£9.99 a month isn't bloody excellent value when it used to be free and there are competitors offering the same service for less than half that. Spotify's been on the slide for a while now, it still offers an excellent service and I do love the UI, but I'm all about the GS now - user uploads available, no adverts even on free, haven't not-found any music I want yet, and cheap cheap.

Who mentioned anything about artists benefiting? I'm concerned with my finances, not the artists.

nick_md wrote:

Who mentioned anything about artists benefiting? I'm concerned with my finances, not the artists.

That is a bit of a problem.

Even if that were true, now that the record companies are nearly out of the question, shouldn't the people who benefit most from the music see their way to supporting the people who make it?

Hey I gots to eat!


On a more serious note, do you not see how cutishly Spotify have decided on their payment levels? The only thing on the top tier that I (and anyone?) wants is the mobile use. It seems to me like they've left that out of the £5 tier so people are inclined to go for the £10, I don't see another reason. Hell, I paid for the £10 tier just for mobile use so I'm sure plenty of others have.

*shrug* I dunno, it just seems like they're slowly turning the screws on people for money and, considering I had a completely free account way back when, it kinda leaves a sour taste (this makes me a terrible person who is single handedly ruining music). I'd love to pay £5 and get it on my mobile, and would do that over GS, but I'm not paying twice the standard payment for 1 feature chopped.

£10 is not a lot of money though, it's about the cost of a round at the pub between 3/4 friends.

I only work part time, and I have roughly the same outgoings as I did before dropping nearly 50% of my hours, and even I can fit in £10 for something as insanely good value as Spotify.

I never get the "oh it used to be free I am annoyed it isn't now" because business get bigger, and cost more. They can't do it for free forever. I am entitled to nothing from anybody.

I never get the "oh it used to be free I am annoyed it isn't now" because business get bigger, and cost more. They can't do it for free forever. I am entitled to nothing from anybody.

Olimite wrote:

nick_md wrote:

Who mentioned anything about artists benefiting? I'm concerned with my finances, not the artists.

Sigh.

Ok that was rather flippant: I AM concerned with the financial well being of artists, of course, just not enough to pay the extra, especially when I'm trying to save money at the moment (£7 may not seem like a lot but it makes a difference when added up with other things).

Hey it's not like I torrent any more.

You can offline / download songs / playlists onto your phone, if that's what you mean? Searching can be, messy shall we say, but I find if you include artist+album you tend to get your hits. It's part of the problem of user uploads I guess - it has a lot of duplication. GS has terrible UI, be warned, but functionally I find it just the same as Spotify. If you're just using the desktop version at work you'll only ever need the free version as well.

Grooveshark does have Rainbow Children by Prince so it gets points for that, but, like Tempy, it just seems a bit messy for me.

As for finances, I feel bad enough only paying £9.99 a month for the service - I can only buy a handful of CD's a year now.

I've finished it. Some filler, some very decent songs.

This is the Spotify upgrade I was talking about earlier.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/12/06/spotify-launches-discover-follow-and-collections-tabs/

Yep, not quite 128 though

Strangely, I found it easily.

It really does. The only problem I have is when I put together the B&B playlists

I've been happily paying $13 for Rdio. Once I get my head around Spotty, I'll happily pay $12. Had a brief look at GS, but I think this is a sitcho where peer usage and more importantly catalogue win out.

Being able to chuck in other stuff from itunes and hdd sounds awesome too. Happy to be able to still occasionally buy a cd or whatever. Some stuff is obscure, after all.

On the paying the artists front, I reckon it's shakey ground, from what I've heard. However the royalties are set up, it's certainly enough to keep all but the biggest artists in day jobs, and the biggest artists will be touring and charging (out here at least) minimum $150 a ticket for gigs, or more likely (Hello Bruce) minimum $300 depending who they are.

I really wish Rdio was ticking a few more boxes, tbh. Because I really like it and I was on to it prior to spotty reaching our shores. (And it has it's own internal friends list thing, and you can follow other suggested peeps, which was a bit more manageable and didn't require app wankery.) I also fear for it's future. I recall reading an article about it's business model, and it seems to require near constant expansion and the margins are just utterly fucked, and it doesn't have the sort of backing spotty has, so yeah....

Anyhoo, time for some more playing around with spotty.

@mod: My next phone purchase is going to be interesting. It's not gonna happen for a while, but it'll depend a lot on which route I take with my next laptop/tablet/PC replacement. If I go Win8 all the way, then a windows phone may be on the cards, and then xbox music may get a look in.