Spotify - "The future of the music industry" - Download now!

I urge everyone to use Last FM for their music needs. Theres a Chrome app and it pretty much works like Spotify but without the ads. Its pretty awesome.

ignition wrote:Will they still offer the £5/month service for ad-free unlimited music (without the phone-syncing gubbins)? If so, I may just do that!

Me too, I'm very happy to pay that and listen to as much as I like. In some ways I will miss the adverts though.
Yes they can be irritating but half the time in a 'so bad it's funny' way. Like the one about going to Australia, and some guy's mate is like "hey, let's get a pizza, and some drinks, and stay in and play VIDEO GAMES", and the other guy is like "No, I'm going to go to AUSTRALIA instead!"

And there was a Nike or Addidas ad for trainers, went something like this:
"Dude, have you seen my trainers? They're totally fly!"

Cracked me up because I have a simple sense of humour, you see.

Just a heads up: before Spotify goes to gooseberry fool, everyone should listen to Beardyman's album, I Done A Album. It's quite brilliant. The interludes, unlike most hip-hop albums, are actually worth listening to.

Beardyman

pyxl-8 wrote:You people need to stop being such spongers.

Yeah, pretty much this. Get a free service for what is essentially unlimited music, then bitch when it's taken away (after....what, eighteen months?) because the business is pissing money out of all available holes due to providing free music. Classy.

Caliban wrote:

pyxl-8 wrote:You people need to stop being such spongers.

Yeah, pretty much this. Get a free service for what is essentially unlimited music, then bitch when it's taken away (after....what, eighteen months?) because the business is pissing money out of all available holes due to providing free music. Classy.

Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

If I could get the android app stuff for the £5 a month package I'd actually pay. I object to paying extra (or anything) just for the program to work on my phone LastFM works on my Android phone for free, with no strawberry floating adverts. There's no reason why they couldn't have an add supported mobile app.

Oh Teh Noes wrote:And to think I actually shelled out for Premium a few days ago...

All is forgiven, Winamp + Pirate Bay!

Premium is unchanged, isn't it?

I love the premium service, and it's pretty much replaced traditional music purchases for me, with a few exceptions. The free service was horrible even before this change, thanks to adverts interrupting you after every other track.

Fatal Exception wrote:If I could get the android app stuff for the £5 a month package I'd actually pay. I object to paying extra (or anything) just for the program to work on my phone LastFM works on my Android phone for free, with no strawberry floating adverts. There's no reason why they couldn't have an add supported mobile app.

Not any more it doesn't. Well, it scrobbles for free, but you have to subscribe for the radio feature now.

Mogster wrote:

Oh Teh Noes wrote:And to think I actually shelled out for Premium a few days ago...

All is forgiven, Winamp + Pirate Bay!

Premium is unchanged, isn't it?

Yeah but I'm only subscribing for a month, as a treat.

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

Caliban wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

None of this should matter. With Spotify everyone is on equal ground, no matter how old or unheard of the song is. The business model works, but Spotify did the free service half arsed.

Mogster wrote:

Oh Teh Noes wrote:And to think I actually shelled out for Premium a few days ago...

All is forgiven, Winamp + Pirate Bay!

Premium is unchanged, isn't it?

I love the premium service, and it's pretty much replaced traditional music purchases for me, with a few exceptions. The free service was horrible even before this change, thanks to adverts interrupting you after every other track.

Fatal Exception wrote:If I could get the android app stuff for the £5 a month package I'd actually pay. I object to paying extra (or anything) just for the program to work on my phone LastFM works on my Android phone for free, with no strawberry floating adverts. There's no reason why they couldn't have an add supported mobile app.

Not any more it doesn't. Well, it scrobbles for free, but you have to subscribe for the radio feature now.

Then how did I listen to it on the way home last night?

If you've been a long-standing member of Last.fm (I've been on it since 2004) you get three months free subscription as a goodwill gesture.

mummy strawberry floaters.

Fatal Exception wrote:

Caliban wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

None of this should matter. With Spotify everyone is on equal ground, no matter how old or unheard of the song is. The business model works, but Spotify did the free service half arsed.

No it doesn't they made huge losses.

I enjoyed using Spotify for free, but I don't really want to pay for it, I just don't see the point. If I want music without adverts that badly, I'll go out and buy an album, and not have to keep forking out money every month to keep listening to it.

