Spotify raises price from $12.99 to $14.99

Forums › Online streaming services › Spotify raises price from $12.99 to $14.99

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#1709859 26-Jan-2017 10:24

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Interesting, I think it's also worth noting they're not simply adding GST, for transparency they've rounded it to the nearest .99

networkn

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#1709868 26-Jan-2017 10:27

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Yeah, for me it's no longer about when, rather who I switch to.

Nudibranch

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#1709914 26-Jan-2017 11:03

NzBeagle:

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Interesting, I think it's also worth noting they're not simply adding GST, for transparency they've rounded it to the nearest .99

Noticed that myself... I sent Spotify an email to ask what they had planned for those extra few cents. Might be interesting to see what they say IF they reply that is.

trig42

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#1709917 26-Jan-2017 11:14

Just cancelled my Premium subscription. Had been thinking about doing it anyway (not sure i use it enough to justify Premium).

Will miss offline playlists a little bit, but I will cope.

I also find I use iHeartRadio more often now anyway.

jonathan18

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#1709923 26-Jan-2017 11:25

networkn:

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Yeah, for me it's no longer about when, rather who I switch to.

Why?

I don't consider $180 a year an exorbitant amount for the range of music and ease of use that Spotify provides; I'll be paying $270 a year for my family account - that's less than 75c a day (or 18c per person per day) for all of my family to to have access to (nearly all) the music they can consume.

I know someone who, despite being relatively wealthy, is too stingy to pay for streaming services, so sets up new email addresses each month to create new Spotify and Netflix accounts. For me, despite the recent cost increases to both of these, it's still more than worth it - is it really worth quibbling over these prices (it comes in at $1.23 a day for both Netflix and Spotify Premium Family - what else of value can you get for that sort of money?).

MrIrish

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#1709924 26-Jan-2017 11:27

Nudibranch:

NzBeagle:

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Interesting, I think it's also worth noting they're not simply adding GST, for transparency they've rounded it to the nearest .99

Noticed that myself... I sent Spotify an email to ask what they had planned for those extra few cents. Might be interesting to see what they say IF they reply that is.

Twitter is always good for a good public calling out/shaming.

I think my biggest thing is the arrogance that Spotify is showing. Don't get me wrong, Spotify is a great service and I've been a customer since late 2011. I doubt that is going to change. They have a bunch of features that I love which other competitors just don't have e.g. a competent desktop client (I'm looking at you iTunes), the ability to control devices from each other, a "social" aspect where you can follow your friends and see what they are listening to. I highly doubt that many people are going to cancel their Spotify subscription and switch to another service. After all, two dollars isn't a huge jump and it is hugely inconvenient switching music streaming service when you are already set up and established on one.

The thing that I do think might change is people who are looking at getting a music streaming service for the first time. Spotify is now claiming that they are worth $2 more than Apple Music and worth $2 more than a YouTube Red and Google Music subscription. Maybe they are, however there is now more of an incentive to go with other providers over Spotify. Furthermore, if you take into account a student discount with Apple Music which takes it to $6.49 a month, Spotify is now claiming that their service is worth over two times more than Apple Music and consequently should be two times as good. This is unlikely to be true. Not to mention that people who have iPhones are already more likely to get Apple Music as it is baked right into their OS.

I think it'll be interesting to see the impact that the price change will have, if any at all.

networkn

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#1709925 26-Jan-2017 11:33

jonathan18:

networkn:

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Yeah, for me it's no longer about when, rather who I switch to.

Why?

I don't consider $180 a year an exorbitant amount for the range of music and ease of use that Spotify provides; I'll be paying $270 a year for my family account - that's less than 75c a day (or 18c per person per day) for all of my family to to have access to (nearly all) the music they can consume.

I know someone who, despite being relatively wealthy, is too stingy to pay for streaming services, so sets up new email addresses each month to create new Spotify and Netflix accounts. For me, despite the recent cost increases to both of these, it's still more than worth it - is it really worth quibbling over these prices (it comes in at $1.23 a day for both Netflix and Spotify Premium Family - what else of value can you get for that sort of money?).

