Spotify Is About to Be More Expensive Than Apple Music. That’s Not the Worst Part.

Spotify is going through something right now. On Monday morning, the industry-defining audio streaming service announced that it would be hiking itsfor users in the United States, effective next month. The individual plan is rising by $1, the Duo plan by $2, and the family subscription by $3., upping the individual plan to $10.99 a month to match with competitors’ price points. That increase was meant to mollify music-industry executives and investors .

As in 2023, the updated cost tiers have been imposed in response to persistent profitability concerns, most urgently stemming from the costs of Spotify’s aggressive, a venture that has been a heavier lift than the company likely expected. Back in March, Spotify reclassified all those aforementioned plans as Bundled Subscription Offerings so that already-paying customers would automatically gain access to these audiobooks, alongside their favorite songs and lyrics and videos and podcasts.

The bundling controversies earned condemnation from outside the legal realm, with Spotify’s own former global head of music publishing writing a Billboard op-ed decrying the new arrangements as “that noted, “Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content.

I’m not sure Ek actually understands the value of any kind of labor and human input outside the C-suite, however. On Spotify’s most recent quarterly earnings call,that in the aftermath of the company’s biggest-ever round of layoffs—17 percent of the workforce, about 1,500 employees, axed in December—there had been an ensuing impact on basic operations and“It did disrupt our day-to-day operations more than we anticipated,” Ek informed investors in April. “It took us some time to find our footing.

Ek probably isn’t too bothered by the lawsuits, or the burdens of running a much leaner operation, or outrage from both listeners and musicians over a more expensive plan to “ don’t want” that continues to undercut the artists whose work make Spotify what it is. At least the

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