Spotify Launches Limited Time Holiday Offer: Get One Year of Premium for $99

[nburwell]

I couldn't disagree more. I'm currently trialing Apple Music and it's nowhere near as good when it comes to new music discovery.

This was my exact experience when I did the 3 month trial when the service was first launched. Although I like a wide range of musical genres, AM would constantly recommend hip-hop playlists for me to listen to. After my trial was up, I jumped ship to Spotify and their playlists were more spot on.

When I switched from Spotify to AM about six months ago, I initially encountered the same issue from when I was on the 3 month trial. As I used the service more, I believe AM playlists adapted more closely to the music genres I currently listen to.

I'm not saying you'll experience the same thing as I have, but the longer you stick with the service, the more the service will cater to your musical tastes.

 

[UnusedLoginID]

Considering you can buy Apple Music subscription with iTunes cards which are regularly discounted - $85 for $100 card - Apple Music price is more like $85/year which means that in order to be really competitive, Spotify would have to price themselves at $79/year. I don’t know if they are doomed now, but they probably would at that price. It shows the extent of their conundrum... not that anything’s wrong about losing money nowadays. Amazon has been doing it for years and it seems that in the minds of investors it’s more your revenue and stock value that counts.

Also in response to a previous forum member, Apple Music also has student pricing at $4.99/month.

 

[dfstock]

Would Apple ever buy out Spotify?

 

[JGIGS]

Personally I don’t know why anyone would choose Apple Music over Spotify.

Multiple reasons: Smart playlists, Star ratings, larger library, some albums get released on AM before other services, AM offers you a $99 per subscription at any point of the year not just Christmas, I find Apples music file format sounds better than Spotify's MP3 format and not positive about this last one but AM works seamlessly with siri commands and I don't think spotify does .

Honestly the first 3 should be reason enough I'm not really sure why AM gets so much hate. Ya maybe the mobile interface isn't the greatest but it's not horrible once you get used to it and I don't find Spotify's any better and has less features.

Only reason to chose Spotify is if you want to listen to music for free with poor sound quality and ads. Free being the key I guess if you can't afford a subscription or just don't want to pay for music.
[doublepost=1512154560][/doublepost]

Considering you can buy Apple Music subscription with iTunes cards which are regularly discounted - $85 for $100 card - Apple Music price is more like $85/year which means that in order to be really competitive, Spotify would have to price themselves at $79/year. I don’t know if they are doomed now, but they probably would at that price. It shows the extent of their conundrum... not that anything’s wrong about losing money nowadays. Amazon has been doing it for years and it seems that in the minds of investors it’s more your revenue and stock value that counts.

Also in response to a previous forum member, Apple Music also has student pricing at $4.99/month.

Your math is off since there are 12 months in a year it would actually cost $102 using $100 itunes cards at a cost of $85 dollars per card. That being said you can buy AM yearly subscription for $99 a year. Basically for non students, non family plans you are looking at $99 a year or 8.25 per month. Worth it in my opinion
[doublepost=1512154711][/doublepost]

This was my exact experience when I did the 3 month trial when the service was first launched. Although I like a wide range of musical genres, AM would constantly recommend hip-hop playlists for me to listen to. After my trial was up, I jumped ship to Spotify and their playlists were more spot on.

When I switched from Spotify to AM about six months ago, I initially encountered the same issue from when I was on the 3 month trial. As I used the service more, I believe AM playlists adapted more closely to the music genres I currently listen to.

I'm not saying you'll experience the same thing as I have, but the longer you stick with the service, the more the service will cater to your musical tastes.

AM's weekly new music released on Fridays has been great for me to discover new music. It throws in the odd country song which is a genre I don't like but simple solution just hit skip.

 

[Michael Scrip]

not that anything’s wrong about losing money nowadays.

Losing money isn't as glamorous as you make it seem.

Amazon has been doing it for years and it seems that in the minds of investors it’s more your revenue and stock value that counts.

