- Spotify has been inkking a new deal with Warner Music Group
- That may include a long-awaited hi-fi level to super-fans and audiophiles
- However, competing services have begun to offer hi-res sound by default
Spotify is getting more complicated if a new message from Music Streaming Service is something to pass by.
On February 6, Spotify and Warner Music Group announced a new partnership agreement to “deliver new fan experiences, a deeper music and video catalog, further paid subscription levels and differentiated content bundles.”
The deal is likely to see even more music and video content added to Spotify’s 80,000 track library, with support for a new ‘Superfan’ Premium level that is expected to launch some time in 2025.
While this can finally give Spotify subscribers access to hi-res sound-something, which Tidal and Apple Music have offered for years to represent another complication in Spotify’s increasingly scattered content offerings.
A strength of Spotify has been its simplicity: It has not shared its user base between different price settings, except ‘free’ and ‘paid’, and relaxed users do not have to fight with choosing Hi -Fi audio their smartphone speakers And budget headphones are still unable to recreate.
Spotify also doesn’t need you to Suss for various other content services at the subscription site, such as with Apple One or Amazon Prime’s group offers. And if you held on to the free level, it’s very easy to just choose a song and start playing.
But as the service has ballooned in its extent and ambitions pursuing high-profile podcast hosts and expanded video content, Spotify has only become more complicated. There are now, in some countries, separate levels without access to audiobooks along with different options for individuals and families, and a new superfan level will only extend the list of options and bundles offered.
Cash Catch
I am also annoyed at the proposal from a further payment wall for hi-res music. These days, both the Apple Music and Tidal Hi-Res Audio include part of its basic package, which does not appear to be Spotify’s strategy here-sound of higher quality is something to be further paid, rather than something to pull users to the platform in the first place.
Given this Spotify, in particular, offers less money per day. Power ($ 0.00437) to artists than either Apple ($ 0.0056-0,0078) or tidal ($ 0.013), so much less Qobuz (a lavish $ 0.022), it’s hard to imagine the well-mounted superfans Tired more cash for artists rather than Spotify’s boxes.
But Spotify’s market position means that it will be unlikely to be penalized for paying a feature that is included as standard in its competitors’ standard plans.
Spotify is the Dominant music flow service, helped by a free, ad-supported streaming level that brings its subscriber count to over 650 million-many hundred times greater than Apple Music or Tidal. Spotify is simply the place that most people listen to music today.
I am fond of Spotify users who have been waiting for too long for Hi-Res Audio to hit the service. But this new strategy would only make me wonder why I have not yet moved to another platform.
