Spotify is officially raising its Premium subscription rates in the US come July, following reports of the move in April. The platform is increasing its Individual plan from $11 to $12 monthly and its Duo plan from $15 to $17 monthly — the same jump as last year’s $1 and $2 price hikes, respectively. However, its Family plan is going up by a whopping $3, increasing from $17 to $20 monthly. The only subscribers getting a break are students, who will continue to pay $6 monthly.
Spotify announced the price hikes less than a year after its previous one last July. Before that, Spotify hadn’t raised its fees since launching a decade and a half ago. I guess it was too optimistic to hope the next increase would also take that long, especially with Spotify’s continued focus (and money dump) on audiobooks.
Premium subscribers should receive an email from Spotify in the next month detailing the price hike and providing a link to cancel their plan if they would prefer to do so. Users currently on a trial period for Spotify will get one month at $11 after it ends before being moved up to a $12 monthly fee.
What’s “spotify”?
It’s the “we have Apple Music” at home of streaming services.
Basically: more expensive, shitty UI, no lossless or high-res audio. Oh, and they pay the least to artists of all streaming services.
It’s a paid alternative to “Spot-X” and “BlockTheSpot” 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Any love for Qobuz?
Mad love for Qobuz.
I use a cracked Spotify client but if I do legitimately pay, it will be for Tidal. I want that sweet sweet lossless audio people have been talking about.
I’m just here to appreciate the Buccee’s icon, carry on!
I’m all for pirating, but tbh music streaming apps are a service that is still in the “worth it” range. Not where Spotify is going, but, maintaining a library of high quality music with all the assets, and serving it to all your devices over the Internet is not a small feat to do securely.
I’ll probably switch to tidal for now while I start building up my library to include stuff beyond what I like…
Plexamp, Lidarr, Lidarr extended, Tailscale. Done.
Just some perspective: I’ve been self-hosting stuff for 7y now, started with plex on a nas. I have tried a couple times to get the *arr stack working, one at a time and fuck me it’s complex and the risk of fucking up the config and data crossing the clearnet without a VPN, noooope fuck right off with that. That risk/reward just is too skewed for me.
But how do you handle music discovery?
Since all music services I’ve tried so far are laughably shit at that anyway, Last.fm is your friend. Besides, Plexamp tries to get you into a Tidal subscription and suggests things from there, so you’ll get stuff here nad there.
Done. Until it can’t find a decent quality option for an album you’re searching for.
A guy I know decided to move away from Spotify and pirate music. The amount of effort he went through means it’s something I’ll probably never try.
This is the biggest problem for me. I have thousands of movies and 10s of thousands of TV episodes, but my audio library is still all the same stuff I downloaded from Napster, Limewire, Kazaa 20+ years ago. It’s too hard to find a good selection these days outside of a few private trackers. I’m in several private trackers but I’m not going to sit in a queue for 2 days waiting for an interview time and jump through hoops to join something like RED or PTP tier tracker.
Not to mention I mostly listen to podcasts these days and when I do listen to music, I try to find new stuff that I’ve never heard of rather than searching for a known artist. This would be way too convoluted to do on my own with some self-hosted solution.
I’ve been using deemix, and for the most part it’s been pretty seamless. Stuff direct downloads instantly, but it’s all in 128kbps now unfortunately. Then I have lidarr monitor everything for a lossless version.
Are you saying Deemix only downloads at 128kbps? If so, I’ve been using it as well and download in FLAC. Also, I pay for the family plan which is $15.99/month.
Edit: Ah, I’m guessing you’re not on a paid Deezer plan.
Yeah I’m on the free plan which used to include FLAC and 320kpbs, but they stopped doing that for free plans about a year ago I think.
USENET. Thank me later
Got one or two you might recommend?
You should check out Plexamp while you bridge the gap. It has tidal support built in, and you can self-host your own collection as you build it up. Then when you’re done with tidal, you don’t have to learn or download a new app.
Plex is also on the route of enshittitfication. Jellyfin is the better recommendation imo. A variety of apps that can connect to it too, for either streaming or music.
For music libraries:
I run both side-by-side, but for me Plex is still the clear winner right now for features and polish.
There is no point to self hosting music streaming in my opinion.
Just have syncthing sync your music folder on your SD card to your server. Everything local and available when you want it.
Plex is slowly being enshittified too it seems, just slower.
Use Jellyfin as an alternative, it’s awesome!
