Spotify’s 3rd price hike in 2.5 years hints at potential new normal

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Powderhorn@beehaw.org⁩ to ⁨technology@beehaw.org⁩

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/spotify-to-raise-subscription-prices-by-up-to-2-in-february/

I don’t understand subscribing to music. Maybe it’s just my age, but this isn’t the '90s where you hear a track you like and that one song is going to run you $20 at Tower Records. I like a song, I pay $1.29 and then it’s stored locally. Also cuts way down on data usage while driving. I struggle to get anywhere close to my 5GB data allowance.

After a dozen years of keeping subscription prices stable, Spotify has issued three price hikes in 2.5 years.

Spotify informed subscribers via email today that Premium monthly subscriptions would go from $12 to $13 per month as of users’ February billing date. Spotify is already advertising the higher prices to new subscribers.

Although not explicitly mentioned in Spotify’s correspondence, other plans are getting more expensive, too. Student monthly subscriptions are going from $6 to $7. Duo monthly plans, for two accounts in the same household, are going from $17 to $19, and Family plans, for up to six users, are moving from $20 to $22.

Spotify’s Basic plan, which is only available as a downgrade for some Premium subscribers and is $11/month, is unaffected.

For years, Spotify subscribers enjoyed stable prices, but today’s announcement marks Spotify’s third price hike since July 2023. Spotify last raised prices in July 2024. Premium individual subscriptions went from $11 to $12, Duo subscriptions went from $15 to $17, and Family subscriptions increased from $17 to $20.

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Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Maybe it’s my age, but I never understood buying single songs. I listen to whole albums. They were crafted and assembled as a set. It feels like watching one scene of a movie, or reading one chapter of a book.

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- Banzai51@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Some.bands do that. Most do not.
  
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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  There are several albums I listen to as a complete work. But you can’t tell me that albums with one good track and a bunch of detritus weren’t a thing.
  
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  - Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    But why listen to just one song? It seems a waste to sit down, put on headphones or fire up the livingroom stereo, all for only a single pice of music.
    
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- HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Even during the halcyon days of CD sales in the late 90’s, there was a decent amount of filler on a lot of albums. It didn’t help that albums were the product while singles were what were advertised.
  
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- Prove_your_argument@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Sure but you can listen to whole albums on stuff like Spotify.
  
  Some bands are truly one hit wonders though..
  
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- passepartout@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Music has changed. Its more about single tracks with shorter playtime now because of the algorithms calculating the payout for the artist.
  
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irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Radio only plays a few dozen songs or only “classic” stuff, so I never get to hear new stuff. Having streaming audio was always my way to find new music. That said, Spotify has started doing the same, just playing the sponsored songs and the themes they have generally only play stuff I’ve heard a million times. Rarely “b-sides” or new stuff based on my actual interests.

I miss the days of the original Pandora service with its database of music elements, and it would go across genres to find things with similar elements and didn’t have any influence from the recording industry sponsoring songs because they were actively destroying their own industry fighting to kill off streaming, instead. I found a bunch of new stuff I never would have heard otherwise. It totally changed my listening habits.

So with the streaming services consolidating and raising prices as a result, I likely won’t stick with it anymore. My music library is too large to store locally on my phone and I like variety rather than making playlists. I’m thinking of setting up my own streaming server, but music discovery is still an issue I need to solve.

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’ve got nearly 2,000 tracks and a few dozen albums that take up 25GB on my phone. Too large to store locally suggests a lot of ballast you never listen to.
  
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  - irotsoma@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I have around 3500 liked songs on Spotify alone just from the last 5 years or so and just stuff that Spotify chooses to plat for me. I have about 9,000 tracks in my primary collection from old ripped CDs and purchased MP3s/FLACs. This is without stuff that I dont really like that much anymore or stuff that I would only listen to in specific circumstances, like Mozart or something. It’s over 100GB. There is definitely some overlap there, but definitely less than 1/3 of the Spotify likes I also own. So probably I’d end up somewhere in the 125-150GB range. If phones still had SD card slots I could do it, but that’s not that common anymore since they want you to buy streaming and backup services.
    
    I could probably pare it down even more without missing out too much, but it would take a lot of time and it would be removing stuff I like to listen to. And I wouldn’t have room to add new stuff.
    
