Music streaming service Spotify is becoming more expensive: this is the damage

Spotify users have to pay more money. Prices are going up in our country, even if only by 1 to 3 euros. That’s only 12 to 36 euros per year, so it’s not too bad in that respect, but with many things getting more expensive, it can be just that one push that makes people switch to a free account, with which you can do much less. That would be a bit rigorous: it is the first time since the existence of Spotify that prices are going up. And not immediately too much.

Spotify Premium

Spotify has more than 200 million Premium subscribers worldwide: that is the paid subscription of the streaming service. It is therefore the largest streaming service in the world and leaves Tidal and Apple Music far behind, despite the fact that there is also a lot of dissatisfaction with the sound quality. Where other streaming services come with hi-fi audio, lossless and spatial audio, Spotify takes a very long time to come up with these kinds of audio innovations.

It now states that “to continue to innovate and deliver value to fans and artists alike,” it really needs to drive prices up. As of today, you pay 10.99 euros per month for an individual subscription. Even students have to believe it: their subscription will also be one euro per month more expensive. For Family and Duo users, the subscription is quite considerably more expensive: Duo goes from 12.99 euros to 14.99 euros per month and Family even from 14.99 euros to 17.99 euros per month. There is also good news with this bad news: the new prices will take effect from today for new subscribers, but if you were a paid subscriber, that price increase will take effect at a later date. You will first receive an email.

Better audio quality

It’s an interesting trade-off: Spotify actually seems to be stating with this price increase (and especially the reason why) that it will come with lossless, hi-res or other better quality audio, and that’s why it’s coming with the price increase. We are therefore actually more curious about when that will come than the email that we have to pay more. As the largest streaming service, Spotify is very powerful, but it probably feels the hot breath of Tidal and Apple Music: these streaming services have been offering better audio quality for a long time and are therefore more the go-to of audiophiles.

Especially if you have a nice new pair of headphones, you naturally want the best possible audio experience. And to be fair: Spotify doesn’t offer that at the moment. Hopefully soon, but we have to pay a little extra for that in advance. And the expectation is that that extra good audio quality will ultimately not be part of the standard subscription, but that it may also cost an extra few euros per month. In short, it is only one euro per month, but it could just be that it will eventually become a bit more if you really want to get everything out of the streaming service.

Laura Jenny

When she’s not tapping, she’s traveling around the wonderful world of entertainment or some cool place in the real world. Mario is the man of her life,…