Spotify upcoming changes

[risingson]

I've been paying the full whack of £10 and will continue to do so because the service they offer is so very, very good. I can make playlists and play them offline on my iPhone, and it's completely eliminated the need to use iTunes, which isn't nearly as well laid out.

[Ross]

I don't know, I might pay, it's more convinient than acquiring stuff you don't have but want to listen to or searching for it on youtube.

[neepheid]

The time limit was inevitable, I knew the early adopters Free club couldn't last forever. Fine, bust us down to Open level but I can't get on with this 5 play limit, it's such a brainless limitation. I will have to stop using Spotify as a recreational background music thing. As far as using it as a means to learn songs I'm sorry to say that once these restrictions kick in, I will be using Audacity to record the Stereo Mix while I use one of my five plays then keep the resultant audio file to play as many times as it takes me to learn the song. You can bet that on average it takes me more than five plays to get most songs down

[jimbaby]

Hi
I'm a premium user and stream into a DAC then hifi system, sounds very very good. Remember to enable high bitrate on premium, makes a big difference.
Very happy with the service so far apart from the glitchyness when playing tracks from the hard drive through Spotify, I also prefer the sound quality of Spotify to Itunes.
Regards
Jim

[thumbo]

[quote name='jimbaby' post='1208030' date='Apr 22 2011, 10:32 AM']Hi
I'm a premium user and stream into a DAC then hifi system, sounds very very good. Remember to enable high bitrate on premium, makes a big difference.
Very happy with the service so far apart from the glitchyness when playing tracks from the hard drive through Spotify, I also prefer the sound quality of Spotify to Itunes.
Regards
Jim[/quote]

Your setup sounds cool, I could really do with some nice speakers and a DAC.

Spotify have been trying to implement 320kbps MP3's since 2009, iTunes are only just coming around to doing this now. That will be why Spotify sounds better than the average itunes download

Edited April 22, 2011 by thumbo

[Tait]

[quote name='ben604' post='1207725' date='Apr 21 2011, 11:44 PM']I pay too. I must use it for 8 hours a day during work, my cycle to and from work and listening at home. Absolutely vital to my sanity! The idea of browsing Youtube every 3 minutes for the next song seems ridiculous.[/quote]

I may be wrong, but I don't think many people listen to every song on youtube. I think most people that use Youtube will be in a similar position to me.

I listen to most of my stuff of iTunes, all music I've paid for. I could then create an identical playlist on Spotify, but that'd mean there being adverts every few songs. Now, although Spotify is free, I hate the adverts, so I'd either have to spend £5 a month on Spotify, or just buy all my music. I don't spend £5 a month on music, so buying my music is cheaper.

For the odd occasion that I need to listen to a song I don't own, I'll Youtube it. There's no reason not to Spotify it, I just generally go to Youtube first.

[ben604]

[quote name='Tait' post='1208100' date='Apr 22 2011, 11:18 AM']I may be wrong, but I don't think many people listen to every song on youtube. I think most people that use Youtube will be in a similar position to me.

I listen to most of my stuff of iTunes, all music I've paid for. I could then create an identical playlist on Spotify, but that'd mean there being adverts every few songs. Now, although Spotify is free, I hate the adverts, so I'd either have to spend £5 a month on Spotify, or just buy all my music. I don't spend £5 a month on music, so buying my music is cheaper.

For the odd occasion that I need to listen to a song I don't own, I'll Youtube it. There's no reason not to Spotify it, I just generally go to Youtube first.[/quote]


That's a fair point. I guess I'm lucky enough to be able to listen to music all day in work, so the playlists are vital.

[bungle]

I have been paying the £10 a month for about a year now, and I think it's pretty decent value for what it is. I listen to far more music in a month on it than I could buy online/on CD for that much, and being able to download stuff to my iPhone is brilliant. Additionally, I will often buy albums that I've spotified a lot and really enjoy. Well worth the price of a pint a week I think.

