I’ve been using Spotify for a while now and have come to love the service. To me it seems obvious that record companies should be focusing on providing new ways to legally access their music – such as Spotify – rather than focusing on sending out vague threats to people who may or may not have downloaded their music. Obviously, illegal downloads have to be stopped, and I think Spotify (or similar services are the way to go).
I started off with the free version of Spotify but when it became clear how good the service was I decided to upgrade. I’ve always wondered how they could justify unlimited music in exchange for an ad every now and again, but it turns out that this service is going to be stopped or at least limited.
Last year the company started to limit how much new users could listen to free music. It went down from unlimited (with ads) to a maximum of 20 hours a month. If you want to listen to more than that then you’ll need to upgrade.
This seems fair to me, and should push people into signing up for the premium service which is important if we want it to be around for long time. It also seems to prove that trying to pay for music with ads isn’t going to work – it’s too difficult to make back the money. Paid subscriptions are a much more sustainable model in my opinion.