I do, but the music streaming on jellyfin is nowhere near as nice as plexamp.
Just syncing all of your files locally is far superior to either unless your library is like >250GB.
Streaming is a different use case than playing your own music which is essentially what plexamp and jellyamp are doing with extra steps. There are much better local music players than either option.
As someone else said: it doesn’t replace streaming even a little. Pirating is replacing buying music directly. Streaming facilitates finding new music and trying it out. Being able to listen to anything at any time. You simply can’t do that with downloads; no one can download everything. Piracy in this case really just works for people still listening to their highschool favs and not people looking for new stuff all the time.
Dear lord no. You can still use Spotify, YTM, and a host of other services to discover new music. The argument was valid back in the days of the excellent Google Play Music, but the algorithm has gone to shit since. There are also tons of sources of user curated playlists you can use to fund new music.
I am 51 and if I let algorithms pick my music I would never discover most of what I find and constantly be fed thirty year old music. Just this past month I discovered mehro, King Woman, Sugar High and Parra for Cuva.
It replaces paying for Spotify because its possible to download Spotify premium. Best of both worlds. Use Spotify or YouTube to find stuff, send it to a seedbox, load it later at home.
Biggest downside is most phones don’t have SD card slots anymore.
Sent from my (slightly salty) hacked pixel 7
I never had trouble finding new music without those recommandation algorithms.
Yes and no. It’s more cumbersome for sure but I used to find music on YouTube and all that back in the day then download it.
This dude hasn’t heard of pirate streaming services.
Do they have the libraries of Spotify or Apple music?
yeah actually
Yes, in fact there are modded versions of the Spotify app (idk about apple) to access their library for free.
Do they work like ReVanced Youtube and just remove ads/restrictions while keeping account properties? Or do they work like NewPipe and block all the algorithm stuff, use their own accounts/playlists?
I used to download exclusively when I was younger, but as I get older I’m trying out new genres from different cultures than my own and I’d miss out on it all without a streaming service.
In my opinion it’s worth it.
Or put some effort into finding new music? The algorithms have never suggested me anything good anyway.
InnerTune. Its on F-Droid
Just installed this. I love you!
Then the rest follow. If Apple music hike their price again, time to dust off my eye patch. Ive already cancelled all my streaming and went with plex, radarr, sonarr.
Life hack: get Plexamp and Lidarr with Lidarr extended scripts. Then sign up for a free month of tidal with a throwaway account. Add said account to Lidarr extended. Add all the artists you want to Lidarr and let Lidarr Extended download all the stuff from Tidal for you. Once it has run out, register with another throwaway adress.
Basically doing this already but my only issue is discovery. That’s why I pay for Spotify. I used to have a script set up before the API closed that would run automatically monthly to snag all my liked songs.
There are cool projects for that on lidarr, or you use things like last.fm. Lidarr extended does have a feature to grab similar artists to the ones you have, leads to much bloat in a very short amount of time, of course.
Does this work with any other services like spotify? I know Tidal is lossless but I already have Spotify and Lidarr.
No, it works on Tidal and Deezer. Yet, since the throwaway account is free… :P Lidarr can import spotify playlists and fetch the tracks themselves from somewhere else though
Thanks mate. Will definitely look at lidar. Maybe its time, some music like doom eternal arent available in apple music and this might push me.
I do all these plus the streaming services 😂.
Music streaming the only one i cant be bothered with since i have family plan with my gf plus discovering new music and new album from fav artist is too much to pass on.
I wish they allowed more audiobook time per month, so one could finish a book past 11hrs. I’d be fine with an extra buck or two for a combined audiobook/music streaming service.
Just your local library for Libby or other electronic access. You probably have access to borrow audiobooks online for free. (assuming the US)
Unfortunately, Spotify has it set where there doesn’t appear to be a limitation on how many people can listen at once, whereas Libby still only has so many copies to share.
How does this compare to other music streaming services these days?
I feel they’re all fairly similar. I won’t do apple music because I don’t do iOS, and I moved from Google play music when forced to the inferior YouTube music. I wonder if tidal or any other service has comparable pricing.
I’ve been using Apple Music on Android for years, I definitely recommend it. The app is totally fine, I think it’s still better than Spotify’s crappy app. On desktop you can use the Cider app, which is much better than iTunes. It’s even available on Linux.
