It’s the same as Airbnb and Uber and Netflix and literally everything else… they throw in hidden fees and play psychology (eg foot in the door technique) to get us to pay more and more without us realizing it. They preach convenience, but unfortunately use that to their advantage to get our guard down. You pay $X to not have to worry about something/get a service, but when you’re not paying attention they jack up prices.
I looked the other day and it’s like $19/month for Spotify Family now… when did that happen? It was like $14 when I signed up. But all my playlists are set up on Spotify… what’s more, all the fam’s are too. Huge PITA to move to Apple Music.
I hate to tell ya, but Spotify will eternally be stuck between unprofitability and price raises.
Spotify has to negotiate with record labels who mostly act as a unified block, and they have leverage because Spotify needs all major labels or else customers can’t find all their music. No one is a “interscope” loyalist - they’re loyal to artists. This gives them power to basically demand >100% of the profit margin. That’s why they’re trying to get into other markets like podcasts. Record labels get ~50% of revenue, then Apple/Google app stores get 30% from some customers - that doesn’t leave a lot of room for Spotify.
That’s also why YouTube music and Apple Music will be the only long term players - but they need Spotify. They can take a loss to keep customers in the ecosystem BUT they need Spotify to always be the first to break to keep rates tolerable.
I looked the other day and it’s like $19/month for Spotify Family now… when did that happen? It was like $14 when I signed up. But all my playlists are set up on Spotify… what’s more, all the fam’s are too. Huge PITA to move to Apple Music.