If I remember correctly... Amazon took any profits they had in the early years and spent it on expansion. Or they spent some of their investors' money too. So the result was they posted a loss.

But the losses in the early years actually paid off in the end. Amazon went from selling books... to selling everything. Oh... and Amazon made $2.3 billion in profit last year.

I'm not sure Spotify is in the same situation. Spotify has to spend 80% of their revenue on the music itself... and their other expenses are greater than the money they have leftover after they pay the record labels. The result is a loss. Growing losses. (a $240 million loss in 2015... more than doubled to a $580 million loss in 2016...)

It seems the more users Spotify has... the bigger their losses. They definitely have a scaling problem.

Also... Spotify is still primarily a music streaming service. They don't have a "Plan B" or other business.

Whereas Amazon went from selling books to selling everything and eventually became profitable... Spotify is music and music alone with no clear path to profitability.

You can't just point to Amazon and say "they didn't make a profit and look how they turned out..."

Not every company can be an Amazon.

 

[page3]

Personally I don’t know why anyone would choose Apple Music over Spotify.

1. Apple Music has parental controls. You can exclude explicit tracks. Spotify does not.
2. Apple Music allows searching via CarPlay. Spotify does not.
3. Apple Music has a soundtracks/music genre. Spotify does not.

 

[nburwell]

AM's weekly new music released on Fridays has been great for me to discover new music. It throws in the odd country song which is a genre I don't like but simple solution just hit skip.

Same here. When I had Spotify, I discovered a lot of new artists that I had not heard of before. Even though I'm not discovering new music at the same clip on AM as I was on Spotify, the New Music Mix has proved to still be a good playlist for me to discover new artists in the genres I generally listen to.

My favorites mix is still my favorite weekly mix AM puts out though. Although I'm becoming more and more a fan of the chill mix.

 

[wsbsteven]

Spotify has DJ mixes and live sets that you won't find on Apple Music. This also includes weekly radio shows. It's a niche but it's what keeps me on Spotify in addition to other points mentioned.

 

[Little Endian]

I have been a Spotify premium subscriber for well over 3 years now and have been very happy with the service. With that said I think I may still switch to Apple Music. Spotify dropping the price to $99 a year is nice but I will save more with Apple Music at $99 a year because I can pay with iTunes credits that I purchase for between 15-20% off. I will effectively pay between $80-85 a year for Apple Music plus get 3 months free.

While Spotify works nicely on wide array of platforms Apple Music is more tightly integrated with Apple devices. Namely Siri integration and the ability to stream over Lte for my new Apple Watch is what I am most interested in.

 

[trusso]

Mark my words... Spotify (and similar services) will be filing for bankruptcy within the next 10 years. The honeymoon is over. Smart people are recognizing the value in owning their own music, movies and software. Unless they diversify their business, they will die.

On the other hand, Apple has been "diversifying" into areas where they have no business going, and forgetting the educated, prosumer demographic that used to buy their hardware.

Stray from the golden mean and you will pay the price.

 

[JGIGS]

Same here. When I had Spotify, I discovered a lot of new artists that I had not heard of before. Even though I'm not discovering new music at the same clip on AM as I was on Spotify, the New Music Mix has proved to still be a good playlist for me to discover new artists in the genres I generally listen to.

My favorites mix is still my favorite weekly mix AM puts out though. Although I'm becoming more and more a fan of the chill mix.

Haven't tried those other two but sounds like I have to give them a listen.

 

[advancewarsbest]

It reminds me of Dropbox. This is a feature, not something you build a company around. The world is quickly being dominated by the few companies with the scale and resources to do whatever is popular

Hit the nail on that one. was my biggest issue with most people trying to make startups back in college. most the stuff a big company would be able to do or add.

 

[eyeseeyou]

There are open spots being sold on random peoples family plans on ebay for less than a $1 a month if you prepay a year in advance. jus sayin.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Yeah why is that? I asked for Apple Music for Christmas. What is better about Spotify?

It's not Apple! That's what's better.
[doublepost=1512170235][/doublepost]

Yep!