I switched to AM a couple years ago due to the (better) privacy policy vs YTM. The app is ‘fine’ but it’s painfully obvious that they didn’t want to bother with the android UI guidelines. But it’s a small annoyance, and the price is… palatable, I guess? I think I’d jump ship at $14, but at $12, fine. I don’t use it that much.
Actually, it’d be nice if they would charge based on usage, not flat-rate. I doubt I’m using $3 of that $12 cost.
Hell no…Please not based on usage :o
But I’d be fine with the option to do either
There is an official Apple Music desktop app for windows now, no need to use Cider.
I use YT Music because I get it cheap (VPN shenanigans), you can upload your own music (hello Nintendo soundtracks), and I mod the Android app to stop it being a mess (ReVanced Extended is the GOAT).
Do you always have to have the VPN connected to get the cheaper rate?
Nah just when I bought it. I did this a while ago so I’m not sure if it still works.
I’m gonna cling onto the quid a month rate for dear life.
Tidal is $11/mo for an individual and $17 for a 6 person family plan. I recently switched because they supposedly give a better cut to artists and serve flac files.
Yeah. Never thought I’d see the day when Tidal was cheaper than crappy Spotify.
If i wasn’t paying for a family play on Spotify, I would have resorted to music piracy at this point. The quality is still garbage, the service is getting worse, but the prices are only going up every half a year
I tried sourcing my own music but man it’s a lot harder than movies and shows. Especially when you like to hear random recommended music how do you get enough
Yeah - credit where it’s due, Spotify did a really good job with their music recommendation engine. It’s just that recently, they’ve started to get into the sad part of the enshittification cycle. I kinda saw the writing on the wall when they started forcing Joe Rogan podcast promos fucking everywhere, without having a config anywhere to disable podcast suggestions (which I don’t use through Spotify)
I’m surprised you’re only getting these now. My recommendations have been mostly garbage for the better part of a decade so all this praise for finding new music confuses me a little. Spotify has many feats, but the algorithm never was one for me, quite the opposite. I find it more annoying than helpful, actually.
My beginning (about 6 years ago) was fine. Still miss the radio feature though.
They kinda brought it back but in a reverse form (former: 4 new 1 old, now: 5 old 1 new).
Playlist shuffle is atrocious but I am not picking them better any better.
Feel you there. A lot of what i listen to are brand new bands, and finding sources for those is rough
£2 a month for a HiFi subscription if you use a Nigerian VPN.
So if you use a VPN to sign up, then disconnect the VPN, does it block you? Or do you always need to be on VPN?
You don’t need to be connected on the VPN to use it, I find it identical to my previous UK subscription.
Only difference is that your initial recommendations are for Nigerian music 😆 Those disappear quite quickly after you start listening to music you like tho.
Tidal is great but IIRC it either doesn’t support Amazon Echo or the integration is poorly implemented.
Oh no.
I use Apple Music, primarily because I need to pay for the higher tiers iCloud storage for my wife’s photo addiction and it’s basically “free” for the family plan.
If I didn’t already have the higher tier iCloud, I would probably prefer tidal for higher quality, or Spotify for the more diverse library.
I use YouTube Music and it’s pretty good, but the best feature is no more youtube ads.
Apple Music only raised the price by $1 since the launch in 2015 (9 years ago). But they added cool features like lossless audio quality and Dolby Atmos. They also had lyrics like 6 years before Spotify added them. I think you can even get it for $6 dollars if you’re a student.
The $6 student plan also includes Apple TV+
Some lyrics are now disappearing from Spotify :-(
They also payout about 2.5X what Spotify does to artists.
How does this work? Spotify has a deal with the music publishers, where they give 70 % of all subscription income to the music companies. The music companies (Sony, Warner, etc) then split the money based on the share of streams.
How can Apple pay out 2.5x70 %, so 175 %? Are thes losing with every subscription?
Think of it not in terms of revenue percentages, but by payouts per song stream:
Service Payout/song Plays to make $1 Tidal Music $0.01284 78 Apple Music $0.008 125 Amazon Music $0.00402 249 Spotify $0.00318 314 YouTube Music $0.002 500 Pandora $0.00133 752 Deezer $0.0011 909 So song for song, Apple is paying 2.5x what Spotify is (.008/.00318), and Tidal is paying out a whopping 4x what Spotify pays.
