Developed as a startup in 2006, Spotify came out in the upfront of the music industry to cease the on growing piracy problem throughout the music industry worldwide. After a successful user growth in early 2011, Spotify reached a customer base of 2 million paying subscribers throughout Europe, only to escalate the number up to 15 million active users, with 4 million as the paid subscribers in 2012.
As of 2021, the music streaming app has surpassed 1 billion downloads in play store, comprising of 365 million active users, including 165 million subscribers.
However, the music streaming app has captured the attention of many in a pessimistic kind, as they state the downside of the app, despite of gaining popularity amongst the music pioneers and enthusiasts.
Table of Contents
Advantage of Spotify
Nonetheless, there are perks of using the music streaming app too:
1. Free Trial
Spotify allows you to enjoy the app with a one-month free trial. Although, you need to get a premium membership as the trial period ends. However, you can cancel the membership at any time, at your own ease.
2. Easy as Pie Usage
If you wish to use the Spotify app, you can register for free, or even use your social accounts to register, Facebook for instance. Moreover, this app grants you to create your own playlist, and enjoy it later.
3. Notable Compatibility
If not the greatest, a fairly appreciable feature of the music streaming app is its compatibility. Both the free and premium users of Spotify can enjoy this app in Windows, iOS, iPhone, Linux, MeeGo, OS X, Smart TV, PlayStation 3 & 4, Open Pandora, S60, Sonos, and diverse Android devices.
4. Diverse Membership Schemes
If you wish to use this app as a premium member, you can choose between diverse membership plans, as per your interest. For instance, Spotify has an individual membership plan for 9.99$ per month, a family membership plan for 14.99$ per month. Furthermore, Spotify proffers a special membership plan for students, at a rate of 4.99$ per month.
5. Perquisites of Membership
If you’re a premium user of Spotify, the app lets you download or stockpile up to 10,000 songs on 5 different devices each. As you can relish the offline playlists saved on your devices, you can explore the innumerable beneficiaries of this app, like skipping the tracks, getting rid of the intruding Ads, to name a few.
6. Libraries of Playlists
The music streaming app provides diverse libraries of playlists, with an approximation of over 40 million tracks, regardless of your free or premium membership. On top of that, the app blends with your music preference, keeping track of your music taste and aiding you to explore the latest trends of music throughout the World.
7. Socializing Music Experience
This app lets you socialize your music experience with your dear ones. If you have linked your social accounts on Spotify, you can share and review your favorite songs with your close ones, and even get an overview of what they are listening to.
8. The Spotify Free Edition
Spotify provides a free edition of the app too, at zero cost. The free version allows you use the shuffle mode, where any playlist, song or artist can be featured. You can entertain with the music app on mobile, PC, laptop or the website too.
Disadvantage of Spotify
Here are some of the demerits of the app that has led to the dissatisfaction of the keen consumers in spite of its fair usage:
1. Limitation in availability
Although the app was expected to flourish throughout the globe, it is inaccessible in many countries of the World till date. Noted as the greatest flaws of the app, many users are dissatisfied by its unavailability.
2. Lack of Lyrical Features
A diverse community of music enthusiasts who tend to go through the lyrics while listening to their favorite song, are demotivated as the music streaming app removed the lyrical features from its inventory, even if they are a premium user.
3. Fairly Expensive
The music streaming app provides fairly expensive paid plan to use the service as premium. The listeners can enjoy the app in its trial phase but as they wish to take the paid plan as premium members, they shall pay an amount of 120$ for a year.
4. Audio Quality
If you wish to use Spotify for free, the audio quality renders at a bit rate of 160kbps. Although, the premium users can stream their favorite songs at a bit rate of 320kbps.
5. Data Usage
The listeners cannot listen to the new albums or songs in the music app as long as they are offline. Hence, the data usage is a must for using the app, and listening to their favorite songs; a fair pay for a favorite play as an irony.
6. No Ownership of the Playlists
Whilst the listeners use the music streaming app online, they are restricted to enjoy their favorite playlist outside the premises of the app. Hence, downloading or uploading the songs outside the Spotify Repository is just an unauthorized make-a-wish.
7. It pays less
Whilst it seems to be quite alright to be a premium user, the music streaming app pays a lot lesser amount to the artists, per stream of their original songs. An approximate of 0.006$ of every dollar goes to the artist’s hands, even though the app’s earns a fairly adequate amount per stream of the song.
8. The Ads that Intervene
If you are a free user of Spotify app, you would piss yourself off while trying to listen to your favorite songs, due to the recurring Ads in the background that just don’t stop interrupting!
Last Updated on August 23, 2022