Fatal Exception wrote:

Caliban wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

None of this should matter. With Spotify everyone is on equal ground, no matter how old or unheard of the song is. The business model works, but Spotify did the free service half arsed.

What are the alternatives then? Legitimately sound (for now) but legally shaky (for ever) services like Grooveshark that have already had their apps banned? These are fields in an incredibly tough marketplace which I'll agree were handled badly, but it's the next logical step. I don't like it and I'm sure 9/10ths of people will go back to piracy, but as it is free streaming is barely viable.

Knoyleo wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:

Caliban wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

None of this should matter. With Spotify everyone is on equal ground, no matter how old or unheard of the song is. The business model works, but Spotify did the free service half arsed.

No it doesn't they made huge losses.

I enjoyed using Spotify for free, but I don't really want to pay for it, I just don't see the point. If I want music without adverts that badly, I'll go out and buy an album, and not have to keep forking out money every month to keep listening to it.

Sorry, what I meant was the business model COULD work. Spotify free was good for the user, but the adds are gooseberry fool. They just didn't chase the big money. I get 1 advert repeating itself now every 10 tracks, it's for Portal. Is that the best they can do? If they had managed to get some real advertising the service could be turning a huge profit.

Fatal Exception wrote:

Knoyleo wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:

Caliban wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:Yeah just like all those commercial radio stations giving music away for free. They wont last long will they?

It's not really the same though, is it? Say a commercial radio station plays 1000 tracks to a coverage of 1000 people they're still only fronting for one set of music. 1000 users of Spotify Free (or whatever it's called nowadays) potentially playing 1000 tracks each is 1, 000, 000. It's not like the margins are even in the same bracket. It's a business model that said it could provide free music to whoever wanted it. It did for a decent whack of time at least. Now, for one reason or the other, it can't. What exactly is the issue here?

None of this should matter. With Spotify everyone is on equal ground, no matter how old or unheard of the song is. The business model works, but Spotify did the free service half arsed.

No it doesn't they made huge losses.

I enjoyed using Spotify for free, but I don't really want to pay for it, I just don't see the point. If I want music without adverts that badly, I'll go out and buy an album, and not have to keep forking out money every month to keep listening to it.

Sorry, what I meant was the business model COULD work. Spotify free was good for the user, but the adds are gooseberry fool. They just didn't chase the big money. I get 1 advert repeating itself now every 10 tracks, it's for Portal. Is that the best they can do? If they had managed to get some real advertising the service could be turning a huge profit.

They've been trying the big guns for the past six months or so and, as you may have been noticed, been ramping up the ads for free. Nobody's interested in giving music for no return.

Knoyleo wrote:I enjoyed using Spotify for free, but I don't really want to pay for it, I just don't see the point. If I want music without adverts that badly, I'll go out and buy an album, and not have to keep forking out money every month to keep listening to it.

It depends how much music you want to buy really. I didn't buy that much music before signing up for Spotify Premium, and and I'm definitely spending more money on music as a result, but I'm getting far more choice as a result. For instance, I'd somehow managed to completely ignore PJ Harvey until her latest album came out, but thanks to Spotify I can go back through her entire back catalogue without spending any more money than I already am. That's worth £10 right there! On top of that there's always plenty of music I want to check out that I probably won't listen to more than a few times, and in these cases the subscription model makes far more sense than full purchases. You get higher quality streams on Premium too.

I do think the price point could do with being lowered though, perhaps with the Premium features being added to Unlimited and the £9.99 price point scrapped. Unlimited as it is seems a bit restrictive to me, as without the mobile apps it doesn't do enough to supplant traditional purchases. The problem here is that it would be a risky move, and it could be disastrous if they don't get the boost in subscriptions they'd require. They could potentially half their revenue, so there's no way they're going to do anything without a massive amount of research.

I'll get rid of my account as soon as the cap comes in. I can deal with adverts, and it was great to be able to access all that music for free but there's no way I'm paying £10 a month for the full features version. Lower that to £5 and I'd upgrade in an instant.

I wouldnt pay for Spotify now unless they had a properly bangin 'More like this' or 'You'd like this' function.

That is the one thing it is sorely, sorely missing. I like to use it as a tool for finding new music, and the current methods really arent great.