A while ago I posted this and posed the question, who, exactly, is Spotify aimed at? Just to give you a flavour (and so that you an avoid all that difficult clicking on a link malarkey) here are the highlights.
'...is it that I can't stomach the fact that Spotify is a half-arsed, knee jerk response to the idea that the music industry will only survive if it gives music away for free?'
'...if you are a listener who can cope with the music being free, but interrupted with commercials, then are you really going to buy the same track so that you can hear it without the commercials?'
'...Isn't it (Spotify) just a place where people can hear things that they might like, but that they'd never actually buy? If that's the case then what's the point exactly?"
And lo and behold someone has come (broadly at least) to the same conclusion. Warner Brothers have decided to stop licensing music to free streaming services (story here) as they aren't making any money from it, as surprise surprise no bugger wants to sign up for the premium service.
The fact that Warner Brothers thought that a service as flawed as Spotify could be a viable source of revenue demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how people work. If you give something away, it will, despite the compromises and restrictions you impose, always be more attractive than a "premium" version. People, especially the casual listener Spotify is pitched at will either work around these limitations or go elsewhere to get their content free. And if that means back to the radio or piracy then that's where they'll go. Further, and as I've mentioned before, the basic motivation behind Spotify that music must be given away, punctuated with the odd ad, simply reinforces the perception that it has no intrinsic value.
Back to the drawing board I'm afraid.
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