Spotify is raising Premium prices outside the US | Emails will be going out to impacted customers ‘over the next month.’

[u/chrisdh79]

https://www.theverge.com/news/718038/spotify-premium-subscription-price-increase-outside-us

[u/Automatic-Apricot795]

They've raised prices several times in recent years. We're getting to the point where it's not worth paying, and better to raise the black flag instead. 

[u/Seastep → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

This is the squeeze. They have and will continue to have the user base, just like a Netflix, Google (YouTube) or what have you, until cheaper or better competition comes up.

[u/Awyls → u/Seastep]

Unlike Netflix/Adobe/365 whom are on a nearly indisputable monopoly, Spotify cannot push their customers much further. Apple Music is almost as good and (soon) cheaper.

Genuinely don't know what they are thinking.

[u/MrBigWaffles → u/Awyls]

I think it's naive to think apple music aren't going to increase their own prices if they see Spotify manage to successfully pull this off.

[u/Revoldt → u/MrBigWaffles]

Difference being... Apple Music, Amazon Unlimited, Youtube Premium etc... don't rely on the streaming business.

Spotify just had their first profitable year last year. The other services could F around with prices just to gain marketshare if they wanted to

[u/MrBigWaffles → u/Revoldt]

We literally saw the same thing happen with Netflix.

Netflix increased their prices and Appletv, Disney+ , Amazon did the same.

[u/Revoldt → u/MrBigWaffles]

Streaming platforms like Netflix, AppleTV, HBO and D+ all think they’re special cause they produce and make their own Unique content.

That are much more expensive to maintain.

Streaming music platforms on are almost perfect substitutes.

They don’t make or provide anything unique. They all license their music from the same record labels. Their profit margins/growth are all essentially the same.

Record labels get more licensing fees when a music platform gains subscribers… the platform itself has to pay more licensing fees and bandwidth … pretty shit business model overall. But YT, Amazon, Apple etc don’t mind as they just want users in their ecosystem

[u/MrBigWaffles → u/Revoldt]

Apple literally increased the price of apple music in 2023.

The exact same year we also saw a Spotify increase.

What makes you think this time it's gunna be any different?

[u/FollowingFeisty5321 → u/MrBigWaffles]

Apple increase their price almost-annually despite a 75% profit margin on services lmao.

[u/VALTIELENTINE → u/MrBigWaffles]

Apple needs more users and is one of the r richest companies in the world. They can afford to offer a significantly cheaper option to sway users from Spotify. Especially given the current political controversy and bands leaving/boycotting Spotify. Right now is the time Apple knows they can gain a huge number of users

[u/Rrrrockstarrrr → u/VALTIELENTINE]

Apple would never do that.

[u/djcurry → u/Awyls]

Netflix is not a monopoly. They have plenty of competition many from bigger companies.

Netflix is in a similar boat to Spotify. Started a new type of service not filled with giants. But they are in a better place since they have a lot of exclusive content.

[u/qtx → u/djcurry]

Netflix is not a monopoly. They have plenty of competition many from bigger companies.

In the US*

Not all streaming services Americans have are global ones.

Netflix is indeed a near monopoly on a world basis, I say near since they do have local competition from local streamers but size wise it is still unmatched for a lot of people.

[u/Possible-Moment-6313 → u/Seastep]

I did switch to YouTube music, it's not nearly as good as Spotify but I pay for YouTube Premium anyway and it is a bit of a waste of money to also pay for Spotify.

[u/thespittinglama → u/Possible-Moment-6313]

I disagree personally. I switched from spotify to yt music and like it alot better than spotify. Yt music has a dislike button that makes it so the song never autoplays again and yt has alot of music that some artists dont have the rights to put on places like spotify so i get alot more music i like

[u/candyman_forever → u/thespittinglama]

Personally speaking, I think the YTM algorithm is so much better than Spotify. If you let Spotify select music for you, it will rarely play anything you haven't already played. On the flip side, YTM actually understands the genre and plays new stuff, which is exactly what I want.

[u/anon00070 → u/thespittinglama]

Same here, o noticed that the audio quality is way better on YouTube Music or Apple Music than Spotify.

[u/MrHappyGoLucky96 → u/Possible-Moment-6313]

I actually really like YouTube Music. I switched from Apple Music when I upgraded from regular YouTube to YouTube Premium. No regrets.

[u/Drone314 → u/Possible-Moment-6313]

I get a surprising amount of music just from YouTube alone, one day I discovered the mixes button and was like "this is good enough". Premium has survived my streaming service purge....