Basically... a person can pay $100 for a year of Spotify... but it actually costs Spotify $150 to provide that service!

That's a helluva business plan!

What's that old saying? "We'll make it up in volume!"

Where do you get this data from? If I sign up and pay them $100, and listen to 3 songs all year, it costs Spotify $150 to service me? What if I listen to 1000 songs? 10,000 songs? 100,000 songs? I would think that since Spotify pays per listen (right?) then it would depend on who I listen to and how much I listen. If, instead of being a "Gimme all your money" Taylor Swift fan (which I am NOT), I'm a fan of obscure electronic music from a bunch of nobodies that gets paid very little, then that would effect how much it costs Spotify to service me. Too many variables to say it costs them $150 to provide service.
[doublepost=1512170698][/doublepost]

1. Apple Music has parental controls. You can exclude explicit tracks. Spotify does not.
2. Apple Music allows searching via CarPlay. Spotify does not.
3. Apple Music has a soundtracks/music genre. Spotify does not.

The best thing, to me, about Spotify are all the user-submitted playlists. My main "genre", Uptempo Jazz, has quite a few lengthy playlists on Spotify. Apple Music has ZILCH. Does Apple Music even have user-submitted playlists? I did a quick browse and it seems there are very few playlists.

I have given up my other paid streaming services just for Spotify.

 

[eyeseeyou]

Does Apple Music even have user-submitted playlists?

I think in IOS11 you can share your playlists now. Still no notifications when a playlist gets updated though.

 

[acorntoy]

Still doesn’t beat my $4.99 for Spotify and hulu as a student. Capital one Card drops it down to $2.99 a month.

I got to a point where I had to decide between Hulu, Netflix or a music subscription service. Decided to go to Spotify because iTunes doesn’t honor me as as a student anymore (switched schools and it ****ed with apples verification). When I got the email that I was also going to get Hulu for free I legit smiled. So nice.

 

[eyeseeyou]

I got to a point where I had to decide between Hulu, Netflix or a music subscription service. Decided to go to Spotify because iTunes doesn’t honor me as as a student anymore (switched schools and it ****ed with apples verification). When I got the email that I was also going to get Hulu for free I legit smiled. So nice.

One way to save if you didn’t have the Hulu Spotify deal is to share the login with someone who has a cloud dvr service(Xfinity) and just stream your dvrs.

Since I already pay for Xfinity I cancelled my Hulu because I can just steam my dvrs anywhere I can log into my Xfinity account.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Where do you get this data from? If I sign up and pay them $100, and listen to 3 songs all year, it costs Spotify $150 to service me? What if I listen to 1000 songs? 10,000 songs? 100,000 songs? I would think that since Spotify pays per listen (right?) then it would depend on who I listen to and how much I listen. If, instead of being a "Gimme all your money" Taylor Swift fan (which I am NOT), I'm a fan of obscure electronic music from a bunch of nobodies that gets paid very little, then that would effect how much it costs Spotify to service me. Too many variables to say it costs them $150 to provide service.

Oh sorry... I was making a joke with the $150 figure.

Since Spotify is losing money... the joke is it's actually costing Spotify for every customer they have.

It's kinda like when a cell phone manufacturer is losing money... the joke is that they are paying people to take their phones... selling each unit at a loss... etc.

Again... it was a joke... I have no data on Spotify's actual costs per customer.

But the fact still remains... while Spotify has billions of dollars coming in from customers... they have MORE billions going out with their expenses.

Spotify is not in a good financial position. Plain and simple.

I was just trying to be funny by saying it's costing them money to keep each customer.

If you wanna do some rough napkin math... with a $580 million loss and 140 million customers... you could say Spotify loses $4 for each customer.

I realize that's not how you calculate loss... but you get the general idea.

It's still not a good position for Spotify to be in.

They have more money going out than they have coming in. That's all I was trying to say.

 

[jw2002]

Honestly, I’m just waiting for the day that Amazon bundles unlimited music into Prime for free.

