Spotify - would you like free music with adverts? or pay $11.99 a month?

Spotify. Now this is something that should make people listen. FREE MUSIC? No way, it's thieving from the artists.. the record companies will go bankrupt.. the earth will dehydrate and mankind will devolve...

Or will it?

Spotify, a Swedish company that offers straming music in a range of prices, has now hit Australia. You can listen to FREE music, but you have to put up with advertisement. Sounds like Radio to me. In fact, I have been a regular listener to online radio for a long time, and with some services you have to put up with the adverts, or pay to have unrestricted advert free music.

For around $11.99 a month, you get up to 320kbps audio, advert free. $11.99. A single CD down here is upwards of $20. So is it going to take off here? I believe so. Because people who already download illegal content, would be doing so regardless of the illegality of it. WIll it stop them? Perhaps not, but it is guaranteed to build a customer base on the concept alone. And that will be a plague of problems for the corrupt record industries.

For so long we've been at the whims of the record industry here, who've basically told us AND the artists that what we think is of no matter. Pay or suffer. Artists get a miserable reward for their own work, and we get highly priced media. It is easy to see just why illegal downloads have been so rampant.

It's been ages since I've purchased a cd of any sort. It's also been ages since I've been tempted to download music. But I would be willing to listen to decent quality music with adverts (it drops to 160kbps in quality) OR pay a minial amount to get higher quality audio.

Spotify hits Australia - is Freemium the future?
Will Aussies listen to ads to pay the piper?

We've known for a while that the Spotify all-you-can-eat streaming music service was coming to Australia, it was just a question of confirming the price. Now we know Spotify Premium will set you back $11.99 per month, for which you get access via your computer and smartphone as well as the amazing Sonos multi-room audio system. The Spotify Premium sound quality goes as high as 320 kbps.

But what's really interesting is that Australians also have free access to the Spotify "Freemium" service which only works on computers. It still grants you access to Spotify's entire library of 15 million tracks, but you're forced to listen to a 15-second ad every now and then. The music quality also drops back to 160 kbps. If you get sick of the ads but don't need mobile and Sonos access, you can pay for the $6.99 p/m Spotify Unlimited service which kills the ads but doesn't boost the sound quality.

www.smh.com.au...

So it's inevitable in my opinion, that the days of record industry bully tactics and exorbitant prices, will become a thing of thge past.

Don't copy that floppy...... well it's leveled the playing field if you ask me.

$11.99 a Month????

Blimey! I could make do with radios in the car and online! Instead of that!

Who does the thinking for these big companies? CHIMPS???

Ads are just as bad in my opinion. I rather just download it and pay my 99 cents for a song or... the alternative.

Ads? hell no. I'm plagued with enough ads for everything under the sun. I bet anyone can look around them at any given moment (minute this page cause there WILL be ads here too) and see how many ads you can find in less than a minute of just looking around.

Wonder if these people really think that we actually look at all these ads. They're so comonplace that I dont think I pay any mind to them any more than I would pay to a blade of grass. but... They're everywhere, blocking everything.


It may be slightly off the OP, but it's related to the idea behind the ads themselves. I rather just get past all that and buy it rather than having to go through some ad that may even cut into the song, and or steal all of my info on my computers. This data harvesting everyone is doing to us... That should be totaly illegal. It's stealing from us without our permission.

just use grooveshark instead.

or if your on a tablet, use your grooveshark account with an app called tinyshark.

free music and you can upload your songs as well. no limit.

I used to use spotify but even the free version will stop you listening to songs after they have been played 50 times.
The mobile app for spotify is crap (at best).

Originally posted by diddy1234
just use grooveshark instead.

or if your on a tablet, use your grooveshark account with an app called tinyshark.

free music and you can upload your songs as well. no limit.

I used to use spotify but even the free version will stop you listening to songs after they have been played 50 times.
The mobile app for spotify is crap (at best).

well I still use the alternatives from my tablet, and the software for the pc is clunky for it, but good for listening to radio. I didn't know about the 50 song limit, but they certainly don't mention it in the spiel.

I just think it's the direction to go. $11.99 a month and you're getting a lot more audio than .99 cents a song. But even that is a better deal than the current system we've got here. I've never bothered with itunes or anything apple in this respect, so I can't say how they are, but I don't like monopolies at the best of times.

My point, I guess, was that it's forcing change. No longer can the suits in charge bellow and moan about lost profits due to pirates. It's simply the way things are going. And it's been forced BY the way things have been run.

This will open up the market to a lot of people who feel as I do about itunes or what not. And I know full well I can listen to radio online, but not choose what I want to listen to.

Necessity is the mother of change, and I believe we're seeing the results with this. It's a long time since MP3's were considered evil and only naughty criminals had MP3's. A long time. It caused the change from physical to digital. This, is by extension, what started with pirates... convenience has become the method of sale.

$11.99 a month. it's peanuts. About 40 cents a day. A much better deal than 99 cents a single song.

Or I could be a sucker, lol, trying to justify my hatred of the monopolies that push the boundaries of morality. Most likely lol

reply to post by theRhenn


The ads are there only to pay the costs that must be passed on to those that create the music. Or the option of a small fee to pay them. I see no problem with that, I am one of those people that might download something but if it is worth the price placed on it, I will buy it.

I still watch free to air tv. Adverts all the time. But half of the time, what I watch is not worth it, general rubbish. And the only things I watch out of line with my stance, are things I cannot get here. That again falls to blame on the media industry here that either puts a good show on at midnight because it's not reality tv or sports. My opinions to them are worthless.

I'll buy a dvd set if I can, but again prices are extraordinarily obscene.

In a way, this idea is no different than going to the video store and renting a movie. And that concept worked well for decades. still does to some degree. People even paid for a van to drive to their house with a variety of videos in the back, and they'd peruse and buy at home. So it's certainly not unfeasible that people would be willing to put up with ads, or pay a nominal fee.

It's not perfect. Nothing is, with so much adversity going against it. But as I say, I think it's forcing a change that is only going to benefit the artist/creator and the customer. When for so long, we've had no say in things. Cut out the middle man altogether I say. It's an old method that is not required in this day and age.

They're nothing more than sneaks that front up and say "Pay us a fee or you'll go nowhere kid." and it's been that way far too long.