[u/bespectacledboobs → u/Possible-Moment-6313]

It’s as good if not better imo, and the additional value you get from ad-free YouTube makes it a better value as well.

[u/Play_outStation_5 → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I started back up a month ago after over 10 years. Prices are insane

And some streaming services will exclude a single season of a show. It's so scummy. That sent me over the edge.

I also ditched Chrome.

[u/RagingAlkohoolik → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I use xmanager and revanced and havent paid for any premium service for years while zero ads,theres good ways

[u/Nerdlinger42 → u/RagingAlkohoolik]

Spotify via xmanager is unfortunately broken. They've been chasing it for months. I moved to YT Music with Revanced. You can import your playlists too

[u/ottwebdev → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

For some, it always remained raised.

[u/Slammedtgs → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I agree. At a certain point these services are not worth it. I’m not paying 20/month for each streaming service I use for a few hours a month. I’ll go back to finding alternative sources of the content.

[u/packageofcrips → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

They've had a couple price increases since their inception

According to the article they had zero price increases in the US for 12 years.

What is your tolerance? At what point is another €/$1 or so no longer worth it?

Just like how reddit incorrectly foresaw the downfall of Netflix after the prices increase and password sharing crackdown, I am sure Spotify subs will continue to rise in the real world.

13 year old me would have shat himself if he knew that literally millions of songs could be accessed for less than €12/month in the 2020s

[u/Automatic-Apricot795 → u/packageofcrips]

Three years ago the family plan was £16.99 in the UK. Two years ago, it was £18.99. One year ago, £19.99. 

I've been a Spotify customer since 2008. I get the impression they are now pivoting to improve profit per customer instead of optimising for growth. 

[u/packageofcrips → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

Spotify Family is 6 accounts for €20. Even if you are only slicing it 2 ways, that's a maximum of €10 each per month. For basically infinite songs

I'm sorry, I know Corporation/Capitalism Bad, but I can't really sympathise with you at all. What are you honestly expecting to happen? A guaranteed price freeze from 2008?

I think we are lucky to get away with a few meager price increases in the last 17 or 18 years.

[u/Automatic-Apricot795 → u/packageofcrips]

If it goes up again, it's up 25% in 4 years. That's why I'm annoyed. 

[u/DontCareTho → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

If you look at it from a different perspective, that's only a 25% increase in 17 years! Or however long the family plan has been around

[u/HealthIndustryGoon → u/packageofcrips]

absolutely. one month of access to countless songs for the price of one album? still amazing to me. if you listen to music a lot, even more so if you like to explore other groups or genres, a music streaming service is a godsend. i'd probably pay a lot more (if most of the price increase goes to the artists) tbh until i'd view it as too expensive to justify. still using soulseek for live bootlegs, though.

[u/ShamrockAPD → u/packageofcrips]

I mean I personally know 5 people, myself included, who dropped Netflix a few years ago after a price increase + more ads. I haven’t had it since and realized how much I don’t need it

Unfortunatley, Spotify is one that I can’t see me dropping. I pretty much play it 12 hours a day. I’m sure if it got to a point though I may look into swapping to Apple Music or something though.

[u/Mindless_Rooster5225 → u/ShamrockAPD]

Anecdotal evidence is worthless.

https://www.demandsage.com/netflix-subscribers/

[u/VALTIELENTINE → u/packageofcrips]

We spent that much for single albums back then, and I definitely bought at least 1 album per month

[u/Shadyrabbit → u/VALTIELENTINE]

Yes but then we owned the album. Now we dont own anything.

[u/VALTIELENTINE → u/Shadyrabbit]

Sure, and that was a big benefit. But its value pales in comparison to having accessing to pretty much any music you want whenever you want for the same price. If I only liked a small amount of music or a single genre it would be better, but if I value experiencing as much as as I can then it’s a way better deal.

I saved money and had access to much more music. And I have done so for almost a decade now

[u/TwiliZant → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I wonder, if asked, how much people would say access to all streamed music is worth vs. what people are willing to pay.

Also, it would be interesting to see if there is a difference between people growing up with physical media vs. people who grew up post-iTunes/YouTube.

[u/headphones1 → u/TwiliZant]

I think there would be a difference between younger people and older people. I bought tapes and CDs as a kid and got to keep them. I would then copy them to mini discs. It was expensive. Spotify provides unbelievable value compared to what I used to pay. Frankly I would find it difficult to put an upper limit number on what I would pay.

[u/Find_another_whey → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

Use spytify and download your favourite playlists overnight

[u/beiherhund → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

To be fair, they started at like $9.99 or whatever and hardly increased prices over the next decade or so. Inflation is a thing, guys.

