- The future of internet music?
A week ago, I succumbed to the lure of a persistent temptress.
For roughly a year now, I’ve been enjoying the musical delights provided by Spotify, and the countless hours of music that I’ve streamed for free have been nothing short of great. However, between batches of my chosen songs, an uninvited voice would pop up informing me of the many wonders surrounding Spotify Premium, and how for only £9.99 a month I could have access to absolutely everything.
“Pah, I already have access to everything!” I would proclaim on almost every occasion.
And I did, as did we all, for a while. A couple of weeks ago though, Spotify kicked its subscription service into overdrive, and began to limit those of us who had – until this point – enjoyed practically unrestricted access to a large amount of music. I knew that this couldn’t last forever, yet the unsolicited arrival of the “10 hour” countdown into my Spotify player was still difficult to accept.
Disgruntled, but still eager to expose my ears to a broad range of lyrical charms, I continued to listen. Each three-minute song clawed away at my “allowance”, and each couple of songs continued to be separated by the annoyance of an ad, as per usual. This ad was different though, and caught my attention. It offered a seven-day free trial of Spotify premium, which had recently updated to receive mobile support. I jumped at the chance.
Now, little more than a week into the full-service, I have absolutely no idea how I survived without it. I’ve devoured countless hours of music, discovered all manner of new musical tastes, downloaded my playlists to my PC and synced said musical collection to my iPod Touch for listening on-the-go, via the intuitive Spotify application. It just works, and it works well.
And I still haven’t handed over any cash. Not a penny! Unbeknown to me, by digitally associating my Spotify account with my “mobile” device (presumably the service cannot differentiate between an iPod Touch and an iPhone) I inadvertently upgraded my trial to a full thirty days. Thirty days of unrestricted, unlimited, unadulterated music! Okay, perhaps not that third one – but it’s still pretty great.
Now that I’ve sampled the Spotify product model in its entirety, I’m convinced that Spotify is the future of digital music. I’ve burnt through countless CD players, a handful of MP3 players and even a Zune, before I discovered an iPod (and with it, iTunes). For years I used iTunes to supplement my musical collection, and sunk many hundreds of pounds into the online service, for what I now know to be very little return, compared to what Spotify would offer for a fraction of the price. And as a result, I believe that Spotify at this point could mark the beginning of the end for digital music stores.
That’s not to say that the iPod will become obsolete. After all, I operate my Spotify collection through an iPod Touch. However, with record players and even Hi-Fi’s relatively old-hat in today’s society, we listen to music through new technology. Most people use an iPod, their phone or a computer to play music these days, and even those few who do own a Hi-Fi system – functionality permitting – will connect their portable music device to it, through which to play music.
As a result, a service such as Spotify that operates at both ends of the listener spectrum, both via mobile device and also via computer, won’t take long to overtake iTunes completely. Albeit you have to make use of proprietary software, but as a service that’s accessible almost anywhere, there’s little in the way of restrictions. The design itself even mimics iTunes, so there’s not much of a learning curve.
Furthermore, in an effort to create the collective home of your music, Spotify allows users to import their own songs, which will help to alleviate the problem associated with those few record companies or artists who are yet to hop on the Spotify bandwagon.
Spotify has also highlighted just how outdated the competition’s product model has become. iTunes will only allow a brief thirty-second preview of a song, before you’re expected to part with the best-part of a pound, whereas Spotify premium for £9.99 a month will allow unlimited access to as many songs as you wish, all for one low monthly sum. And with the average cost of an album £6.99, I’d argue that Spotify is a far better investment. This relays back to something that I mentioned previously, regarding the prevalence of the Spotify music system now, which makes the iTunes system almost irrelevant if you’re willing to fully devote yourself to the Spotify way of life.
Of course, this system is beneficial to artists too. Sure, they’re losing out on pure profit from the sale of albums and singles; however their music is reaching the ears of hundreds of thousands of listeners, who otherwise many not have ever stumbled across them. Sales from merchandise, tour tickets and similar are sure to follow.
The success of Film rental website, LoveFilm, also demonstrates the adaptation we’re making as a society. Before long it won’t be uncommon for a household to have one LoveFilm monthly subscription for films, DVDs and games, one Spotify subscription for musical requirements and what may very well arrive shortly – a kindle monthly subscription, for books.
There’s no guarantee of course, but this method of digital distribution – where the customer ‘loans’ the content for as long as this wish, and as long as they’re paying – is certainly becoming far more common. And it’s for this reason that within another five to ten years, Spotify may very well become a household brand of the same size that iTunes is today. After all, it’s not that far off in 2011.
Discussion
No comments yet.