Spotify

Well, looks like you were right Mike.... R.I.P spotify. We will remember you as the best free music service there ever was.
 
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Oct 25, 2006
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Well, looks like you were right Mike…. R.I.P spotify. We will remember you as the best free music service there ever was.

Am I'm the only one ... argh.. i hate (just a little) that expression...

But... I really don't understand what you are referring to. :)
 
Here is what GG is talking about, from the Spotify Blog:

Upcoming changes to Spotify Free/Open
April 14, 2011, 09:20 by Daniel Ek
Spotify’s aim from the very beginning was to make music on-demand available to all. To give you the power to listen to, discover, share and manage your music the way you want to - simpler, faster, better - while making sure the artists whose music we all love continue to see the benefits as we grow.

Making Spotify available to millions across Europe has seen the service become incredibly popular. People are listening to more music and from a wider range of artists than ever before, and are giving up on piracy, which is exactly what we hoped would happen.

So it’s vital that we continue offering an on-demand free service to you and millions more like you, but to make that possible we have to put some limits in place going forward.

Here’s how the changes will work:

New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.
The changes we’re having to make will mainly affect heavier Spotify Free and Open users, as most of you use Spotify to discover music – on average over 50 new tracks per month, even after a year. Plus, the average user won’t reach the limit on plays for 7 out of 10 tracks, after a year of using Spotify. For those of you using Spotify to find new tracks to enjoy and share with friends, these changes shouldn’t get in the way of you doing that. Rest assured that we’ll continue to bring you the biggest and most diverse music catalogue available.

For anyone who thinks they might reach these limits, we hope you’ll consider checking out our Unlimited and Premium services, neither of which will be affected, plus we have a 7-day free trial for Spotify Premium that we’d love you to try. Throughout May, we’ll also have a pretty nice 30-day free trial for Spotify Premium – more details on that in the next few days.

Above all, this means we can continue making Spotify available to all in the long-term. We’ll be bringing out some awesome new features as well as significant improvements over the coming months, which will make the Spotify experience even better.

Thanks so much, as ever, for your unbelievable support and I hope to come back with some exciting news in the next few weeks.

Bottom line - a few problems:
- They want in to the US and are getting 'bent over' (pardon the expression) and need to make changes to satisfy the 'majors'.
- In EU they are slowly being forced to pay more to record companies as well.
- They are still riding ~8% conversion to 'paying customers', which simply isn't enough to cover their costs.

By the time they hit the US nobody will care. I have Rdio, which has been more accommodating to record labels and doesn't have a 'free' option ... but has a massive collection and solid PC/Mac/iOS/Android players. I recently got a press account for MOG, and find then about the same as Rdio, but with a cool community playlist feature that is better integrated than what I found on either Rdio or Spotify.

I don't think Spotify is dead, but they are changing into something that will kill what they once were ...
 
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I've been using Jango.com for over a year, which satisfies all I need for my music. It even showed me music of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, which I found quite nice.
I was shown Spotify once and never realized its appeal. I like 'radio'-like myself. I don't want to have to go out and find music. Music has to find me :)
 
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I've been using Jango.com for over a year, which satisfies all I need for my music. It even showed me music of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, which I found quite nice.
I was shown Spotify once and never realized its appeal. I like 'radio'-like myself. I don't want to have to go out and find music. Music has to find me :)

Jango is like the typical Pandora / Slacker stuff, which we use occasionally as a 'better radio'. It is a direct contrast with 'I want to hear THIS song', which is where Spotify/Rdio/MOG shine ... and Pandora/Slacker/Jango fall short.
 
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