Thoughts on Spotify
If you haven’t heard of Spotify yet, stop reading this, and go download it. Spotify is a service which allows you to listen to any song, right now. Instead of downloading music, everything streams, just like YouTube. The product restriction is you don’t have the ability to burn the music to a CD, or download it to a device. Spotify gets around this problem through subscriptions. For $10/month you can get access to all the music from your smartphone, thus circumventing the need to store the music. However, this is only valuable if the device you want to listen to music on has access to the internet.
The Hesitation to Use Spotify
When I talk to people about Spotify, a common complaint is the ability to download the music. I argue with them, why not use Spotify and then when you want to listen to music on a non-connective device then purchase it. There is still hesitation. Spotify’s product works for 90% of music listeners. The majority of music listeners are listening to the radio. This is the only music they are exposed to and will only buy albums which are pop hits.
The other 10% of listeners, listen to music outside of popular (radio-played) music. This includes local bands, indie bands (which is poppy now), or mixtapes. These people will never be happy with Spotify because as soon as the band’s music is Spotify available they will stop listening to the band.
People who think this way infuriate me because Spotify gives money to artists. If a track is listened to on Spotify, Spotify gives money to the artist. If you are one of the 10% listening to independent music how can you not want to continually pay the artist?
Why Spotify Kills Pandora
If you are Pandora user there is no reason not to make the switch. Spotify has the same radio feature as Pandora. My wife used Pandora before I turned her onto Spotify. The problem she always had with Pandora was she couldn’t listen to an artist or a song right now. She could only seed a station with the song. This of course had to do with the way Pandora licensed the music.
She was incredibly happy once she used Spotify. Up until she tried to use it on her phone. She didn’t understand why she could play any song she wanted on her laptop but not her phone.
Why not Wifi
With a subscription, however, you can listen to any song you want on your phone. My wife however had a great point. Her phone and laptop are both connected to the same wireless access point. Why could she not listen to music on the access point through a mobile device?
If my iPad and iPod are connected to a wireless network, and not a cellular data network, why can’t I listen to any song I want. This probably has to do with the licensing contract Spotify has or maybe it is a pain point people have and will convert to paid users because of it. I don’t know, but it isn’t a strong enough pain point for me to pay $10/month yet.
Shared Playlists
One exceptional feature Spotify has is shared playlists. Like iTunes you have the ability to create a playlist from multiple tracks and then sync it across multiple devices. However, the shared playlist is the ability to invite others to add tracks they want to a playlist you can all view.
Amazing! You can throw a cocktail party, or a poker game, and invite people to add music to the playlist. Collectively you have created and pruned a song list which all of you will have access to anytime in the future.
Spotify is Killing It
Spotify seems to be killing it. I can’t understand after using Spotify how you could stick with any other music service such as Pandora. If you use any other service, once you use Spotify, you will stop using your previous favorite music service. If you are a Pandora user, Spotify gives you all the same radio benefits as Pandora does, with the ability to play any track on the fly.
How can Spotify not be killing it? Paid users are giving Spotify money. Non-paid users are listening to ads which are paid for by advertisers (more revenue). Spotify gives money to the artists whenever their songs are played. How is everyone not happy with the service Spotify is delivering? I would love to hear your thoughts.