/me shrugs, for me it's about convenience. Great if you have a family and they all use it enough to justify the cost divided by the number of people. We have 2 people in our house. I use spotify for around 30 minutes a month, if she had it, she would use it for probably 2 hours.

In honesty I only use it to listen to music I don't already own.

Amazon family pack is $17 at current exchange rates. They have a good library and I trust Amazon.

$15 for me only doesn't seem great value by comparison.

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dazhann

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#1709935 26-Jan-2017 11:43

MrIrish:

Nudibranch:

NzBeagle:

vexxxboy:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/88779921/spotify-blames-price-hike-on-gst-despite-claiming-it-had-always-charged-it

Interesting, I think it's also worth noting they're not simply adding GST, for transparency they've rounded it to the nearest .99

Noticed that myself... I sent Spotify an email to ask what they had planned for those extra few cents. Might be interesting to see what they say IF they reply that is.

Twitter is always good for a good public calling out/shaming.

I think my biggest thing is the arrogance that Spotify is showing. Don't get me wrong, Spotify is a great service and I've been a customer since late 2011. I doubt that is going to change. They have a bunch of features that I love which other competitors just don't have e.g. a competent desktop client (I'm looking at you iTunes), the ability to control devices from each other, a "social" aspect where you can follow your friends and see what they are listening too. I highly doubt that many people are going to cancel their Spotify description and switch to another service. After all, two dollars isn't a huge jump and it is hugely inconvenient switching music streaming service when you are already set up and established on one.

The thing that I do think might change is people who are looking at getting a music streaming service for the first time. Spotify is now claiming that they are worth $2 more than Apple Music and worth $2 more than a YouTube Red and Google Music subscription. Maybe they are, however there is now more of an incentive to go with other providers over Spotify. Furthermore, if you take into account a student discount with Apple Music which takes it to $6.49 a month, Spotify is now claiming that their service is worth over two times more than Apple Music and consequently should be two times as good. This is unlikely to be true. Not to mention that people who have iPhones are already more likely to get Apple Music as it is baked right into their OS.

I think it'll be interesting to see the impact that the price change will have, if any at all.

But if this is a gst hike then the other music streaming services will be adding it too? obviously weather this IS a gst addon is still up for debate. And if I was a student Apple music looks pretty good.

Hammerer

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#1709956 26-Jan-2017 12:25

Amiibro:

Huh, interesting move. Unsurprising, I guess, but it doesn't really inspire me to finally take the plunge and sign up. Those ads are annoying, but they're not $14.99 a month annoying :P

I have a paid subscription because it is reasonable to pay for something that I value. But I know that many of my friends look at this differently. I guess that is why I am in the minority at Spotify because about 60% don't have a paid subscription. Even so I am in Spotify's 43% of music subscribers worldwide.

The best time of the year to get Spotify is probably a cheap Black Friday deal in November: in 2016 it was three months for 99 cents.

While writing the above, I realised that I do get good benefits for the price - no ads is probably the least of them:

higher quality music - I can tell the difference even on my phone
turning off shuffle - essential for listening to albums in the original order and audio books split into chapters
off-line play - download specific playlists so they don't need to use any data allowance

Some interesting stats on their song catalogue:

Over 30 million songs - that is the same figure they were using a year ago.
20,000 new songs added each day.

networkn

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#1709969 26-Jan-2017 12:44

Hammerer:

Over 30 million songs - that is the same figure they were using a year ago.
20,000 new songs added each day.

I assume you have worked out this means that they are also removing 20,000 songs a day? Amazon Claim 40m and Google Music, 35m

Hammerer

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#1709972 26-Jan-2017 12:46

MrIrish:

I think my biggest thing is the arrogance that Spotify is showing. Don't get me wrong, Spotify is a great service and I've been a customer since late 2011. I doubt that is going to change. They have a bunch of features that I love which other competitors just don't have e.g. a competent desktop client (I'm looking at you iTunes), the ability to control devices from each other, a "social" aspect where you can follow your friends and see what they are listening to. I highly doubt that many people are going to cancel their Spotify subscription and switch to another service. After all, two dollars isn't a huge jump and it is hugely inconvenient switching music streaming service when you are already set up and established on one.

