Ah, the wonderful world of streaming. Spotify just announced that it is raising the price of its subscriptions in many regions in the coming weeks. The increase affects Spotify customers in South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region according to the announcement.
In Germany, Spotify is raising the price by €2 per month to 12.99 Euro. Student up 1€ Euro to 6.99 Euro, Duo by 3€ to 17.99 Euro and Family by 4€ to 21.99 Euro per month.
Mileage may differ depending on the region, but prices should go up across the board, except for North-America.
Spotify says that it is increasing the price so that it “can continue to innovate”. For subscribers, it means that they have to pay more to continue using the service. Spotify increased pricing in July 2024 the last time (in the U.S.), and before that in July 2023.
Other streaming services, including Netflix or Google, are also increasing pricing regularly. Subscriptions are becoming more expensive with each passing year and there seems no end to it.
What you can do about it? If you do not really need them, cancel your subscription. If you like them, try subscribing for a short period each year. This works really well with TV and movie streaming services, as they may not put out enough quality content to justify annual subscriptions anyway.
Other than that, you could go back to physical media. Yes, that requires a handpicking approach to music and media, but you get can play the media indefinitely and without any limitations after the purchase. The only problem that you may run into is that the discs may get corrupt over time. You could counter that by digitalizing the media.
However, not everything is put out on disc anymore and things may get worse in the coming years.
Add a streaming server to your entertainment setup, and you may play music, TV shows or movies without having to use physical media at all.
Just purchase downloads for your music. You can often get a higher bit depth that way, as opposed to purchasing CD’s. You’ll usually get the artwork, and sometimes a complete “booklet” as a pdf file.
There are also a number of internet radio stations to choose from. You may have to listen to ads; but I grew up with all that, so it doesn’t bother me that much. Half these services run ads now even if you do pay.