Spotify Testing Way for Free Tier Users to Skip Ads 'Any Time They Want'

[scir 91]

Then eventually if you'd want to listen to music, you'd stop pressing skip and just wait for a 30 second add to play. Even a lab rat would figure that out after a while

I think this is what they'll be doing. If you skip the ad it plays another ad. Every skip will go to a different ad. At least that's how I'm reading it. Could be wrong.

ahhhhh, the ol' bait and switch tactic. bait people into an offer, and then switch the offer once they're in. like every human, of course i enjoy music but i wouldn't pay a penny for any entertainment. if it's not free, i just don't listen. there is PLENTY of free music movies and so on out there on the internet today. heck even the most important thing for any guy, porn, is free.

all of these artists make nearly all their income off tours and appearances as well as live performances in las vegas and european nightclubs. let them make their millions that way while us commoners enjoy their works for free.

also, this is NOT free anyway because giving things away creates brand awareness as well as market saturation - remember the ps1 from 1998? it DOMINATED the video game market. why? software piracy. sony didn't care because giving/allowing games to be free or cheaply available meant a larger platform base establishment. same thing with windows 98 and then xp in the year 2000. i can go on. when you give things away, it's actually a form of marketing and getting yourself a foothold in said industry.

 

[Whathappened]

Wow... So how young (and naive) is Spotify’s CEO? I’m guessing s/he is a bright eyed millennial... lol sorry

And what have you and your endless wisdom achieved so far?

 

[Martinpa]

$1000 phone and no money for a music service...

Priorities...

Looking at my iTunes library (of purchased songs), I can see that a few years ago, a streaming service would’ve made sense for me — back in 2015-2016, I got hundreds of songs and albums... but lately, I’ve added very few tracks, so I’d be paying more to stream them than I do to have them on my hard drive. On top of that, being in a pay as you go plan without unlimited data, I don’t want to stream music that I can just have stored locally (on my phone that is).

Having said that, I have Spotify at work on the free plan, so I don’t have to unload a bunch of music on that hard drive, and it’s a good way to discover new artists that I may then buy the album of. Maybe eventually I’ll moved to a paid membership, either of Apple Music or Spotify, but I have no need for it now... plus it’s a life sentence, which to me makes more sense for movies/tv shows (which you might Watch only once or a few times) than for music (which you can listen to hundreds or thousands of times). So the cost per listen when you buy a track vs stream it makes more sense to me...

 

[Regbial]

And what have you and your endless wisdom achieved so far?

Far more than the common person my age in my city, who values stupid crap like their latest sportscar or their latest vacation to Cabo above all else. (Or having the latest iPhone they don’t really need........)

Money is not my God and it shouldn’t be anyone’s. But it is, for 80% of the people in my area.

So yes I have my values. Does your precious CEO give off 50%+ of their money to charity? I doubt it. I bet he loves it just as much as Elon Musk and Jeff Bazos (and Tim Cook) and probably has dreams of launching off to space and letting the world burn like they do. (You know, instead of helping it. (Granted Elon has helped it a bit..))

So yes, sorry, I am a better person than at least they are.

Man what is with people defending this CEO so vehemently in this thread. You guys the PR team?? It was just a joke lol ... geez
[doublepost=1534002816][/doublepost]And no “endless wisdom”. I know that’s hyperbole, but I am not a god. I don’t have all the answers. Strange I gave you that impression.

But I am more wordly and open minded than 95% of the people in the city I live so there’s that.

 

[Plutonius]

Spotify's head of partner solutions, Danielle Lee, explained that unlimited ad skipping is something the company is interested in because it will allow users to hear or watch only the ads they are interested in.

Sounds like a great strategy to make a profit /S.

When I'm listening / looking at media, I'm not interested in any ads .

 

[0970373]

Sounds like a great strategy to make a profit /S.

When I'm listening / looking at media, I'm not interested in any ads .

Are you asking them to create a paid model in which you wouldn't have to see ads on this website? Or are you offering to bankroll the whole thing?

Ads on this website don't really get in the way of anything. It's not like a giant ad pops up and obstructs any of the posts for 30 seconds before allowing you to continue to read.

 

[mulraven]

Allowing skips with short ads would make sense. If the ad was like 5 seconds, it would probably finish before I can press skip.

 

[evoga]

Or just use Spotify++ and you won’t have any more adverts and can choose the tracks you want to listen to.

 

[msephton]

They should really implement 2 Factor Authentication first.

