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Comment by joeblau | Hacker News Reader

I stopped paying for Spotify back in August even though there was a clear benefit. The only clear added benefit you're going to receive is no ads. I think Google Music is putting pressure on them and they need something to compete.

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And offline playlists. Apart from the US there aren't many countries that offer unlimited mobile data plans for a reasonable price. So for me, offline playing is a very big deal, since that's how I listen to most of my music when I'm away from home.

Include the Uk in cheap unlimited data.

£15 a month, sim only, on 3. Also a £12.90 option, but with less inclusive texts and minutes.

I have the 3 unlimited plan but also Spotify premium because it's just easier having offline synced playlists, especially for train journeys when signal is always spotty.

Wait. We have unlimited mobile data in the US at reasonable prices? From whom? My "unlimited" T-Mobile plan throttles down to 2G speeds after 500MB.

To be fair, T-Mobile doesn't advertise their plans as "unlimited", they advertise them as 500mb/2.5gb/5gb at 4G speed. It's only $10/month more to bump up to 2.5GB.

And $10 more after that to go to full blown unlimited.

And if you paid the extra $20 a month, you would have the Unlimited LTE plan instead of the Unlimited 2G plan with 500mB of LTE. $70 is still reasonable in my eyes.

I have unlimited data on Virgin Mobile for $35/$45/$55 a month (based on # of minutes you want), though I had to pay full price for my phone.

I don't know which TMobile plan you're on. I have "unlimited" which throttles to 2G after 5GB, for only $30.

Finland: unlimited 3G for 12,90€/month.

Ads are completely unacceptable for me so I've always used it with a subscription. To be honest I hadn't realised the free version had other restrictions.

Totally agree on the ads piece. I've subscribed pretty much since it was possible to do so in the US and think it's worth it for the no ads thing alone.

Yeah, the experience without ads is a lot better. I've actually moved to Google Music, because a lot of the music I like and listen to isn't mainstream and Google Music allows me to upload 20k songs of my own.

Also the ability to play whichever songs or albums you want which is more like owning the albums (or maybe more like being able to listen to whatever you want in a record store that you live and work in) rather than hoping songs/artists you like come up on shuffle.

On-demand is a must for me. I would have never payed for a streaming service if it was only radio-like.

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