It does pay artists sod all though:



Having said that, someone on another forum I read put it like this, which makes more sense:

[quote]What I get from Spotify is it is formulated exactly like a pay to listen commercial radio; 30,000 streams sounds like a lot, and £6.31 sounds like sod all, but on radio terms if your song got played on say XFM once in a month 30,000 people might hear it (albeit all at once) and you'd get around £6.31 for that play. It costs nothing for the listener apart from being targeted for ads, which you can choose not to have by paying a "Licence fee" and you get no adverts, which sounds familiar too.[/quote]

[steve-soar]

[quote name='bungle' post='1208253' date='Apr 22 2011, 01:21 PM']I have been paying the £10 a month for about a year now, and I think it's pretty decent value for what it is. I listen to far more music in a month on it than I could buy online/on CD for that much, and being able to download stuff to my iPhone is brilliant. Additionally, I will often buy albums that I've spotified a lot and really enjoy. Well worth the price of a pint a week I think.

It does pay artists sod all though:



Having said that, someone on another forum I read put it like this, which makes more sense:[/quote]
Excellent post.

[thumbo]

It's a shame that artists get so little financially from Spotify, but given the popularity of it I think the key benefit is the potential for exposure.

[Monckyman]

[quote name='thumbo' post='1207581' date='Apr 21 2011, 09:52 PM']£4.99 for unlimited access to millions of songs every month is great. It was awesome whilst it was free but it wasn't gonna stay that way forever.[/quote]
We use Spotify a lot, every day, for new releases and old tracks to learn etc.
Youtube doesn`t cut it, no LPs, often crap sound quality, too much time browsing the scum.
The PC (upstairs) is cabled to our flat screen and hi-fi (downstairs), so it really is a useable setup, and becoming fond of tracks on Spotify means we want to own the stuff so our annual music spend has shot up, which is good for the artists. So we`ll be paying the £1.25 a week for tens of thousands of tunes=Bargain.
MM

[mep]

[quote name='neepheid' post='1207994' date='Apr 22 2011, 09:57 AM']The time limit was inevitable, I knew the early adopters Free club couldn't last forever. Fine, bust us down to Open level but I can't get on with this 5 play limit, it's such a brainless limitation. I will have to stop using Spotify as a recreational background music thing. As far as using it as a means to learn songs I'm sorry to say that once these restrictions kick in, [color="#FF0000"]I will be using Audacity to record the Stereo Mix [/color]while I use one of my five plays then keep the resultant audio file to play as many times as it takes me to learn the song. You can bet that on average it takes me more than five plays to get most songs down [/quote]
I was wondering if anyone would bring this up. I must admit to have done this with streamed music via Spotify or YouTube! (It's just so obvious?)

I will be upgrading to the unlimited service as I consider £4.99 a month is quite good value if you listen a lot like we do in our family. I agree that it's sometimes easier to find tracks on Spotify rather than trawling through YouTube.

I still can't get my head around the 5 play limit though, it seems such a bad move. The 10 our limit I can understand.

[dan2112]

I've been paying the £10 service for a good while now...and like alot of people on here...been using it on my Iphone (though, for the first 4 or 5 months, the app kept crashing on start up even after many app and iphone software reinstalls it finally worked after jailbreaking my iphone). My house mates use spotify alot and and are devastated with the new limitations thought they did suspect it was inevitable. The recommended artist feature is brilliant and have found many new artists through it.

[dbass]

I will continue using the £9.99 a month service. I use it ALL the time at work and it's about the only thing that keeps me sane.

I use it on my HTC Desire a lot too and I can stream it into my car via Bluetooth so I always have a great playlist for journeys and I've used it to learn songs/set lists.

I'd rather contribute something small to the artist over nothing at all.

[stonecoldbass]

[quote name='mep' date='Apr 21 2011,
It seems the annoying adverts are not doing the trick with getting people to sign up.

[/quote]
Why should you get unlimited, on demand, hi quality streaming music? What right do you have to be upset by any limitations put on this usage!? i think we forget how fortunate we are to be able to access such a vast array of music at our fingertips. I think most people would agree that they couldn't believe spotify when it first came out, nevermind that it was free! I pay the £10 a month gladly, I set up my account in the UK but now live in Australia. I think of it as similar to a venue paying a 'PRS' licence or something similar, spread out between all the artists it isn't much but it's a fair price to pay for the privilege of enjoying an artists work.
You really can't complain about this, and for those of you who are bitter about it, grow up. If you are in any way a 'musician' you should be supporting the industry you love and are a part of.