They've been ignoring requests for it for almost 5 years. 5 years!

 

[SegPip]

I'd go back to free Spotify then and cancel my premium family subscription.

 

[JoEw]

I think this is Spotify admitting it will to be looking to sell itself in the not too distant future.
Samsung perhaps?

 

[pika2000]

I think this is Spotify admitting it will to be looking to self itself in the not too distant future.
Samsung perhaps?

That’s an interesting point. Samsung has been trying to service match Apple and Google lately (buying Bixby for example). It wouldn’t be too far fetched that they would buy Spotify as well (to match Apple Music and Google Play Music).

 

[pipis2010]

Spotify has begun a test for select users in Australia, allowing free tier listeners to skip "any" audio and video ads that they come across "as often as they want," according to a new report by Ad Age. Currently, users who don't pay for a Spotify Premium subscription ($9.99/month) have to listen to ads and can't skip them.

Spotify's head of partner solutions, Danielle Lee, explained that unlimited ad skipping is something the company is interested in because it will allow users to hear or watch only the ads they are interested in. As such, Spotify will know which ads each user lets play to the end, "informing Spotify about their preferences in the process" and tailoring the ads to their liking.

The company calls this "Active Media," and ensures advertisers won't have to pay for any ads that are skipped, suggesting Spotify is confident it will learn and create enough compelling ads that free tier users won't want to skip. According to Lee, Spotify's hope is to debut Active Media on a global scale, but at this time the Australia-based testing is only one month old.
In comparison, Apple Music doesn't offer a free tier for its service, instead gifting new subscribers a three month free trial of the streaming service. In an interview from May 2017, former Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine stated that if Apple Music did have a free tier it "would have 400 million people on it" and easily eclipse Spotify, but that's not what the company wanted for the service.

Instead, Apple built Apple Music as a "special experience" for "people who are paying," with no ads anywhere on the service. Apple Music and Spotify have been rivals since the former service debuted in 2015, and in a more recent interview Apple CEO Tim Cook said that he "worries about the humanity being drained out of music," alluding to Spotify's more algorithmic approach to suggesting new music to its users.

For Spotify, the company is now trying to boost free tier users in a number of ways, and eventually convince those users to pay for Spotify Premium. The company expanded the free tier with on-demand playlists in the spring, letting those listeners pick and choose which music they want to listen to as long as the tracks appear in one of 15 curated discovery playlists. This is an upgrade from the previous way free tier listeners heard music, which was simply shuffling songs at random.

Secondly, in a major announcement during Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 presentation yesterday, it was revealed that the Spotify app will now come pre-installed on all Samsung smartphones. Because of this, many Android users will now find it easier to jump into Spotify and begin streaming their music on that service, instead of searching for the Android-based Apple Music app.

As of the last count in July 2018, Spotify has 83 million paid subscribers globally and 180 million total monthly active users if you count the free tier. Apple Music was last counted to have about 40 million subscribers, although Apple's service could have more paid users than Spotify in the United States.

Article Link: Spotify Testing Way for Free Tier Users to Skip Ads 'Any Time They Want'

So I am taking bets, after how much time will they shutdown this feature once released in global scale? 3-6-12 months?? My opinion is that this is stupid, because if listeners can skip all the ads, they will do it. Obviously, they won’t be able, cause I am guessing that a lot of listeners just leave the app open to play and are not in front of their devices all the time.

Anyway, interesting idea, but I doubt it will last for very long...

 

[User 6502]

A billionaire made on the backs of artists who can barely pay rent.

Without him they might be sleeping under a bridge and barely pay a piece of bread.

 

[Rigby]

I think this is Spotify admitting it will to be looking to sell itself in the not too distant future.
Samsung perhaps?

Uhm, maybe you missed that Spotify went public a few months ago?

 

[lec0rsaire]

Fantastic. Spotify should just hold back new releases for two weeks for free users to stop people from canceling their sub.

 

[ignatius345]

How are these people ever gonna make money?! If I had the option to skip ads, I would never listen to them. I don’t care what kind of ad it is.

Reading between the lines a little, I wonder if what they mean is you'll be able to skip any particular ad but will be served up another one. The idea being that, they imagine, you'll land on an ad you "like" (or maybe hate less than the others) and/or just get worn down enough to let one play.
[doublepost=1534189554][/doublepost]

Fantastic. Spotify should just hold back new releases for two weeks for free users to stop people from canceling their sub.

Or only let you listen to the Slenderman soundtrack.