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In 1877, Thomas Edison created the first music-playing system which had the ability to both record and playback music, this system was known as the Phonograph. Music system players have advanced as technology has advanced in the last couple hundred of years. The most popular music-playing systems recently are Apple Music and Spotify. Apple Music was created in 2015 and gained popularity instantly, in only 6 months the app passed 10 million subscribers. Apple Music has around 88 million subscribers, it has gained popularity mainly due to its 75 million available songs, and the fact that content can be streamed or downloaded for offline use. Although very popular and one of the most streamed music platforms, they do have a competitor who exceeds them in subscribers, the platform is well known as Spotify. Although these are two of the most popular music streaming apps in the world, they aren’t perfect and do have restrictions. Whether it’s Spotify, Apple Music, ESPN, or Hulu, almost every single app has restrictions. Most often, restrictions are established to create a safe environment for the user.
Today, Spotify is the most popular music streaming platform worldwide with around 188 million subscribers. One of the main reasons why Spotify strives is due to its ability to provide both a Spotify free and a Spotify premium account. Spotify free allows people to get a little taste without having to pay. Although it is a free app, certain restrictions come with it, for example, on Spotify free, you can only listen to music in shuffle mode and can skip up to 6 times per hour. As previously stated, this restriction allows the listener to enjoy parts of Spotify without receiving the benefits of the full app. Despite being able to listen to any music you want, only having 6 skips can get quite obnoxious. After using the 6th skip you must listen to the songs which are next on shuffle. If a song comes on that you do not particularly enjoy you must either suck it up and listen to it or stop listening in total. Another restriction of Spotify free is that you are only able to download 10 thousand songs on each up to 5 different devices and is available on mobile, desktops, and tablets. This restriction, similar to the previous restriction, is established so listeners can get somewhat of the Spotify experience, although 10 thousand may seem like a lot of songs. There are plenty of songs in the world from different and plenty from different eras, this can be frustrating for listeners as they have to pick a list of music they like to listen to, leaving some they might enjoy out. Although most apps and website restrictions are made to create a safe environment, Spotify free’s restrictions are constructed to rope in the listener with a little taste so they will come back and purchase Spotify Premium.
Spotify Premium is the upgrade to Spotify free, for $9.99 a month, it allows listeners to experience the things that are annoying about Spotify free. Premium authorizes listeners to listen to any music ad-free, offline (as many songs as you wish), better sound quality, and many more benefits. Like pretty much every app and website, Spotify Premium also has restrictions, for example, one subscription can connect to no more than five different devices. This restriction helps Spotify to profit, it stops people from sharing their accounts with all of their friends and forces people who want Premium to pay for it. Although this may be inconvenient for listeners, it makes sense because the app needs to profit somehow, if this wasn’t in place, only one person would have to pay for a subscription and as many people as possible could use the same account. Another restriction that Spotify has is that the appropriate age for listeners is 13+. This ensures safety within the Spotify environment, it is important that kids aren’t listening to explicit music without permission from their parents or guardians.
Spotify Free possesses the same restrictions as Spotify Premium. Most of Spotify’s restrictions are established to create a safe environment for young kids in particular. The others are marketing strategies, giving the listener a taste of the Premium experience to attract them to buy it. Spotify targets the younger generation of adults, more specifically students. They even have a student rate that is cheaper than the normal Premium rate. Students enjoy listening to music while completing work (speaking from experience), they want to get the best experience possible while listening to music and Spotify does an excellent job of marketing and giving listeners a great experience for only $9.99 a month.
Works Cited
Pocket-lint. (2022, March 16). What is Spotify and how does it work? Pocket. Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/spotify/139236-what-is-spotify-and-how-does-it-work
Spotify revenue and Usage Statistics (2022). Business of Apps. (2022, September 6). Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://www.businessofapps.com/data/spotify-statistics/
Bevan, J. (2022, August 19). Spotify revenue and Usage Statistics (2022). Mobile Marketing Reads. Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://mobilemarketingreads.com/spotify-revenue-and-usage-statistics-2020/
Free Spotify vs Spotify Premium. SoundGuys. (2022, August 23). Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://www.soundguys.com/free-spotify-vs-spotify-premium-36632/