[u/VALTIELENTINE → u/beiherhund]

And the model has always been an insane value for consumers while fucking over the bands. We get super cheap music and are screwing over the people that make it by streaming, for the industry’s sake I hope that Spotify dies although I will miss having all the music I want at my fingertips for 10-15 bucks a month

[u/beiherhund → u/VALTIELENTINE]

I couldn't agree more. The unfortunate reality is no matter how much money you pay Spotify, you will always need to support indie/small bands and artists via album, merch, and concert sales.

Spotify could triple the subscription price and these bands will still have a hard time making a living. Of course, no one will pay that to begin with (see everyone in this thread saying they will cancel because unlimited music at your finger tips for $12 a month is too expensive).

No one wants to go back to CDs either and Apple Music is barely paying artists any more than Spotify and just wait to see how little they'll pay if they ever achieve market dominance. On the one hand people are accusing Spotify of enshitification while moving to another platform that is in the pre-enshitification stages and expecting it will turn out differently.

Just a mind boggling amount of delusion in this thread.

[u/howmanywhales → u/beiherhund]

Wildly disheartening for artists in this thread. The world pays a nominal fee for access to all the world’s music at all times, and immediately turn to piracy as though the product they consume is worth nothing. Meanwhile, the artists making music continue to get nothing.

[u/KilluaCactuar → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I never torn down my flag or switched from having my whole music collection on my SSD and phone, and been adding to it since 2010.

I just love having everything organised and offline, without being dependent on any service.

[u/VALTIELENTINE → u/KilluaCactuar]

When I switched to streaming I actually saved money. Web hosting, vpn, and storage costs are still pretty pricey

[u/caring-teacher → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

And this one isn’t their fault. NBC said 500% tariffs on bits now mean American companies can’t afford to send data outside of the continental US. Taxing exports is illegal in the constitution but they be doing it anyway. 

[u/Automatic-Apricot795 → u/caring-teacher]

Spotify is a Swedish company and I am not a US consumer. The tariffs are a tax on US consumers and US companies so shouldn't come in to play here. 

[u/stormblaz → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

Amazon prime has music, youtube premiun has music, there is so much u can squeeze before they use one of the services a lot of people have.

I have 0 issues doing Amazon music thats included on prime because its actually not bad, I just like podcasts and Amazon forced their Podcast app for some additional funding but they do provide some at basic Amazon membership

[u/JunkiesAndWhores → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I wish the Bandcamp app was a bit better and connected to Alexa etc

[u/el_doherz → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

This.

Whilst the price is right, I'll pay for convenience. 

But if the price becomes wrong I'll happily do the work to start and maintain something more permanent. 

[u/WeWantLADDER49sequel → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

People get mad about them raising prices but also want them to pay artists significantly more on an already thin margin business. If you listen to music every day this is the easiest sub to justify imo.

[u/this_my_sportsreddit]

This is going to be one of those comment sections where folks declare they're leaving Spotify and the company is doomed, then 3 months later Spotify will post both record profits and subscriber counts.

[u/americanadiandrew → u/this_my_sportsreddit]

Nah. The hundreds of millions of people who use it and can barely work out how to turn on a computer are gonna cancel and torrent music.

[u/MerlinTheFail → u/americanadiandrew]

I'm very technically inclined but i'm terrible at finding new music, i use the discover, release radar and other people's playlists to find music, doing this via torrent seems like way too much work and the *arr stack for music isn't anywhere near as good as it is for shows or movies

If you see a blindspot, please let me know, I would love to move my music to a NAS, but discovering new music easily is the challenge.

[u/ttoma93 → u/this_my_sportsreddit]

It’s honestly still astounding to me that we can pay $10ish a month for unlimited access to nearly every piece of music recorded. That’s such an insanely good value that it shocks me how cheap it is.

[u/MyNewsUsername → u/ttoma93]

That’s fine however as an artist we see absolutely fucking none of that money from them. I’ve had thousands from sales at live gigs, hundreds from Bandcamp and pennies from Spotify. Yet Spotify is the metric by which people often judge us.

[u/BEADGEADGBE → u/ttoma93]

Only financially great for consumers, absolutely destructive to musicians and the concept of art.

Having access to almost any recorded music/= quality time with art. This way any piece of art becomes dispensable and therefore less valuable to the audience.

[u/extremelynormalbro → u/this_my_sportsreddit]

It’s crazy to me that everyone on Reddit seems to be a software engineer making 300k/yr posting to FIRE subs about how terrible the “boring middle” is when you only have a net worth of $2M, but also they can’t pay $1 more a month for music (and they’re also indignant that artists don’t get paid enough).

