Spotify app prompts hint at $20 lossless audio subscription
Spotify is testing out the pricing for a new service providing lossless audio streams, with reports claiming a prompt for "Spotify Hi-Fi" offers the higher quality audio tracks and other benefits to subscribers, in exchange for a higher monthly fee.
A small number of Spotify Premium subscribers are reportedly seeing a notice for the new audio option, according to The Verge. The notice may be an A/B test of pricing, as screenshots of the notice display a different cost and varying benefits of signing up, and attempts to upgrade result in an error message advising it is not available in the user's area.
Posts on Twitter and Reddit note the upgrade price as either $5, $7.50 or $10 on top of the existing $10 Spotify Premium cost. There is also some variation in what is offered, with some users seeing just the lossless audio as an extra feature, while other benefits include a free vinyl record and discounts on limited-edition vinyl releases.
Spotify confirmed the existence of the in-app prompts, but stopped short of admitting it was planning a lossless audio service. A Spotify spokesperson told the publication, "We are always testing new products and offers, but have no news to share at this time."
The addition of lossless audio could give the streaming service the boost it needs to become profitable, something a board member suggested would occur sometime in 2017. Spotify has posted losses in multiple successive quarters, caused by a combination of paying for music licenses and expanding the service's reach, amassing over 40 million paid subscribers in the process.
Offering higher quality streams would also put Spotify in direct competition with Tidal, a service that primarily markets itself on providing lossless audio to its users. The troubled Tidal has an extremely small user base in comparison to Spotify, with recent reports suggesting it only provided 0.1 percent of all music streams, acquiring 0.33 percent of streaming revenue.
It would also give Spotify another way to differentiate itself from its main rival Apple Music, which quickly surpassed 20 million subscribers in less than 18 months. While there were rumors of a "Hi-Res Audio" streaming option for Apple Music, which would take advantage of the higher fidelity audio the Lightning port is capable of providing, Apple has yet to show signs it will implement the feature into its service.
A small number of Spotify Premium subscribers are reportedly seeing a notice for the new audio option, according to The Verge. The notice may be an A/B test of pricing, as screenshots of the notice display a different cost and varying benefits of signing up, and attempts to upgrade result in an error message advising it is not available in the user's area.
Posts on Twitter and Reddit note the upgrade price as either $5, $7.50 or $10 on top of the existing $10 Spotify Premium cost. There is also some variation in what is offered, with some users seeing just the lossless audio as an extra feature, while other benefits include a free vinyl record and discounts on limited-edition vinyl releases.
Spotify confirmed the existence of the in-app prompts, but stopped short of admitting it was planning a lossless audio service. A Spotify spokesperson told the publication, "We are always testing new products and offers, but have no news to share at this time."
The addition of lossless audio could give the streaming service the boost it needs to become profitable, something a board member suggested would occur sometime in 2017. Spotify has posted losses in multiple successive quarters, caused by a combination of paying for music licenses and expanding the service's reach, amassing over 40 million paid subscribers in the process.
Offering higher quality streams would also put Spotify in direct competition with Tidal, a service that primarily markets itself on providing lossless audio to its users. The troubled Tidal has an extremely small user base in comparison to Spotify, with recent reports suggesting it only provided 0.1 percent of all music streams, acquiring 0.33 percent of streaming revenue.
It would also give Spotify another way to differentiate itself from its main rival Apple Music, which quickly surpassed 20 million subscribers in less than 18 months. While there were rumors of a "Hi-Res Audio" streaming option for Apple Music, which would take advantage of the higher fidelity audio the Lightning port is capable of providing, Apple has yet to show signs it will implement the feature into its service.
Comments
All this information and understanding of the human race supports a HUNDRED BILLION dollar industry with hundreds of millions of people who have actual experience with such things - that would say you are incorrect.
The entire collective of the worlds knowledge with hundreds of millions of people who verify they can hear a difference: ∞
Your sad statement: 0
BTW, why does Apple even support this lossless format if it makes no sense? I mean, Apple doesn't cater to a few extremists or invest in useless tech... so what gives?
