Comment on [deleted]
lud@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Really who cares? The free tier is shit and has always been shit. That’s the point of the free tier, to get you to pay.
Previously they didn’t even have a free tier, now they do and it’s free. Of course not every feature exists and especially not a feature like lyrics which isn’t essential and Spotify has to pay extra for.
Why are they even charging you for lyrics to begin with? It’s not like they write them. It costs nothing to give you that feature for free.
Kind of like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing. It’s a basic function that does not cost them anything, yet they break it to sell it back to you.
Stripping extremely basic features away and locking them behind paywalls is shitty and should be called out as such, full stop.
Because they need to pay their supplier of synced (and non-synced) lyrics, Musixmatch.
It costs nothing
I highly doubt that. Lyrics are copyrighted like anything else, so record labels are going to charge for it.
like the YouTube app requiring a subscription for background playing
That’s an artificial limitation, as evidenced by NewPipe, Grayjay, and multiple others offering the same exact thing without a premium tier.
When did they not have a free tier? I remember the free version being around at least 10 years ago.
I searched and I may have misremembered the free version seems to have been around since the start except that the free version was initially invite and desktop only. Eventually everyone could use it but still only on desktop. The free version was even more limited back then it seems with a limit on how many hours you could listen to each month.
I could personally never use it. Because it was so incredibly limited. Not being allowed to skip tracks makes it unusable and I’m genuinely surprised anyone used it apart from trying the service.
I used it in college, I didn’t have money. Honestly I didn’t mind. You were allowed to skip five or six times in an hour, and I would just make custom playlists and it ended up being like a nicer radio. Fewer ads than radio, music I like, a few skips.
I do remember the free tier being introduced at some point. But it was a really long time ago. Probably 10+ years. I was still on XP back then.
xenoclast@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The backlash is generally against all enshitification.
You get a useful free plan. Make it useless over time to convince people to pay for a plan. Make THAT plan useless over time to make people pay for the more expensive plan… repeat until capitalism ends.
That’s why people care.
platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeha, but they can make their free tier as shitty as they want, it is their product…
If you don’t want to pay, just use one of the thousands tools to pirate music. If you don’t want to pay but still think you deserve a product with all the features you like, then you’re delusional.
deweydecibel@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Who suggested they couldn’t? Having the right to do something doesn’t mean no one else can voice their displeasure.
It has nothing to do with “deserve”. Shitty businesses practices are worth being called out. Especially because this has nothing to do with supporting Spotify and everything to do with enriching stockholders. It’s a sign of desperation: they can’t make their product better to entice new customers, so they’re making their free product worse. It’s trashy and greedy.
But please go on expending your energy defending a corporation from valid criticism.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I agree, but this isn’t one of those cases. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon adding ads to their paid products is worth calling out. Microsoft adding ads to their paid OS is worth calling out. Roku changing the rules and forcing people to agree to arbitration after purchase of a TV is worth calling out.
But Spotify putting lyrics behind their paid service isn’t like that at all. You can easily get lyrics with an Internet search, it’s a non-issue. Either pay or look it up yourself.
So I agree with the person you’re responding to, it’s not worthwhile criticism. I have no problem with corporations making money, I have a problem with corporations abusing their position to screw over customers, and Spotify has been remarkably well-behaved.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
LTT mentioned some time ago on the Wanshow about how gaking away is destroying more goodwill than adding new stuff only to the premium tier.
This is probably why most are so worked up about the issue.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Yes, but, like comma splices, we get to judge them.
mihies@kbin.social 1 month ago
If you don't want to pay, then don't use it. Regardless of everything, music producers still need to live and pirating is a shit move to help them.
platypus_plumba@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If I won’t pay, pirating isn’t going to take money away from them. Yeha, I know it is stealing, I won’t pretend it isn’t like many do, but hey, if they are giving me a shit service, they left me no choice.
I pay for most of what I consume but when I have no choice, I pirate. I do pay for Spotify premium, I don’t even mind the free tier, I just wanted to give them the money because their app is great.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Or, as we call it, the principle of the thing.
If people are thinking “I don’t care, I got mine”, they need to learn why that elitism is wrong.
drmoose@lemmy.world 1 month ago
but it’s a free plan and if you can’t afford 5-15$/mo for unlimited music and can afford to spend time complaining about this then you have some much bigger problems in your life.
lud@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It’s free 🤷
Also the free tier was worse when it launched.