The thing that I do think might change is people who are looking at getting a music streaming service for the first time. Spotify is now claiming that they are worth $2 more than Apple Music and worth $2 more than a YouTube Red and Google Music subscription. Maybe they are, however there is now more of an incentive to go with other providers over Spotify. Furthermore, if you take into account a student discount with Apple Music which takes it to $6.49 a month, Spotify is now claiming that their service is worth over two times more than Apple Music and consequently should be two times as good. This is unlikely to be true. Not to mention that people who have iPhones are already more likely to get Apple Music as it is baked right into their OS.

I largely agree on both points. I've certainly found the social features of Spotify to be a lot more valuable than I initially thought. And Spotify are probably right that they are worth more because they have been winning in subscriber gains versus Apple and the rest (Apple Music vs. Spotify: Guess who's winning now). But they do appear arrogant, for example, when dropping Musixmatch lyrics on the desktop and not replacing this feature - I guess that decision didn't hit their bottom line.

When I looked at streaming music ((see Best subscription music streaming service?) all of the main providers had at least one compelling reason for joining them. But they all had significant pitfalls for me e.g. Groove has no family plan (when they dropped their XBox360 family plan I quit the XBox platform).

richms

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#1709976 26-Jan-2017 12:50

I was trying to use tidal instead, but the thing is just an unreliable piece of crap and no equivelent of spotify connect to send it to things, casting it on the phone leave me unable to control it on the PC, which I can with spotify.

Spotify still reigns supreme here, I get the $20 pack in my tablet from spark that has spotify so in effect I pay about $5 now for the data on it instead of $7 which is the only reason I still bother with an active sim in it. If spark put the price up to cover this going up then I will re-evaluate it and possibly cancel the $19 pack and just pay spotify directly.

50cish a day to not have ad's is a bargain IMO. I get so annoyed when I am around people and they are playing a free spotify account with those obnoxious ads. Worse than subjecting people to the radio since the only reason ad's are there on spotify is because you are a cheap-ass.

Richard rich.ms

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#1709977 26-Jan-2017 12:51

We have Spotify Family which is increasing from $19.99 to $22.50. 15% on top of $19.99 is $22.99 so they are "absorbing 49c of this increase which is nice of them.

We also pay for Tidal which we use on our good stereo and speakers in our lounge.

We have Spotify because its catalogue is better than Tidal's, and I use Spotify Connect often which Tidal doesn't yet offer. Also playlists on Spotify are far superior and Weekly Discover is brilliant.

We have Tidal for higher resolution music.

I'd eventually like to consolidate down to one service but either Spotify will need to start offering higher resolution music (the best scenario) or Tidal needs to beef up their catalogue and introduce equivalent Connect functionality. Better playlists wouldn't go amiss either but this isn't the be all and end all.

Hammerer

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#1709978 26-Jan-2017 12:52

networkn:

Hammerer:

Over 30 million songs - that is the same figure they were using a year ago.
20,000 new songs added each day.

I assume you have worked out this means that they are also removing 20,000 songs a day? Amazon Claim 40m and Google Music, 35m

It doesn't mean that they are removing songs. At the time Spotify first used that stat they were equivalent to or ahead of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple. Interestingly enough, the main competition with half the subscriber numbers and revenue is Apple and they have also stuck with the 30 million figure.

networkn

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#1709981 26-Jan-2017 12:56

Hammerer:

networkn:

Hammerer:

Over 30 million songs - that is the same figure they were using a year ago.
20,000 new songs added each day.

I assume you have worked out this means that they are also removing 20,000 songs a day? Amazon Claim 40m and Google Music, 35m

It doesn't mean that they are removing songs. At the time Spotify first used that stat they were equivalent to or ahead of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple. Interestingly enough, the main competition with half the subscriber numbers and revenue is Apple and they have also stuck with the 30 million figure.

Huh? 20,000 Songs a day is 140,000 a Week. 52 Weeks in a year means their catalogue *should* have grown by 7 million songs in a year (taking into account the odd days they don't add 20,000 songs a day).

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