Spotify prepping $19.99/mo 'Superpremium' service: lossless audio&AI playlists | Hacker News Reader

Spotify prepping $19.99/mo 'Superpremium' service: lossless audio&AI playlists

techcrunch.com

12 pointsbookofjoe17 comments

Cancelled spotify a week ago shortly before their modest price increase. Reasons:

- recommendations keep getting worse, often stuck in a loop

- I was repeatedly funneled by autoplay into AI-generated muzak, frequently enough so that ignoring artists wasn't enough anymore

- they still have no working listening history

- podcasts

- offline mode implementation is a joke

- good content often disappears because they lost the rights to it

Especially the last point is probably universal and the reason why I regret having stopped to fill my MP3 collection.

As I grew older, it still seems hard to eschew the conveniences of streaming. So I went to YT premium with music after paying for both sercices for a while.

Finally cancelling was a spontaneous decision after reading their announcement that they don't intend to limit or filter AI generated content on their platform.

YT is ironically even less curated (often one needs to look for albums as "community playlists" because they're not properly catalogued)

The overall package seems better to me though and the recommendations are pretty good.

Been using Spotify for 5+ years, UI just keeps getting worse and worse... The recommendations as well... Why would I possibly pay more instead of cancelling?

How about one offering a discount for no podcasts?

How about not stuffing generated playlists with low cost garbage to avoid paying royalties

Wow, I can listen to the same 40 or so songs in lossless.

Yeah, they really need to add variety and not just the royalty-free variety. Perhaps playing songs not in any of your existing playlists or recent listening history is easy to implement.

Can someone kindly explain to me the main barriers to entry for a small startup intent on creating a divine product in the music streaming space? We all certainly deserve the music player of the future.

I’d imagine contracts with record companies are expensive or difficult to get at a large scale.

Perhaps music-industry lawyers? Competition is definitely desired in this space.

Most of their competitors alteady offer lossless for less money. I switched to deezer awhile ago because spotify was constantly skipping while casting over both chromecast and sonos. And it's been better in pretty much every way.

I just want auto generated playlists that aren't half songs I just listened to.

Cancelled their service because price increases, podcast ads, push their playlists over community curated, and their app causes secondary monitors to flicker every time it gains focus.

Did you move to a different service?

I think Spotify could double their monthly fee and I would continue to pay it -- the amount of good music I have discovered has been worth the cost so far.

It's one of the very few "software services" I pay for, I am extremely...ah...frugal.

Agreed. I value music highly and consume a great deal of it. I may be on the far end of the spectrum when it comes to consumption, but I'd gladly pay twice as much for something that brings me such value, especially if I knew that it meant the creators could receive improved compensation.

I was paying for two, so dropping the one that can't write an app made sense

I already pay for YouTube so I have no ads, their music app is included, podcasts I care about publish to all platforms

I want Spotify playlists that don’t include any songs in any of my existing playlists

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