Spotify’s 3rd price hike in 2.5 years hints at potential new normal | Spotify claims the higher fees will help “benefit artists.”

Getting close to downloading MP3s again 🏴‍☠️

Key section from this piece:

>For years, Spotify subscribers enjoyed stable prices, but today’s announcement marks Spotify’s third price hike since July 2023. Spotify last raised prices in July 2024. Premium individual subscriptions went from $11 to $12, Duo subscriptions went from $15 to $17, and Family subscriptions increased from $17 to $20.
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>In 2024, Spotify blamed the higher prices on its need to “invest in and innovate on our product features.” Today, it said:
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> “Occasional updates to pricing across our markets reflect the value that Spotify delivers, enabling us to continue offering the best possible experience and benefit artists.”
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>The reasoning offered is vague, but some features that Spotify recently implemented include the addition of lossless audio in November, music videos in December, and new Messages features (one that lets you share your listening activity with friends and one that lets you request joint listening sessions called Jams) earlier this month. It also opened an 11,000-square-foot podcast studio in Hollywood this month.
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>In terms of Spotify’s claims of benefitting artists on its platform, in March the Stockholm-headquartered company put out a report that said it paid $10 billion in music royalties in 2024, which was more than it had ever paid. Spotify also added more ways for video podcasters to make money this month.
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>Some in the industry still criticize how much artists can make off of Spotify. In 2024, Billboard estimated that changes in how Spotify pays artists would result in musicians receiving millions less in royalties.
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>…
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>With financial numbers suggesting that it’s winning customers more than losing them, Spotify may feel confident in adopting more regular price hikes, like other subscription-based businesses do, to fund new business ventures, new features, and royalty payments.

Their total payout to artists is one number, sure, but another number that would be relevant to assess the veracity of their statement about benefiting artists would be what they are paying per stream, or perhaps the median and mean artist payout amount for a given period of time. Other supposed benefits like a new podcasting studio are fine, but not nearly as useful as actual money.

I finally canceled this week. They aren’t even paying artists well.

The oI’ American bait and switch subscription scheme

Killed my Spotify. On tidal now

This is a friendly reminder that VPNs exist, and Spotify is about €3/mo in places like Turkey and Brazil

Narrator: They won’t

So when can workers decide they are going to be paid more starting the following month like these subscription services do? If one employee does sure they’re fired, but if all of them do it randomly throughout the year employers would beg for collective bargaining.

I’ll let you know how many cents more I get

From the way I understand it, Spotify offers some of the least benefit to the artist.

FUCK SPOTIFY. they create nothing. They don’t own that fucking music. They pay artists nothing.

Just cancel your paid account

I cancelled after 12 years, price hikes and them supporting 🧊. Hope they go under.

I’m not sure why, but that was the price I’m no longer willing to pay.

I feel like most of these “artists” are basically Joe Rogan. They paid so much for him that they got to recuperate the cost somehow.

No they won’t.

Cancelling in 8 months. LFG Navidrome + Tailscsale!

Switching to YouTube Music is sounding better and better. That or a Google about Revanced…

Let’s get one thing clear, music streaming services will never ever pay artists well. Why? because the music on streaming services is (mostly) owned by record labels. The labels and laws that come in to play (mechanical rights, master/sound recording rights, etc. ad infinitum) all payout decimal cents per song played/bought/downloaded/streamed. That’s just how it is, always has been. It has gone up slowly over time but it’s still just decimal cents we’re talking about here. Music streaming services have to take their cut of the profits from those same royalties. This is why you hear about XYZ artist who has multiple songs with hundreds of millions of streams only taking home 20k a month. To fix that, you have to change the law and force record labels to give better payouts (never gonna happen). Obviously the headline is just another justification/conflation/subversion/and perpetuation of the ol ‘charging more means more for the artists!’ bit. Artists make money on touring and merch. Unfortunately not all artists are good live performers or able to tour for extended periods.

Now I’m not saying I agree with Spotify and these price hikes. I’ve had premium since 2014. I’ve watched their catalog grow. Assuming I remain stable financially, I can probably survive a couple of more hikes. But I already have all of my favorite and important music (especially foreign/limited reissues) on physical format and already digitally archived if I ever go away from streaming platforms.