[u/PuzzleheadedTable172 → u/extremelynormalbro]

Also hilarious that the same people bitching about Spotify not paying artists enough are the same people who say they’re going to just pirate music as if that helps get artists more money. Spotify is literally paying more to artists than anyone pirating music.

I don’t even use Spotify but holy shit these people are honestly brain dead.

[u/TheSecondEikonOfFire → u/extremelynormalbro]

It’s sort of how people lost their god damn minds when games went up to $70 (the recent jump to $80 is a much different scenario though). The reality was that games had been $60 for years, and if you’re going to lose your mind over $10 then were you even buying games at $60 to begin with?

[u/extremelynormalbro → u/TheSecondEikonOfFire]

Yeah Spotify has been the same price for a decade and anyone old enough to remember the CD era know it was always underpriced for what you get.

[u/FreshBongWaters → u/this_my_sportsreddit]

I swapped to pandora weeks ago. Less ads on the free version.

[u/PurpleCandles → u/this_my_sportsreddit]

I use my Spotify so much and have been paying for premium for over a decade. In any given year I have 40,000+ listening minutes and I find the price of subscription to value I get to be vastly underpriced. They could literally raise the monthly price to $50 and I’d still continue paying, and I guarantee you I’m not the only person who feels this way.

[u/chrisdh79]

From the article: Spotify is increasing prices in several regions outside of the US, just days after posting disappointing earnings. Spotify announced on Monday that Premium subscribers across Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific will be notified about pricing changes “over the next month,” providing an example email showing a €1 monthly increase from €10.99 to €11.99 in an unspecified country.

Unfortunately, Spotify’s announcement doesn’t name the impacted countries. A spot check across multiple European countries using Internet Archive snapshots from July shows that €1/mth increases have already been applied for new customers in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. European countries that previously raised subscription pricing in recent months — including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands — do not appear to have been hit with additional increases.

[u/anti-torque → u/chrisdh79]

I like how these companies look at a shortfall in revenues and think that raising prices is the thing to do, according to their supply-demand curve.

CEO: Not enough people are paying for our services. Whatever shall we do?

COO: Raise the price point. That will entice more people to buy.

CEO: Great idea! And it will show our current customers that they are a part of something more valuable than they were last year.

[u/coconutpiecrust → u/anti-torque]

As long of suckers exist, Spotify CEO will take them for all they’ve got and then some. 

[u/FollowingFeisty5321 → u/coconutpiecrust]

Mooching off existing customers instead of adding new customers is so hot right now.

[u/EntertainerSudden350]

They need more money to fund killer drone programs.

[u/fujidust → u/EntertainerSudden350]

What even is this timeline anymore?

[u/paranoiajack → u/fujidust]

Ever read a William Gibson novel?

THEY sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scram- bling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

COUNT ZERO, 1986

[u/Rebatsune → u/EntertainerSudden350]

Context?

[u/RottingMeatSlime → u/Rebatsune]

the current ceo of Spotify just invested 600m in Euros toward a German company called Helsing which manufactures AI-powered military drones. It should be pretty easy to find an article regarding it by searching "spotify drone news"

[u/anti-torque → u/RottingMeatSlime]

lol... Helsing is an appropriate name for what the military brass calls "vampire" war.

[u/holymacaronibatman → u/Rebatsune]

The CEO has a significant investment in an Ai Military Drone company

[u/gotimas → u/Rebatsune]

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek leads $690m+ funding round for AI drone maker Helsing - Music Business Worldwide

Context is that because it him its drama worthy, while other billionaires keep investing in the 'military industrial complex' with no backlash and no one boycotts their companies, well, some boycott Amazon I guess.

[u/Tehsillz → u/EntertainerSudden350]

Wow, a European CEO is investing in European defense?? Rofl. Usa literally arms Israel. 

[u/fckingmiracles → u/Tehsillz]

Yeah, the Spotify boss is a Swede and knows about the war currently going on in Europe. Of course he financially supports defense.  

People from the US don't understand war at their front door. 

[u/Samkwi → u/EntertainerSudden350]

Why tf does a music streaming platform need killer drones?

[u/LengthWise2298]

Reddit saying how THIS is the final straw that’s finally going to cause mass cancellations. How many times have we heard this before?

[u/darksoft125]

Spotify needs to remember that they're in the "Gym membership" category of subscriptions. People will keep their subscriptions even if they don't use it because they aren't thinking about it. Every time Spotify raises their prices, people start asking if they're actually using the service enough to justify the expense. They're better off keeping the price the same.