Totally agree. All it will take is for Jeff Bezos to wake up one morning and do this, and by nightfall it will be game over for Spotify. Just look at all the other industries that have been transformed like this. The writing is on the wall for these streaming services. They have no moats keeping bigger and stronger companies from entering and taking their market share.

 

[Plutonius]

Still doesn’t beat my $4.99 for Spotify and hulu as a student. Capital one Card drops it down to $2.99 a month.

Enjoy it while you can. After graduating, you have to wait until you are a senior citizen to start getting deals again .

[doublepost=1512197325][/doublepost]

Personally I don’t know why anyone would choose Apple Music over Spotify.

I'm amazed that people would pay that kind of money to rent music from either Apple or Spotify.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Oh sorry... I was making a joke with the $150 figure.

Since Spotify is losing money... the joke is it's actually costing Spotify for every customer they have.

It's kinda like when a cell phone manufacturer is losing money... the joke is that they are paying people to take their phones... selling each unit at a loss... etc.

Again... it was a joke... I have no data on Spotify's actual costs per customer.

But the fact still remains... while Spotify has billions of dollars coming in from customers... they have MORE billions going out with their expenses.

Spotify is not in a good financial position. Plain and simple.

I was just trying to be funny by saying it's costing them money to keep each customer.

If you wanna do some rough napkin math... with a $580 million loss and 140 million customers... you could say Spotify loses $4 for each customer.

I realize that's not how you calculate loss... but you get the general idea.

It's still not a good position for Spotify to be in.

They have more money going out than they have coming in. That's all I was trying to say.

I see you found the smiley emoji on this post.
[doublepost=1512220900][/doublepost]

I'm amazed that people would pay that kind of money to rent music from either Apple or Spotify.

$8/mo is expensive to you?

 

[convergent]

Totally agree. All it will take is for Jeff Bezos to wake up one morning and do this, and by nightfall it will be game over for Spotify. Just look at all the other industries that have been transformed like this. The writing is on the wall for these streaming services. They have no moats keeping bigger and stronger companies from entering and taking their market share.

Such has been said about Netflix too, yet they continue to do fine. Not exactly the same but they found a way, and hopefully so will Netflix to keep competition alive. Honestly the main reason I switched was because Spotify streams on the Gear S3, but after switching realized I like it better.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Yeah, but their expenses are flexible - they can negotiate cheaper deals with the music companies. As their user base grows, music companies become increasingly dependent on Spotify to actually make money, and are more willing to negotiate cheaper prices.

Apple might put some pressure on Spotify to accept higher prices from the music companies, but not much - most people recognize Spotify as the superior offering.

They can't really negotiate cheaper deals or at least it's very unlikely. Spotify already pays the artists less than any other music service (about 1/2 what Apple does). Artists are unlikely to agree to less when other services like Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music are growing.

 

[Rigby]

They can't really negotiate cheaper deals or at least it's very unlikely.

Actually their rates have continued to drop over the last few years.

Spotify already pays the artists less than any other music service (about 1/2 what Apple does).
Artists are unlikely to agree to less when other services like Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music are growing.

Yes they do, for the simple reason that Spotify overall brings in a lot more revenue than either Apple Music or Amazon. In 2016, they generated almost 70% of the overall music streaming revenue, while Apple generated about 13% and all the others were in the single digits:

https://thetrichordist.com/2017/01/...apple-music-youtube-tidal-amazon-pandora-etc/

 

[Baumi]

Personally I don’t know why anyone would choose Apple Music over Spotify.

I'm currently testing out both – mainly to see how their recommendations are performing. So far, Spotify is better at playing stuff I already know and like, and I hardly very feel like it completely misjudged my taste. Apple Music, on the other hand, is better at introducing me to new music matching my tastes, but there are also more times when it'll just play something totally unpalatable to me.

Part of that might be that Spotify has more data: I used it for a few parties and created some playlists. On the other hand, I didn't yet connect my iTunes install to Apple Music. I'm curious to see how recommendations will change once it has access to my last few years of iTunes usage.