A few things Spotify could learn about valuing music

OPINION: Spotify is celebrating a decade of “getting the world to value music.” Here’s a few things it could actually do to avoid that being an absolutely laughable sentiment.

Spotify has got some nerve! In a blog post on January 28, the company extolled its crusade to ensure the world truly values music.

“There’s a vibrant marketplace of streaming services for different types of consumers, each doing its part to normalise the behaviour of paying for music streaming,” Spotify is courteous enough to admit.

However, there are also things Spotify does that sets it apart from everyone else, and it goes onto detail on them in the the blog post.

Having read the post and raised many an eyebrow, I’ve outlined a few ways Spotify could convince me.

1) Actually focus on music

Just lately, the Spotify app feels like it values everything but the music. Podcasts and audiobooks clutter the home page. In the case of the former, Spotify has coupled huge exclusive content contracts for Marmite podcasters like Joe Rogan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. That expansion coincided with price increases for Premium subscribers.

In the earlier days, Spotify subscribers could always take comfort that, however low the payouts to artists were, at least they were still directly paying artists for the music they listened to. When podcasters went on the payroll, that went out of the window.

How about a dedicated app for Music, rather than actively having to cut through the clutter?

2) Release Spotify Hi-Fi already

If you’re singlehandedly getting the world to value music, surely you want people to hear it as the artist intended? With a commitment to master recordings at CD quality or better? It has been almost four years since Spotify announced Spotify HiFi was on the way. However, it has been too busy valuing music to deliver the features to subscribers it reportedly wants to (eventually) charge a Superpremium subscription fee for.

Apple Music offers hi-res lossless audio at 24-bit sampling at 192 kHz, which is CD quality, while also providing immersive spatial audio tracks with Dolby Atmos. Spotify doesn’t.

But Spotify values music the most, right?

3) Maybe stop giving music away for free?

Spotify’s blog post today says it reckons a “world with 1 billion paying listeners is a realistic goal we should collectively set.” That’s double the number of people paying to stream across all platforms currently.

It sounds like a noble goal, but Spotify is a company that offers a very tempting ad-supported tier that enables users to have access to every track (albeit it shuffle mode) without coughing up a dime. Spotify Free reportedly pays less per stream than Spotify Premium too.

Spotify has 640 million active users, according to official figures, only 252 million of them pay for content. On the flip side, if you don’t subscribe to Apple Music or Tidal, you don’t get to listen to music. It’s that simple.

Spotify says the free tier is actually helping towards the one billion paying customers goal because it converts the odd few to paid subscribers. That’s some excellent mental gymnastics.

Spotify says: “We offer an ad-supported free tier, while some services don’t. Beyond the ad dollars this generates, more than 60% of Premium subscribers were once free tier users. Bringing in users who don’t expect to pay for music, and deepening their engagement, means they’re more inclined to become subscribers in the future.”

How about you start by asking people to pay?

4) Start paying fairer rates.

Spotify’s blog post today, outlining that it had paid artists $10 billion in 2024. It also says “well over 10,000 artists generate over $100,000 per year from Spotify alone. That’s a beautiful thing.”

But that’s more down to being the market leader than being generous with money. It’s the volume of streams it serves rather than the rate per stream.

According to various reports, Spotify ($0.00348 per play) ranks lower than all of its major rivals. That includes Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Prime Music Unlimited, Tidal, and Deezer. Believe it or not, Amazon Prime Music Unlimited tops the pile ($0.01123) in the pay-per-song capacity, according to data compiled by SoundGuys.

By that maths, for the large volume streamers, Spotify’s rate is enough to earn a great living. For Taylor Swift, the most popular artist on the planet and a phenomenon rarely seen in the history of recorded music, her monthly plays of 87.5 million are worth $304k.

Taylor Swift’s net worth, according to Forbes, is $1.6 billion. Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek has a net worth of $7.5 billion, according to the same source.

How’s that for valuing music?

5) Put the humans back to work

Spotify used to be a music discovery marvel. The streaming service turned me on to so many new bands, it was almost like having the an army of music curators, in touch with the scene I cared about, in my back pocket.

For whatever reason, that’s not the case anymore. I get served the same stuff over and over again. An increasingly narrow selection.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been with Spotify too many years now and the number of plays and skips has pigeonholed me? Whatever the reason it’d be nice if Spotify got some human editors, who really, really value music, to help out with freshening the playlists up a little bit, instead of relying on an inauthentic AI?

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