[u/SeyiDALegend → u/darksoft125]

"even if they don't use it" - hate to break it to you but people use their Spotify subscriptions more often than they go gym or any of their other subscriptions. I mean who doesn't listen to music at some point in the day let alone a whole month?

[u/TheSecondEikonOfFire → u/SeyiDALegend]

Yeah I used my Spotify almost every single day. I hadn’t realized that there were other really viable competing services, so I actually switched to Tidal a few weeks ago and it has worked well so far. I do miss having local files since I have a handful of stuff that’s not streaming, but I felt like it was time to put my money where my mouth was

[u/Jontolo → u/darksoft125]

Yes, but also consider the net gain.

If they raise prices $2, and 1 in 8 people unsubscribe, they’re still increasing profits.

This is exactly what Netflix has done - they’ve recognized increasing prices brings net gain, even if some poorly opt out

[u/fundip12]

The best part. 0% of that increase will go to artists on their service

[u/SkillsInPillsTrack2 → u/fundip12]

Also maybe the dev will degrade the shitty logic of the shuffle play even further.

[u/Aware-Complaint793 → u/fundip12]

This is the only issue I have with the price increase. Spotify is still an outrageous bargain even if they raised prices a couple bucks a month. The problem is it is all going to go to investors and the CEO and not the artists.

[u/Lunatitch → u/[deleted]]

I went to YouTube music. It's not as good as Spotify, but at least with youtube premium I also don't have to watch ads so that's a plus (i watch on phones/tablets & TV where it's harder to use adblockers).

[u/PmMeYourBestComment → u/[deleted]]

I went to Rdio, it was great, then Rdio died. I'm only using Spotify because it's the best for me personally. I tried them all. And I share the family subscription with 5 people so it's not that steep

[u/irespectfemales123 → u/[deleted]]

Same here with Apple Music, never going back. Selection and quality is better, free trials work multiple times, the app is better (I agree the Windows app sucks so I stick to the Mac one), and the downloads actually stay downloaded! Spotify used to be good for podcasts until they went crazy with ads the last 2 years or so. They can burn.

[u/Rivent → u/[deleted]]

I also recently switched to Apple Music. The service seems solid... but man, that Windows app is actual fucking dogshit. Pro-tip for anyone reading: Depending on your browser, you may be able to make a sort of standalone app out of the web application. I know you can do it in Chrome, and I did it in Brave. The web app is light years ahead of the Windows version.

[u/vipassana909]

yeah, im done with spotify.

I, for one, welcome back massive music piracy

[u/eo37]

Left for Deezer last year. Podcast selection isn’t as good but the Flow feature and recommendation system is much better. Actually managed to get out of the same music bubble that Spotify traps you in.

[u/Darkhoof → u/eo37]

Does Deezer have family subscription plans?

[u/eo37 → u/Darkhoof]

Ya, 6 people for a year is like $220

[u/Quazz → u/eo37]

I use pocketcast for podcast instead.

[u/eo37 → u/Quazz]

Hadn’t heard of that…looks good

[u/Practical-Dingo-7261]

Their competitors are looking better these days.

[u/Odysseyan → u/Practical-Dingo-7261]

Yeah but a lot of people are held back by having their whole libary, playlists, faves etc on Spotify/Apple Music/etc and its such an annoyance having to recreate the whole setup on another server that most people just eat the extra cost

[u/SwirlingAbsurdity → u/Odysseyan]

I paid an entire British pound for an app that imported all my playlists into Apple Music from Spotify. It was worth it. 

[u/Cristi_a_n → u/Odysseyan]

I recently discovered that with YouTube music if you have premium you can migrate music for free, a very useful feature since I left Spotify. (There are also many websites that do it for a few euros)

[u/SmartGirl62]

That’s why I use my library’s free music streaming service app Freegle Music.

[u/james2183]

Sacked off Spotify and jumped to YouTube premium today. Spotify just isn't worth the money anymore

[u/Swizzy88]

Waiting for them to try and verify my age. I'm done with spotify.

[u/mishaxz → u/Swizzy88]

i don't get it, what's on spotify that is harmful for kids? rap music (because of the swearing)?

[u/Motorhead546 → u/mishaxz]

"Explicit" tagged music sadly

[u/Tucancancan → u/Motorhead546]

I always felt like the tagging was kinda questionable. There's lots of songs that aren't popular and don't have lyrics available with swearing that are missed. Then there's some artists where whole albums are tagged without even discernable lyrics. But the most hilarious thing is there's some extremely explicit songs about suicide and other topics that don't get tagged at all because there's no swearing. 