    I listen to a pretty wide variety of genres and I listen on my phone often, pretty much anytime I’m driving or on a bus/train, and I dont like hearing the same songs repeated too much unless I’m just getting to know the song. I’ve thought about writing a script that automatically randomly replaces files when I’m on my home network to take a smaller set with me, but that’s a lot of work. The other alternative is creating playlists of a few hundred songs each and switching them out when I’m home, but again, lots of work.
    
    Streaming just covers it well for my use case, if it was reasonably priced and did it’s job well to help discover new music, but seems that’s not what they’re selling anymore. I also don’t have a data cap anymore, or at least it’s a soft cap and not ridiculously low, but not sure how long that will be the case either.
    
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towerful@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
TIDALs continued awesomeness suggests suitable alternatives.
Spotify pays Joe Rogan how much? And pays artists how little?
TIDAL does music

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- Banzai51@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What software are you using on the RPis as a client to Music Assistant?
  
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  - towerful@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No idea. Haven’t started digging into it yet
    
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Ethereal87@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I feel like the main thing these subscription services need to do is keep it chill. The fastest way to get me to question whether a service is worth it or not is if the monthly cost keeps being thrown in my face. Grandfather in old prices for a lot longer or something to keep people hooked longer. That’s probably why I’ll never be a C-level exec.

Spotify’s been fine but it’s just obnoxious at this point and THEY are pushing me to look elsewhere at this point.

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Maybe it’s just my age – I presume you were born in 1987 – but subscriptions are anathema to me. I rarely buy $10 in music in a given month, so there’s no value there to me. Add in the AI tracks, and, well … what would I be paying for?
  
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  - Ethereal87@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    My millenial is showing with my username :D
    
    We’re at a spot where we’ve more or less switched off subscriptions with a few exceptions (some of which enable us to not have OTHER subscriptions in the first place). Spotify is in a weird place where our kids have a playlist of music they like and they’re more or less the primary user of our Spotify playlist now. I’ve got all of my music self-hosted and my intention with this latest news is to try and bring the kids’ music over too.
    
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  - warm@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Individual plans are a rip-off yeah, Spotify is one of the only services I subscribe to and that's because I have a family plan, so it's not so easy for me to just cancel it, when others are relying on it. It works out at €3.40/month ($3.95) per member. The value there is really good.
    
    Spotify lets you just listen to anything, I can put a playlist on and it will keep going forever and I have discovered many tracks I would have never listened to, or even known they existed. Buying music is great, but only when you know exactly what you want, I'm not a big music person, I like listening to it, but I don't really have a dialled in taste. Spotify is great for that.
    
    There will obviously be a tipping point though when they inevitably raise the price too far and I will abandon ship.
    
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bluGill@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Welcome to inflation. If a price isn't going up regularly someone is getting ripped off.

When my boss gives me a raise I always compare that to the yearly inflation rate - it has more than once turned what looks good into a loss for me. (I might accept it once in a while, but I'm looking for new jobs soon if they don't fix)

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Rent goes up 15%, and you get a 2% raise. Fucking thrilling.
  
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Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Streaming two days for about 2-3h in Syncthing:
Image

And Spotify is with streaming some podcasts with video. For the whole month

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- LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Presumably Symfonium is streaming lossless files whereas Spotify probably isn’t. That and Spotify is probably caching a lot more.
  
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remington@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Using a free listener supported radio app that is curated by human DJs has been how I’ve enjoyed music for years now. Examples are KEXP, The Current and Radio Paradise.

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’d also recommend KCRW. I found a lot of great music on their stream. My boss would pipe it through the setup in the copy store.
  
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- NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  plug for somafm
  
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mp3@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’m sure that more money is going towards the artists /s

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DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Pandora is still $10

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Mac@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’ve been paying Spotify $5/mo for years but i quit anyway. Y’all are sticking with it and paying full price? Crazy.

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smeg@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
If you do want to use Spotify then find 5 friends who also want to and set up a family plan

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Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
$20 was the cost of a whole CD Album, I don’t remember singles selling for that much. Or maybe you’re referring to the phenomenon of having to buy a full Album just for the one song you like?

I prefer to buy Albums, and these days new Vinyl usually comes with a lossless digital download redemption code.

At the same time, I still subscribe to music streaming services. I’ve got some ambient / background music playlists that are days and even weeks long - I’m not going to allocate make local storage space to them, let alone pay $9,000

These services are amazing for music discovery. I live having an album or playlist finish and then getting “radio” of similar music to hear and discover.

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- Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  OK, try buying the single you want from Tower in 1997. I actually spent $500 at Virgin in Vancouver to discover new music, but the ROI just wasn’t there.
  
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