Starting May 1, new free users will have unlimited listening for the first six months. But after that, they will be limited to 10 hours of music per month (that’s about 20 albums’ worth of music), the music streaming service announced Thursday. In addition, any user who signed up for the free service at the beginning of November 2010 will be able to play each track five times for free, and the 10-hour monthly limit will go into effect six months after their start dates.
Naturally, Spotify users are angry. Comments below the post read, “So long Spotify. It was nice nowing [sic] you. Guess I’ll go back to pirating music again then,” “Bye bye Spotify,” “Thanks for destroying a community of music lovers. Goodbye.”
Last.fm users had a similar reaction after they learned that the radio service would no longer be free on mobile and consumer electronic devices.
Although it’s understandable that folks would be miffed that something that was once free is now not-so-free (paywalls, anyone?), the changes make sense. First of all, Spotify has 1 million paying subscribers — and millions more use the free service. That’s a lot of people listening without ponying up.
Second of all, the service is not yet profitable. Spotify reportedly lost $26.7 million in 2009.
And, third: Spotify is still trying to make its way to the U.S., where it needs to be in the good graces of the labels (who are generally against free music) in order to launch.
Fourth of all — and this is pure opinion here — sorry guys, but you should, in some respect, have to pay for music. Spotify costs about $16 per month (10 pounds in the UK) for its most expensive service, which, in the scheme of things is a...