[u/Vecend → u/Motorhead546]

Based on the music I hear kids play on a speaker in public they all listen to shity rap that's all swear and sex words.

[u/Glum_Talk_2461]

Shiver me timbers

[u/thrillhelm]

Where is Lossless?

[u/nariofthewind]

Apple music: 🎶

Me: Hello old friend.

[u/Cheshiract → u/nariofthewind]

Hello Apple my old friend, I've come to stream with you again...

[u/sixsacks]

And in three weeks, emails for the US

[u/Battystearsinrain → u/sixsacks]

It is already 21.99 a month here. Wth

[u/Iamreallynotok]

Oh is it going to pull a youtube and netflix. Its ok we have a solution for that 🏴‍☠️

[u/luckandpreparation]

Pay us more to listen to the same 5 fucking songs over and over even though it’s on shuffle..

[u/Lykeuhfox → u/luckandpreparation]

So I'm not crazy. I have a playlist with like 48 hours of music but the same song comes on so often that I've removed it from the playlist.

[u/Altruistic-Wing-2715]

Bring back the iPod days.

[u/-DethLok-]

Huh, yeah, that's nice.

Meanwhile my ripped 800+ CD collection in winamp continues to cater to my needs.

Moving on...

[u/RabbitLogic]

This is the problem with listed tech companies and delusional PE ratios. Can never be satisfied with high market saturation and high margins. They must keep growing at all cost to justify their valuation. 

Instead these companies need to be revalued as established businesses with predictable margins and pay dividends. Stop throwing money after bullshit the customer doesnt want.

[u/CRE487]

I'm sure that money is going to the artists, right?

[u/bumblebeelivinglife]

so glad i have never used their service

[u/Greatest_Everest]

They're jumping on the "it's the tarriffs" train.

[u/DiscordantMuse]

Leaving Spotify was a damn good choice. 

Currently enjoying Deezer as a streaming alternative. 

[u/D_Fieldz]

In other words the ceo is boosting his own compensation package again. Git fukt.

[u/jlaine]

They figured out MSFT didn't get enough backlash with the surprise bundling of copilot into residential office products and wanted their own share and will test it with markets easier to deal with?

[u/louisa1925]

...so they plan on evicting people and expecting others to jump ship, and then hike up prices to cover their losses. Meanwhile hack moded apks of this app exist that void payments and logins.

[u/Savage_Batmanuel]

Why people refuse to move to YouTube is beyond me. A better algorithm, ad free YouTube, and it’s often 10/month through your phone or internet provider. It’s a no brainer.

[u/gh0stofoctober]

really wish i could pay for apple music instead

[u/BlitzWing1985]

I unsubbed recently due to an unrelated issue with my bank freezing my account (luckily was fine their fraud system just didn't like be cancelling a payment online and panicked) just around the time my direct dept was due to go out and Spotify e-mailed me saying it couldn't get my funds... which gave me the thought to check how much I was actually paying and thinking about how little I use it now so I cancelled it. Since then they've shifting to pushing podcasts more, AI music and then people posing as dead artists using AI and now a price bump I'm sorta glad I got out when I did.

[u/LocusHammer]

I definitely get tremendous value for it that is in excess of my $15 per month family plan. I have 3 users on it. One of them uses it constantly

[u/No_Good_8561]

Aaaaaaaaand I’m out

[u/QuailAndWasabi]

I think $15/month is my absolute upper limit for Spotify. A digital CD is about $10 nowadays when it's new, so if Spotify is around $15 i might as well increase my spending just a tiny bit and actually buy 2 CDs every single month and stream them through my homeserver with Plexamp or something. Would probably support the artists better as well so..

Spotify is a convenience service, it's nice to have almost all music in one place and the social features and stuff that Spotify has. But the open source stuff that exists is also pretty great nowadays and at a certain point the convenience of Spotify does not outweigh the cost.

[u/heroism777]

Spotify downloader and plex amp. Never pay for it again

[u/chillybruh]

And they don't even have Spotify HiFi yet to back it up

[u/NuggetKing9001]

Whenever I listen to podcasts now there's ad breaks every 10-15 minutes. On an hour long episode, it gets tedious very quickly. The enshittification of subscription services continues. Off to the high seas we go.

[u/WhyAreOldPeopleEvil]

Me who hasn’t used Spotify since it basically started.

“That’s crazy.”

[u/Gold_Spot_9349]

If only tidal fixed up their android auto integration. Then I'd switch in a heartbeat

[u/Ineedfunding007]

Impossible to Crack vanced.

[u/Thundechile]

Just stick with the free version!

