Spotify hit the 10 million users milestone

I recently unsubscribed from Spotify after being a premium subscriber for more than a year, and here's why:

* First, their library is not big enough. Many albums (especially from independent labels) are only added months after release, if at all. Some titles are removed after a while for apparently no reason (I'm still pissed off that Psychic Chasms from Neon Indian was removed as it is one of the best albums of 2009).

* The iPhone app simply sucks. Sure it looks nice, but dear lord it eats a lot of battery. On my iPhone 4, listening to Spotify during my morning commute consumes about 20% of the battery as opposed to <1% of the iPod app. This is simply unacceptable. I guess this must have something to do with Spotify not being able to use hardware decoding as it uses Ogg Vorbis, not MP3 or AAC.

* The 3 devices limit for offline tracks is not enough. I've got a work desktop, a home desktop, a notebook, an iPhone and an iPad. That's 5. Meaning that I cannot use the offline tracks feature on the desktops (as those ones have the most stable Internet connection).

I might subscribe again in the future if they solve these issues, but at the moment, in my opinion, it doesn't worth it.

And with good reason.

The service just do everything right (and apparently have no problem with agreeing on a model with FB)

I think it is very likely spotify will be huge if they can get their rights issues managed (yes that's perhaps a big if)

I don't have much money to throw around these months, but I subscribed to Premium yesterday. In my opinion, the service ia probably worth £100 per month or more. It just seems like such an obscene luxury, being able to plug a small device into your hifi then listen to virtually anything you want at a high bit rate, for as long as you want. I was reading a radio stations Top 1000 tunes and decided to get a month's subscription because there was a Spotify playlist for it. I mean of all the things I might spend £10 on, that is easily worth it. Then there's the other types of listening it makes possible, like listening to dozens of different versions of the same jazz standard, or compilation box sets you'd never find (I recommend the John Lennon covers one, it's from a series of charity releases I think). Just add a few more features like more metadata for the tracks and it will be perfect.

That said, at the same time I think it is insane and surely unsustainable. If someone records a great record, why should the whole world get to listen to it completely free (well, there is advertising money but doesn't anoint to much from what I'm lead to believe), makes no sense. And on the other hand, if they don't release their record to Spotify, they are still facing economic competition from the service. Faced with a choice between Spotify's enormous database and some particular new single, I'll take the former and forego the latter.

Perhaps they will change it though, like force a certain number of purchases per month to maintain the service, or limit the number of plays a track can get before it becomese unavailable.

I now subscribe to the £5/month unlimited service and I'm so glad that I signed up. I listen to new music pretty much all day at work thanks to Spotify and now I don't have to turn the volume down on my headphones whenever an advert comes on. It really is a small price to pay considering the vast amount of music that you get access to.

Having said that most people I know don't pay the subscription but I believe adding a small extra incentive such as 2-3 free songs per month might well convert them to becoming subscribers.

Any app that makes you go "Whoa" when you first use it, and then only impresses you more and more as you use it has to be on to a good thing.

It's a simple app, does exactly what it says on the tin - and is fast as hell. Brilliant. The fact that the free model plays adverts every once in a blue moon (significantly less than commercial radio) is a massive boon.

Well done Spotify, and good luck!

edit: typo

I can't use Spotify in Belgium. How does it compare with Grooveshark ? It looks to be the same concept, one is a desktop app, the other a webapp.

Grooveshark doesn't have audio ads, no limit (that I know of) but does not seem to have a mobile app. What makes people pay for Spotify's service compared to what Grooveshark has to offer ?