News - Spotify removes monthly time restrictions for desktop player

[HEXUS]

The free offering comes just a week before the high-profile launch of Beats Music.

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[Saracen]

Each to his own.

Personally, I 'm not interested in ad-supported music, period, even if free. Also, I'm categorically not paying £10/month for "Premium" services, just to dump add.

I'm old school, and it helps that my interest in the current music scene is, erm, minimal.

So, if I want music, I'll either nearly always jyst resort to either a BBC radio station, or far more likely, a fairly substantial CD ( and, yes, LP) collection.

Spotify? Nah. Thanks, but no thanks.

[wasabi]

The £5/month option isn't bad to avoid the ads.

There is just-about enough good new music to make it worth the £10/month for the premium service to me. Compared to the old days when i bought a couple of CDs every month and only enjoyed about one in five, it isn't a bad trade-off. Although mostly i get it as Xmas prezzie or buy reduced gift vouchers off fleabay.... I won't give companies like that my credit card details so at least gift vouchers keep them at arms length.

It feels expensive when you see what Netflix et al offer for less though.

[Dan the bloke]

Are Spotify going to make up their minds with what theyre actually implementing?
Granted this is a step in the right direction. I left for the first time when they started imposing 5 play limits on songs, then they added the limited amount of hours per week.
Since then, theyve gotten rid of the 5 play limit, and now theyre ditching the weekly limit!
I mean im not complaining because Ive only just come back to it recently, but ill be cross if they change it again :')

As for the Beats Music, it hasnt been that high profile of a launch. Ive literally only just heard of it, haha.
And Im not sure itll do well against the existing competition tbh.

[Brian224]

Neither of the services I use even gets a mention in the article. Is it because they are the Windows defaults?

On Windows Phone, Nokia Mix Radio has no listening limit, no ads and lets me download mixes to use offline. As a result I stream very little on my PC and don't hit the free limit on Xbox Music, where I can use a single interface to stream music and listen to my own collection.

[krazy_olie]

Hmm, this sort of makes my subscription seem a little less good, value wise. I use it loads of my squeezebox touch, though, and the only alternative is deezer, which is fine but don't like having to use a browser and lose out on shared playlists.
I have found my cd buying is drying up but not completely stopped, but whereas before I would buy something primarily so that I could listen to it I now buy it for permanent ownership or in the case of some discs to get a particular (usually original) master.

[zdn1042]

Hmm.. I might give Spotify a try again if this goes well.

[AGTDenton]

Recently started using Spotify again, but not for this reason, more chance than anything else. I couldnt buy a particular CD in the UK nor could I listen to a sample on Youtube, which was surprising for today, in the end I found it on Spotify.
Since then I've discovered a plathora of new music through the related artists feature.

Previously when using spotify I found it was just full of back dated chart music and nothing else.

While I wouldnt pay for Spotify I still think its growing up to be a useful tool for finding new music. Where possible I still buy the CD. I recently bought an Amazon mp3 album and with a couple of songs, the last beat on one song is the 1st beat on the next so poor quality imo.

[KrisWragg]

I spent an inordinate amount of time converting all my CD's to FLAC to store on my NAS box, but now I have I can run Subsonic as a media streamer and listen to music on my phone or at work.

This way I can listen to all my favourite music at high-bit rates and it doesn't really cost me all that much as my NAS box is running 24/7 anyway and I have FTTC so bandwidth isn't an issue at all

[Arthran]

As someone who pays for Spotify, I cant live without it (ofc I can...) I never use my CD's or MP3's, just the spotify app on my phone, tablet and pc, all syncing