Sauce: https://producerhive.com/music-marketing-tips/streaming-royalties-breakdown/
That whole article is BS, they even say it themselves:
Rates are rarely paid at a flat rate per stream
There is no payout per stream. Instead a fixed percentage of the subscription price is shared among each streamed song. So why does Tidal pay more then? Either their subscriber numbers are still incorrect (they have a history of publishing way higher numbers than in reality), their subscriber listen to less music (which is the main reason Apple Music pays more per stream on paper, since its often bundled) or their audience focuses more on a single artist (or a genre).
Sure. Obviously it’s more complex than that, but it helps illustrate where the math came from in the parent comment. I don’t know why Tidal pays more, but I’m hypothesizing its because most of their “co-owners” of Tidal are themselves, artists/musicians, which IMO is significantly better than the out of touch folks running Spotify.
I gotta start direct downloading my music again soon. Spotify has just left me feeling so frustrated lately.
I’ve emailed support thrice for intrusive full screen ads. “these are promotions”. Yeah, ads… “Sorry you don’t like our promotions, we will note it”
Uh huh.
I can’t updoot you enough. I hate that so much too.
Obligatory Fuck Spotify comment.
More money More crap nobody wants like audio books Still haven’t seen cd quality streaming yet
I used to happy with Spotify before the enshitificatuon happened…
deleted by creator
I got Tidal for a month to try it out because I had gotten some XM4s and wanted to check out the 360 Reality Audio tracks, and I was disappointed to find just how few of them there actually are. 😕
Edit: I see not that they did away with that ultra premium tier and folded those 360 Reality Audio tracks into the regular plans…they really did make it cheaper. Looks like I’m switching back to Tidal.
What annoys me is you still have to pay for audio books.
I have used Spotify’s 15 free hours a month for shorter light novels, but beyond that, buying the rights to listen to a book, or buying more listening hours is very much not worth it through them.
Quality isn’t good enough to justify the price. Apple Music and Tidal have better quality of sound.
even apart from audio quality, Spotify is just plain terrible as a music library.
For someone who lives in playlists, it might be fine. But I like to pick and choose albums and songs, and be able to sort the whole collection on the fly. Spotify, and unfortunately a whole bunch of the competition, will have three separate lists for “liked” songs, albums, and artists. Only want to save the studio tracks, and not the demos and live versions? Fuck you, you can like the album or not, it’s all or nothing! And the special edition is the only version we have! enjoy the solid hour of shittier versions of the songs you actually wanted!
Prices will continue to go up until the number of subscribers lost due to the price increase outweighs the additional profit from the subscribers who agree to pay the higher amount.
Capitalism machine goes brrrrrrr
Ahoy!
No, that’s a youtube channel /s
I’m all for going sailing but if there are features you want that that can’t quite replicate, it’s also a great time to look at a VPN service with a server in Turkey… Sign up on a Turkish IP and the exchange rate puts you under $2/month USD. This works for a lot of other things too.
I love you.
I know.
I believe a dude on YouTube for a very popular streamer used an IP from Argentina to get 50 subs for YouTube premium to giveaway for only a couple bucks.
It’s to support all those artists right? Right?
Got the email of subscription increase, just cancelled.
Been trialling Tidal and we’re both pretty happy with it. Integrates almost as well as Spotify with Android Auto and the sound quality is far better.
iBroadcast is what i use. That plus rutracker and you can sail the high seas like it’s 1699.
I might make the move to tidal as well, I just have a crazy big playlist though on Spotify that would be sad to lose.
When you create a tidal account they tell you how to transfer your playlists automatically via a 3rd party service (Limited to 500 tracks, unless you pay). Qobuz does the same, but if I’m not mistaken actually partners with the 3rd party service to offer it for free without the 500 track limit.
Take a look at Deezer, too. It’s what I went with because it offers high fidelity FLAC audio for paid subscriptions, and integrates with Google home voice commands, which Tidal didn’t when I was looking.
I went with deezer for this reason as well. But deezer has gotten really bad and the interface is just God awful. I recently moved over to tidal and love it. It’s way better than deezer at this point
I haven’t had any issues with it personally (not invalidating your experience) What has gotten bad about it?
Had issues downloading for offline. Recommendations are meh. Sometimes I can’t search. Sometimes the app won’t load when on cell data.
I never had issues like those before and then all of the sudden, it’s not even usable. I get having bad cell coverage somewhere, but I would have a strong signal and it will still do it. I had to uninstall and reinstall the app multiple times for it to work.
Tidal is now cheaper and it has everything I would listen to. Before they were missing some bands and deezer had them. Doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
