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Now you have to pay to see lyrics on spotify
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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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I don't get why anyone would use the free tier - not being able to choose songs would actually drive me insane, let alone the ads - but $11 monthly for essentially all the music anyone could ever want, plus solid playlists and recommendations, is a perfectly good value for me. Admittedly, I listen to music all the time and it's a pretty big part of my life, so it's an easy sell.
I guess the free tier is still an improvement over radio, but regardless, producing and distributing music has costs, and I'm more than happy to pay for it. Given that Spotify isn't even profitable, having lost about a billion dollars last year, I'm not sure how long this situation will last, but for the time being, I really don't mind it.
11$/month is 132$/yr. That's a significant amount of money - about the same as my car insurance, broadband or phone bill. Putting a bunch of good music in a playlist and letting it roll is nice enough, especially with a 3rd party app to mute ads automatically. Besides, I don't feel sorry for Spotify. The reason they're hemorrhaging money isn't a lack of profitability, but due to the massive royalties going to record companies.
E: spelling
For the median American that works full-time, who earns around $56,000, the cost of Spotify is 0.2% of their income.
Obviously everyone is in their own financial situation and for some people that will still be a burden. But for sake of comparison, in 1989, the average cost of cable TV was $18, and that's of course in 1989 dollars. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that $11 for unlimited access to basically all music at any time is a pretty good value for the money.
That said, if it is still onerous to someone, they're obviously not in ideal circumstances and I'm really not gonna fault them for just pirating.
Swedish student (Median full-time wage here is 35’790 USD equivalents before an avg ~30% payroll tax), not taking loans, working part time teaching (and occasionally nursing) to make ends meet, so yeah, pretty cash strapped atm.
Also, note that I already do have access to all the music in the world for free via youtube if I want something specific, or spotify for “radio style” infinite listening. 1440SEK/132USD is for added conveniences. No real need to pirate anything.
Spotify isn't the only company offering a monthly fee though.