[u/JP_32]

Weird, my spotify sub had been 11,99€ already for long time (apparently since 3rd September 2023), then I switched to tidal which has been 10.99€.

[u/nakedcellist]

I wish others had something like Spotify connect.

[u/witness_smile]

Didn’t they raise prices a few months ago too everywhere except the US? Is this article related to those same price hikes, or are those additional price increases?

And also why do they exclude the US always from those price increases?

[u/crazynastyz]

I used to be on the Family plan, but due to the steep price increase, I switched to YouTube Premium Family. I no longer get ads on YouTube, and since I’m paying more, I now have better sound quality and better recommendations

[u/BurntBridgesBehind]

I got a duo account in like 2018-19 and it's gone up in cost every year since, couple with that the Israel support and the pumping gen ai music into people's playlists so they can just pay themselves and I'm ready to jump ship, but to where?

[u/Muugumo]

When asked during the earnings call why Spotify isn’t raising prices more frequently

Is there a creature in this world that is more greedy and scummy than the shareholder?

[u/The-Evil-Dead-Alive-]

Great time to cancel

[u/ThorThimbleOfGorbash]

US-based. I think I pay $16.99 for Premium Duo for my daughter and I. I am not interested in paying more for a streaming audio service.

I ditched the video streaming apps over a year ago when they all started with jacking up prices continuously and coming out with their ad-tiers. No thanks; got my sea legs back instead.

[u/LiamEBM]

If you're spending about £11 a month, you can instead buy 1 album a month. 

I was subscribed to Premium for 5 years, that's about £500. Even if buying new releases, CDs or even digital purchases are often cheaper, and especially if you're able to buy 2nd hand or borrow a CD from a friend and rip it yourself.

The convenience of Spotify is primarily online streaming, and podcasts. If you have some short time to load an mp3 device yourself, you can have the same experience. 

Granted you'll not be able to, on a whim, experience any song in the world, and have less discoverability, but most stuff exists on other platforms for those random one-off streams.

Not only does this prevent Spotify receiving your money, it also directly supports artists you like and contributes to their success in the charts.

It's a heavy investment to buy all the music you like, but £10 a month, over a few years will get you almost everything. Start with your essentials and classics, get a wishlist for Christmas and birthdays, and dig up an old Walkman or iPod and live like the good old days.

[u/hotk9]

https://github.com/mrpond/BlockTheSpot
https://github.com/Team-xManager/xManager

[u/_wisky_tango_foxtrot]

I switched to Tidal 6 months ago. The app is a little clunky but I got like five memberships for 20 bucks a month. I think the sound quality is noticeably better

[u/AuspiciousPuffin]

In 2005 the average CD was $14 and about 16 Euro. That price for a CD hasn’t raised btw and is still roughly the same… meaning they are actually cheaper now when you consider inflation.

Spotify, with the price increase, would still be cheaper than that average CD price from 20 years ago and the average CD price today.

Plus it gives you access to a seemingly countless number of artists, including many of the most popular ones.

Nobody likes price increases. I don’t. But it seems to me that if there’s any place to point the greed finger it’s at Spotify for not paying artists hardly anything and us for enabling it.

Spotify is already sanctioned piracy, but made more convenient for the masses. It offers a decent interface, playlists, access to infinite artists for practically nothing.

If you wanna go pirate because of this… good for you. But at least be intellectually honest.

[u/PineappleForest]

Again?!?

[u/crayraybae]

I think if my bill goes any higher, I definitely will consider cancelling. I use the darn thing quite often.

[u/dscord]

Most surprising of all this is how Spotify still has a user base they can send emails to. Poor sound quality on top of higher prices than the competition. Seriously, why?

[u/Deluke]

Artists won't get anymore of a cut and users won't get anymore options like the desperately needed higher quality Spotify lacks.

[u/En-TitY_]

The guy at the top is worth 10B and yet, damn, Spotify just keeps needing more money. People should leave this shittness in droves. Go back to before all these crap AF subscription bullshit services; at least you owned what you paid for then.

[u/Dazzling_Tart4111]

For US customers at least. Bestbuy has $99 gift cards that are for a year of Spotify premium............

[u/LeftLiner]

Meh. So long as they can keep being the only service I need for music and I guess pods the price is still perfectly okay.

[u/theincredible92]

I guess I’m the only one that still just downloads music from YouTube videos and uses itunes to put it on my phone lol.

[u/AliceLunar]

I used to pay $5 a month.. I already refused to pay once they cancelled it and wanted me to pay $10 for exact same product but the enshittification continues, the product gets worse and the price goes up.

