When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.

By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.

  • viking@infosec.pub
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    8 months ago

    Yeah I’m done with spotify.

    Back when it was a fiver, I could get the appeal and had a subscription myself.

    At 11 bucks it comes at the price of a CD per month, every month. I didn’t buy that much music annually, ever. So right now we are entering a territory where streaming is exceeding the price of my regular music consumption patterns. I’ll go back to buying physical media and torrenting whatever old stuff is no longer available and can’t be found on ebay.

    Fuck 'em with a cactus.

      • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
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        8 months ago

        That’s what’s stopping me too. I’ve tried to convince them that Youtube Music (I’m a holdover from the Play Music days, RIP) is good enough but they won’t have it. I miss Songza.

    • GarytheSnail@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      I typically like to just buy my music but the appeal of spotify, to me, is the algorithm and being able to play random singles and one offs from artists I would probably not ever hear a single thing from otherwise.

    • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I use Spotify regularly on my PC without a subscription and an ad blocker running. Does that qualify as fucking them with a cactus?

      • viking@infosec.pub
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        8 months ago

        I do the same with youtube and adblock, so I guess that qualifies.

      • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Yeah, people forget that the appeal of Spotify was being able to make a free account and listen to any music. It was okay that it was worse cause it was easy.

        Idk how paying for it became common… maybe cause those free users got too comfortable with it.

    • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I don’t subscribe, bit I wouldn’t think about it compared to the price of physical media. I would compare it to satellite radio. Or cable radio. (Does Spectrum still do that?)

      All three are paid, ad-free radio, sorta, though streaming services are on-demand.