Spotify's New Policies

[Banana Co]

I know that many of you use Spotify so I just thought I'd bring your attention towards their new policies that start on May 1st.

I suppose I just wondered what your views were on this change.

https://www.spotify.com/se/blog/archives/2011/04/14/upcoming-changes-to-spotify-free-open/

[Alcatraz]

Personally, I find Spotify absolutely useless. I like to own my music, and whenever I'm using the web to find music, the bands wont be on Spotify yet. Otherwise, there's still Youtube

[Banana Co]

Personally, I find Spotify absolutely useless. I like to own my music, and whenever I'm using the web to find music, the bands wont be on Spotify yet. Otherwise, there's still Youtube

[gratedenini]

Spotify was brought to my attention by a (one of the many) former posters on here.

I was amazed you could listen for free..its great afaic.

I cant believe the way people are moaning and groaning because of the changes.

Its easy to see why they`ve had to make the changes...nowt is completely free is it..and why should it be.

OTOH-- I dont think it is worth 10 shakles a month mind. The problem I have with it is that it simply eats up my 3GB allowance up like a monkey in a fruit market.

den

[Banana Co]

Spotify was brought to my attention by a (one of the many) former posters on here.

I was amazed you could listen for free..its great afaic.

I cant believe the way people are moaning and groaning because of the changes.

Its easy to see why they`ve had to make the changes...nowt is completely free is it..and why should it be.

OTOH-- I dont think it is worth 10 shakles a month mind. The problem I have with it is that it simply eats up my 3GB allowance up like a monkey in a fruit market.

den

[Ricochet]

Ive been waiting for this.

I am one of those heavy spotify free users.

On the plus side. I buy my music on vinyl. It will allow me to return to that medium more than I have been over the past couple of years.

[gratedenini]

Who was moaning.

[Hello... I'm Johnny Cash]

Seriously, the comments on that link are ridiculous.

It pisses me off how people how some people expect music for free.

I'm not even THAT against occasionally pirating an album, but to be so vitriollic about a free service limiting your listening makes me want to hurt somebody.

[themangus]

I just upgraded to Premium about 2 weeks ago.

I was a fairly heavy user of the free service for a while, and simply got bored of the ads.

Completely understand the change of service happening, I read last year that Spotify wasn't making any profit - so it absolutely makes sense that they tighten up the free service and try to get people onto the pay service.

I use it primarily at work - work offshore, in a control room for 12 hours... now that I've started using it, it's essential. If I hadn't upgraded to premium before this change, I would be doing it now the change has come in.

[rabid]

If you read the comments at the bottom of the page (of the link) you see that lots of people are complaining (must be one of the same people +1 /-1ing on this thread )

den

[themangus]

From the NME blog:

6 alternatives to Spotfy

[Banana Co]

I completely agree with Spotify's new policy.

[Steve P]

Will still be fine for what I use it for, which is primarily to see if an album is worth buying or to check out festival acts i don't know much about.

[Banana Co]

Will still be fine for what I use it for, which is primarily to see if an album is worth buying or to check out festival acts i don't know much about.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

I signed up for premium recently, before they announced the changes. If you have a phone that it can be used on then £10 a month is a bargain. I have it on my iphone and sync offside playlists into my ipod library.

All that music, for the price of one cd a month. I think it's perfectly reasonable. Amongst the majority of users of this perticular website it isn't an issue, but people as a whole need to go back to accepting the only future for musical releases is actually paying for them. A low cost servce to stream music is what everyone was after a few years ago.

[Matticus]

i used to pay the 10 quid a m onth for it when my phone was working, was a god send as my itunes and hard drive crashed and i couldn't be bothered to re organize my ipod so i just used spotify on the phone.

Im not on the 5 quid unlimited deal, which i think is worth it for a month.

[dan666]

Had Spotify for years now, and was wondering when this change would come in. I think it's a good thing.

[Purple Monkey]

Knew this was coming. It's not Spotify's fault. Capitalism is just an insatiable beast. For a start, Spotify was just a good thing, I never expected it to last in such a toxic world. I'm not surprised at all by this.

Have no problems paying for music, especially in this case since Premium is like buying one single album every month - but you get unlimited music here. Just don't buy that stupid t-shirt with the stupid slogan on it, next month don't buy something else that's equally worthless and stupid. I dunno.

But what a shame this couldn't remain free. The free aspect was a big deal. I mean, just because someone listens to a track for free doesn't mean the artist won't receive some money from that supposedly "lost" sale. The person that listened for free could decide to go to a gig, and they get money that way. The free side is the artist getting their foot in their door. It's still there but it'll be capped, meaning the free exploration will be limited.

Still, none of this matters because when I upgrade to my iPhone I will require an upgrade if I want Spotify anyway, so for me personally it's fine.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Purple Monkey

[Greeny_Musicchild]

If you've heard one song 5 times in a month you've had enough time to decide if you're going buy it or listen to more and see them live. I don't see the free services uses being restricted from that kind of user.

I've got to say, I expected a hypocritical backlash from the net, but everywhere I've gone people are saying they're happy to pay. I'm very suprised.

[Matticus]

the only people who'd complain are prehaps those who havnt been paying before. It makes no difference to me as ive been a premium member for a while and can see the benefits.

[gratedenini]

Can I tape a record from Spotify?

den

[nightcrawler13]

as others have said, people need to get used to the idea of paying something for music

it's strange to think that for my sisters generation, the ability to get a song for free whether it be from youtube, torrents or Spotify has always been around since they were computer savvy, there has never been a time since they could use the internet in which they COULDN'T listen to a song they wanted to, when they wanted, for free

[themangus]

Noticed a few glitches w/ Spotify over the past two days.

Lost a lot of people who I was tracking/following whatever you wanna call it too.

[windy_miller]

If you've heard one song 5 times in a month you've had enough time to decide if you're going buy it or listen to more and see them live. I don't see the free services uses being restricted from that kind of user.

I've got to say, I expected a hypocritical backlash from the net, but everywhere I've gone people are saying they're happy to pay. I'm very suprised.

[Greeny_Musicchild]

There has been some confusion over the 5 play limit. I've seen /month more than ever, I'm sure it'll become clear. I don't think 5 plays ever is unfair anyway.