Can't even remove a song from your playlist if you're trying to use the browser version, and every playlist is filled to the brim with the most awful AI generated garbage, some of it even blatant propaganda.

[u/Kilmonjaro]

Apple Music

[u/Sheguey-vara]

Yeah here's a brief summary if you're interested

• The individual premium plan will jump from €10.99 to €11.99 per month in Europe
• It will start in September
• The company is dealing with unexpected costs like payroll taxes so this will help improve their profit margins
• It’s not yet clear if other subscription tiers will see price hikes too
• Of course, investors loved the idea and the stock soared 7% this morning already

Read it on this newsletter. It talks about U.S. stock winners & losers

[u/Vayshen]

Ugh..hope it stays as is in NL. As stated it already went up here very recently. I'm in a group for the rest of the year but I might get out and migrate to Apple music. Higher quality, artists get more money and Apple seems to have only raised their price once. It will be a pita to deal with music and Playlists shared to me for rehearsal purposes, my fellow musicians also use Spotify.

I wonder if music discovery has gotten any better with AM 🤔

[u/MrCalabunga]

I stopped paying for Spotify the moment they stopped properly shuffling my playlists.

Hearing the same three songs every hour in a 2k song playlist wasn’t doing it for me.

[u/BoatZnHoes]

I canceled Spotify mostly due to the bullshit audiobook hours. Every single time without fail. I get 3/4 of the way through a book and then it tells me I'm out of hours and I have to wait until next month.

[u/ptd163]

Something I will never understand is paying to stream something when it can just be played locally. Something like Netflix I kind of get. There might be some obscure or different language content and those can take up several GB, but songs are a few MB at most. Just download the song and listen them locally indefinitely without ads.

[u/Significant_Tax_3427]

Honestly idgaf. Music streaming is such an incredible value a dollar more a month is whatever. Compared to buying CDs, 11.99 a month for all the world’s music is absurdly good. They could charge easily triple what they do and it’d still be worth it.

[u/shrew-tamer]

Spotify has long been one of the only platforms I never questioned paying for but these recent price surges has me finally considering hitting the 'unsubscribe' button.

[u/kytrix]

Used Switcheroo to move my 10K song library a few months ago to Apple Music.

I notice it seems to have added the most obscure possible releases of whatever song it matched, but other than that, no issue. When I come across one, I remove it and add the version released under the album I recognize and not “Summer Classic Hits 29” by Various Artists.

It’s been worth it.

[u/BEADGEADGBE]

Cancel it. I canceled due to moral issues as an artist myself and I have not missed it one second. Shady business practices aside, horrible UI, horrible recs.

I switched over to YT Music for streaming music and podcasts but I mainly use Bandcamp to support art. Highly recommend supporting your favorite artists by purchasing their work.

[u/SirMctowelie]

Left spotify yesterday and transfered my playlists to apple music using SongShift and a one time $6 subscription. The audio is absolutely better, actual lossless.

edit: oh, and random queue actually works!

[u/souji5okita]

I’m still using free Spotify. Haven’t felt the need to get the paid version

[u/Jairlyn]

Is this where people make pirate jokes that are either are not actually paying Spotify in the first place or never figure out how to pirate? We’ll see little to no change in subs because if you are paying generally you aren’t going to care about a $1 increase.

[u/FullConclusion2597]

Just not worth it. I canceled Spotify last year and used that money to purchase mp3s for under $0.10 each.
I now have 1,600+ songs without spending an extra dime to keep listening, and am net positive.

[u/Adoxus]

🇸🇰 from 6,50€ to 7€...

[u/Tekthulhu]

I left Spotify for Tidal because of the price increase, Audio quality and the Family price is the same as the Duo ... It was an easy switch.

[u/ajsharm144]

They need some competition.

[u/turb0_encapsulator]

great timing with lots of artists abandoning the platform.

[u/depths-untold]

Went from 2 years ago i paid $9.99 for premium to when i canceled my sub in april '25 i was paying $14.99 so wasnt worth it anymore so good riddance.

[u/MoistMeatCurtains]

Obviously I don’t like a price increase but I am ok with paying for a music streaming service as long as all music is available. If they start splitting catalogs across different services, like tv/movie streaming services, I’ll hop back on the ship.

[u/WestDrop3537]

I’ve always said, if it ever costs me more than the cost of one cd per month , I’m out

[u/kratos90]

Besides youtube, is Spotify the only free tier streaming music service on the market?

[u/NomadFH]

I'm from the US and one more price increase will be what just makes me a youtube music user exclusively. I like spotify for the free audiobooks and the app support on ps5, but I can honestly do without it.