One of the most popular posts on this blog is one that I wrote about Spotify called “3 Reasons Why I Cancelled my Spotify Premium after the Trial Period.” That was written in October 2011 and to this day remains the most visited post on the blog. 2 years later I’d like to change my position entirely.
Today, I’d like to give my 3 reasons why I believe Spotify is a phenomenal service that deserves your $9.99 per month.
Access Over Ownership
I recently listened to a phenomenal podcast featuring Jeremiah Owyang. In this podcast, Jeremiah talks about the collaborative economy and mentions a concept called “Access Over Ownership.”
This idea threw me for a loop.
It wasn’t until he described this concept in terms of applications like Uber or high end handbags for rent that the concept of paying for access to an enormous library of music even made sense.
You see, I’ve spent more than 15 years building a truly epic music collection. I’ve tagged, organized, and rigorously scrubbed my music collection for total awesomeness. It’s 26,000 songs strong, and giving up the concept of ownership was not in the cards. Paying for access to music while sitting on 26,000 songs seemed ridiculous.
However, I’ve come to appreciate having access to all of the songs not represented in my 26,000 songs.
While Spotify still does not have EVERYTHING I want, it has plenty that doesn’t exist in my iTunes library, and that alone is worth $9.99/month.
Music Is A Social Experience
I’ve come to realize that this is about more than just music, it’s about enabling music to be more social.
Part of my technographic profile aside from “creator,” is “collector.” I like to find things, categorize them into neat little piles and curate specific experiences. I’m a huge fan of making people “mix tapes.” Spotify allows me to more easily share individual songs or full playlists.
Spotify even allows for collaborative playlists.
iTunes can’t compare. Furthermore, allowing people to connect their music libraries together leads to…
Discovery
In the beginning, Spotify was introduced to me at the same time as Facebook “frictionless sharing” and while the option is still available (and unfortunately turned on by default), it can thankfully be turned off. Quite honestly, I don’t care what every one of my friends is listening to. I actually only care what a small handful of my friends listen to, because we have similar music taste. What I prefer and enjoy much more, is digging into the playlists of individuals who I know that I have music chemistry with.
Scouring the Spotify playlists from 2 or 3 friends has already led me to 5 new artists that I never even knew about. Add that together with Spotify’s built in discovery features, and you’ve got music-discovery bliss.
The ONLY issues
Spotify still has far too many edited songs. When I listen to Lil Wayne, Drake or Eminem, I don’t want a censored version…I want raw energy. That needs to be corrected. I’m an adult.
Spotify also still lacks a full selection. Case in point: The Beatles. Pink Floyd just arrived recently. Plenty of others are still missing. So for now I’ll be using a combo of Spotify and iTunes.
I have to give Spotify credit though, and perhaps it was just a matter of me getting used to the idea, but the $9.99 per month is totally worth it.