Amazon, which is getting better and included with Prime anyway.
    • It's worth noting that Amazon really has two separate services going on: Prime Music (included with Prime) and Amazon Music Unlimited. The former has a much smaller catalog than Spotify, but it's probably sufficient for quite a few people. It's also limited to a single device for playback and doesn't allow for separate music libraries, unlike Spotify's family plan discussed in TFA or the one you can pay more for with Amazon.
  • I have a Spotify Duo plan with my daughter since a few months in Ireland, don't think this is "reserved" info.

  • Not impressed with Spotify... (Score:3)

    by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @01:20PM (#59090350)

    Had Spotify come into the US market years earlier, instead of just saying in Europe, they might have made a dent. However, services like Rdio, Pandora, and others made them just another player.

    These days, what does Spotify offer that Google, Amazon, Pandora, Apple, and others don't? If Spotify is jacking up prices, it just ensures that I will stick with YouTube Red, which not just snags me ad-free YouTube stuff, but also a streaming service. Or I go with Apple or Amazon.

    Or, send a message that people actually will support artists, and buy their stuff from the Apple Store or Bandcamp.

    Spotify might have been a coveted thing back in the days when you had to VPN to Europe to subscribe to them, but now... they are just one of many services, and they need to compete on features, not just raise prices. They need to realize that streaming services are very elastic... and a song streamed from them is the same as one streamed from Apple.

    • These days, what does Spotify offer that Google, Amazon, Pandora, Apple, and others don't?

      Rdio folded years ago, according to wikipedia.

      Amazon refuses to tell me its terms before I sign up and agree to their EULA.

      Pandora only works in shithole countries with no GDPR, which usually means they are very fond of selling customer data to third parties.

      Google Play Music has all the problems of Rdio, Pandora and Amazon combined. Well, strictly speaking they haven't shut down yet, but it's a google service, so it's only a matter of time.

      apple.com presented me with a picture of an iPhone playing a

  • Buy the music and pay the artists (Score:3)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Thursday August 15, 2019 @01:23PM (#59090362)

    Spotify screws artists outrageously, as do the other streaming music services. It has taken me a while, but I have managed to assemble a pretty good library of music I have actually paid for and own, including as many songs as possible straight from the people who wrote and/or performed them.

    I will never be able to even come close to the choices I'd have through a streaming service, but I've found I don't really need them. I've got a few hundred songs on my phone (which can also play on my car stereo), and I've found that's enough for my listening needs.

    I wonder how many times a song would have to be chosen on Spotify to match the $1 I paid for a song from the artist's website.

    • Streaming is great for discovering music but I still prefer to buy and own music. My taste is esoteric, and I've been burned by Spotify a few times too often, finding some obscure piece of music, adding it to a playlist, only to have it disappear a few months later presumably because they didn't renew the license for it. Here's a tip for them: pull the audio track but leave the title on the playlist so that at least I still know what it was called.
      • This is why even when you pay for music, once in a while you need to raise the main sail, raise the flag that is friendly to the other ship, and ARRRR, me matie! Don't forget to raise the black flag after your adventure (it's amazing how popular media and thinking always gets this wrong)
    • Unless it's an independent artist or you're slipping them a crisp $20 for a physical disc after a show, odds are that they're getting fucked on any digital sales just as badly by their label.

    • I subscribe to a streaming music service, but I also buy albums from artists I really like.

      Streaming is still useful to discover stuff you'd otherwise not know or to quickly catch up on some music others are referencing.

      • No argument from me. That's one thing I miss about streaming music. However, I've found other ways to be exposed to new music on a regular basis. It's vital, as far as I'm concerned. I know a few people who have become comfortably addicted to older music, and it's not a pretty thing to see.

  • Music piracy rises in Scandanavia, a place known for piracy (no value judgement).

  • please help us rest of the world and don't buy this.

  • ...especially since Youtube Premium has both music VIDEOS and most music available via their Premium subscription anyway.

    • Raising prices for no reason at the start of a recession when people will be looking for things to cut from their monthly budget? Time to sell your Spotify stock folks.
  • I still am baffled by people paying for music. Ever since the early days of the digital revolution, I don't understand why people still pay for this stuff. It's unbelievable easy to get even without going to piracy sites. Just have a screen recorder or one that records audio, and then just listen to the song. Granted this is somewhat time consuming, but if you do it bit by bit, it's not that time consuming at all.

    I also edit my music because there are sometimes parts of songs or completely song changing br

    • Back in the day I used to pirate music because the music I enjoy wasn't available to buy in my country. Now, I am a Spotify subscriber because it has features my music library doesn't. With that being said, I still keep my rather large music library in case songs, albums or artists vanish from the Internet (it already happened with a few of them).
      Screen recorders and saving songs bit by bit is too time consuming for me. I prefer to do something else with my free time.

      • I have a big library of MP3s of only the songs that I like. Just about everything is from before 2010, with over half being from before 1990 I have very little desire or tolerance for today's McMusic.

        • Same here, with a few exceptions. But Spotify has almost all music I have, with the exception of some very obscure stuff.

    • Enough apparently do, otherwise no one would be creating any new music to sell. It's like software. If everybody just stole it, then there would be zero money in creating it. Sure, some people will create it for free because they enjoy doing it; but don't expect it to be well tested, documented, or have bugs regularly fixed. A main reason song artists put up with all the traveling and other stuff I am sure they don't like; is because they can get rich doing it.
      • Most new lamestream music is the same recycled crap. There are some gems here and there, but for the most part it's meant to be consumed and forgotten about, like a fast food burger. Re-arrange the la-dee-dahs, rip off a few samples from something better from the 1980s and 1990s, and they will come to the trough for the slop. Rinse and repeat.

    • I still am baffled by people paying for music. [...] Just have a screen recorder or one that records audio. [...] Granted this is somewhat time consuming, [...].

      I think you are out of touch with, or overestimating, how much spare time and tech savviness people have.

      I also edit my music because there are sometimes parts of songs or completely song changing bridges that I have to remove.

      Editing music doesn't preclude using Spotify though. My Spotify library contains ~50 mp3s which I've edited using Audacity. Another ~200 mp3s are songs or versions not available on their service.

  • and tell Spotify to go get bent. This will be squashed in an instant.
  • There is a competing service called Tidal (formerly called Wimp). I switched a few years ago from Tidal to Spotify because Spotify was a bit cheaper.

    This news made me recheck the subscription costs beteeen the two seevices and if Spotify raises their price, I will switch. Even if they don't, I may switch anyway - Tidal looked like it has a 'masters' /hi-fi subscription to get master quality lossless audio - looks sweet. Time to start a trial and see...
  • I went back to mp3s and youtube. No monthly fees for me.

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