[neepheid]

[quote name='stonecoldbass' post='1211493' date='Apr 26 2011, 10:14 AM']Why should you get unlimited, on demand, hi quality streaming music? What right do you have to be upset by any limitations put on this usage!? i think we forget how fortunate we are to be able to access such a vast array of music at our fingertips. I think most people would agree that they couldn't believe spotify when it first came out, nevermind that it was free! I pay the £10 a month gladly, I set up my account in the UK but now live in Australia. I think of it as similar to a venue paying a 'PRS' licence or something similar, spread out between all the artists it isn't much but it's a fair price to pay for the privilege of enjoying an artists work.
You really can't complain about this, and for those of you who are bitter about it, grow up. If you are in any way a 'musician' you should be supporting the industry you love and are a part of.[/quote]

It was never unlimited - the adverts were supposed to help pay for it. That doesn't seem to have paid off for them, and that's a shame. As I've already mentioned I have no problem with the monthly time limit - it was inevitable. What I do object to is the 5 play limit PER SONG FOR ALL ETERNITY. This is a braindead move. Not only does it negate the usefulness of playlists and means you can't have favourite songs, it also stifles Spotify's usefulness as a song learning tool - my principal use for it. So I'm going to take matters into my own hands as I have already intimated.

If you continue to judge me and question my support of music then I will pummel you with my scrapbook of ticket stubs, wrap you in some band t-shirts then bury you under my CD collection

[Doctor J]

I still buy CDs.

[mike257]

I thought the 5 play limit was per month, not for all eternity - that'd be a bit much!

[setekh]

[quote name='Doctor J' post='1211509' date='Apr 26 2011, 10:37 AM']I still buy CDs.[/quote]
So do I.

But I've enjoyed spotify a lot lately. In fact, I've bought about a dozen CDs because of spotify. Which is why I am on the fence on whether to pay the monthly subscription or not.

[cheddatom]

My girlfriend uses it loads. She refuses to choose from my music collection (ripped to the HD) saying that spotify exposes her to new artists etc. It's a nice idea but those god damn f***ing adverts drive me nuts!! Forcing people to pay and avoid those ads is going to save me hours of ear ache!

[Dood]

In Premium, I understand you can 'save' tracks for running locally and furthermore at 320k bit rate. Are they stored locally as MP3's or in Spotify's propriety file system?

[goblin]

I reckon they'll be in the system, I don't know what I'm going to do yet as my subscription for premium ends on the 15th. I can't see £10 a month hurting too much, but I've been watching / listening to a lot of stuff on YouTube recently. If you can download then that's great, means I don't have to buy CDs to put in the car CD player, or download and put them onto my MP3 player to put into the car stereo. However, I find myself listening to the radio a lot nowadays too.

I reckon I can live without it, but I bet if I try to I'll fail.

[chrismuzz]

I buy CDs, and if i want to stream stuff, i use Grooveshark pretty much the same, but free-er! And less ads. oh and it haz more metulz on it than spotify!

Edited May 4, 2011 by chrismuzz

[paul h]

I used to use Spotify a lot but changed to Grooveshark. But now the latest version of Grooveshark doesn't work in my favourite browser. So I swapped back to Spotify just before they announced the changes.

I hated Last.fm but I guess I might end up back there.

[Monckyman]

As i said earlier, a £5 a month is peanuts for access to all those tunes. if you set your rig up right you can access them all over your house.
Nevertheless, I don`t see Spotify as an alternative to buying CDs, I see Spotify as a way of getting me into the stuff in the first place. if that turns into a CD I can`t do without, then I go spend the £10.
I and my partners music spend is larger now than it ever has been and that`s because we can try,listen to and enjoy lots of different stuff, on a whim. If we like, then we buy.
Maybe it`s my age but my opinion is that music isn`t free and nor should it ever be unless you`re happy with it being written and performed by computers.
Not to sound like a twat but I thought musicians would understand the time and effort making half decent original music takes.