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you that there will be people who care about having lossless audio and for those that do I think it's great that Spotify is considering offering this option. I don't think it would be a huge percentage of the market though which is reflected in Tidal's small market share but obviously if the likes of Spotify were to add lossless audio the percentage the market streaming lossless might increase. I doubt Spotify would move the needle much though as they already have a user base that is weighted more heavily towards the free add supported tie and only a percentage of their paying customers would be willing to make the upgrade.
On another note you don't really do your argument any favours when you exaggerate the occurrence of an instance while trying to understate the sample size to imply that when extrapolated the instance would account for a large percentage of the population. A "few thousand" people is not a small circle of friends.
Also, the 3 million people that subscribe to Tidal is a small percentage of the overall streaming market. But ignoring the size of the overall streaming market 3 million people is not exactly a small number, so if Tidal can be successful with a much smaller percentage of the overall market then that's great. Spotify offering lossless audio though could potentially entice a number of those Tidal users though. If I was Tidal I would be worried.
I have all my music with me on my iPod or iPhone. By all my music, all the stuff I want to listen to.
There is a very large percentage of the population that just does not see the point of streaming tunes.
1) They already have the songs they like on CD/LP etc and have ripped them into a digital format
2) Not much new music in the genres they like is made these days and if it is, it does not appear on the charts on the streaming sites
3) They have already paid for the music at least once and are dammed if they are gonna pay to hear it again
4) Most streaming is of genres they don't like. (Modern R&B for instance)
I like pretty well anything in the Jazz, Blues, R&B (1950/60's version), Rock & Roll up to around 1980, Classical and Prog Rock genres.
I have close on 60Gb of mp3's to choose from on my iDevices.
Yes, I'm a tightwad but to me services like spotify rip off the Artists big time. I'm going to see Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman etc in a couple of weeks. I'll probably buy a couple of CD's by them at the show. I'd rather pay for my music that way than use a service like spotify. It (and others like it including Apple Music) does/do not interest me in the slightest.
That good enough for you?
I thought the same way until I started on the streaming path - quickly realized how insanely narrow and small my music reach was.
From your post, you have obviously never tried a streaming service. You should, it's the best thing to happen in technology since 1995.
1 - - I have over 600 of my CD's ripped and I haven't listened to a single one in 3 years.
2 - - There is an entire world making hundreds of thousands of albums in the genres they like - they just don't know about it. Streaming opens the world up to this.
3 - - I thought this way too. However, the convenience and curration/discovery from using a streaming service is amazing. $10 a month??? I probably wasted hundreds a month in lost production time looking for new music.
4 - - ??? Dude... ??? Streaming offers everything that was ever recorded pretty much... from every genre.
Artists make more money from streaming services than from CD's. Fact. They also don't need the big production studio's, contracts, and millions in loans to buy fame.
It's hard to let go of 'control' of your music because you have been programmed to 'own the media' for your whole life. I was the same way. Now, i'll never go back to owning media. Maybe some vinyl here and there... but it's such a rich world... why would I want to listen to the same album for the rest of my life?
Not sure why Spotify's hinting at providing a lossless pricing option would be in any way controversial at face value. There are obviously some people who value such an option and are willing to pay a premium price for it. Whether it's mostly marketing hype, pono pseudo science, or quantifiably provable using sound scientific methodology doesn't really matter. When it comes to art, quality is highly subjective, personal, and is heavily dependent on individual perception, bias, emotion, and interpretation. Whatever floats your boat ... so as long as people who aren't convinced that the perceived benefits of lossless reproduction aren't forced to pay for something they don't believe is valuable - who really cares? Take away my choice or charge me more and then we'll have a problem. If Apple sees an erosion of their Apple Music customer base because they aren't offering lossless media I'm sure they will add it rather quickly. At least for me, Apple Music is an integral component of a much larger ecosystem of devices, content, and services and I couldn't conceive of leaving the Apple ecosystem even if I perceived lossless media as being worthy of premium pricing. It's still a total customer value game.
Its amazing that someone who spends so much time on Apple sites seemingly understands so little about how Apple works.