Spotify Drops All Time Limits On Free Accounts
Spotify has dropped all time limits on free accounts. The move comes just days prior to the launch of Beats Music, which will offer only a 7 day free trial. Free listening on Spotify now extends to the desktop and all iOS and Android devices, leaving no advertsing the primary reason to pay $10 a month.
In the past, Spotify has restricted free listening time to a limited number of hours a month once a 6-month unlimited grace period had passed. "We have removed these caps completely across all platforms – you can listen to your favourite songs as many times as you like, for as long as you want," Spotify told users overnight.
It's an expensive move for Spotify, but with a war chest that grew by $250 million in November.
Let the streaming wars begin.
It’s an interesting move, but if the streaming wars rely on undercutting instead of innovation, I think the real losers might be the artists…
War implies that some will win and some (are born to ) loses. So far streaming companies stockholders have no returns and artists have seen their share of income from their creations decrease so it’s lose lose. And there is a class of quzi tech star that is foisted upon the public and we can all agree that is a lose too. Remember the last savior he was quoted here just a few years back saying there would be ZERO CD’s in the market by 2014. Well in 20-13 CD’s we’re 57.3 precent of the sales and I’m pretty sure (once the product that was stuck in UPS tracks from the Polar Vortex show up at stores) a few will sell in 2014 too.
PS. There is a Win Win Win solution coming …….
PSS the reason Digital Sales are down and vinyl record sales are up is because of a choice. If it’s going digital why pay if your going physical get the best…..this ain’t rocket science.
Digital sales is down? In most markets is up by a huge margin… That is not rocket science either 😉
And some artists earn more money now than before…
Some of us follow this thing called Soundscan and it’s often reported in a publication called Billboard. As for what artists get seeing how as a distributor I get to see the tallies from all of the services for out artists I’m pretty comfortable saying it’s the opposite of what your saying. http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/5855162/digital-music-sales-decrease-for-first-time-in-2013