Is This the Fall of Streaming Giant Spotify?

Applications. I'm sure anyone with a smart phone has heard this term one time or another. You might even be using an application on your phone at this exact moment! With the ever changing world of technology, mobile applications are a huge thing right now and a lot of companies are trying to get into this trend. However, since technology is changing, applications need to change as well.

Spotify is a music streaming company that opened their doors in 2006. It wouldn't be until 2008 when they would open their doors for people to join the streaming service. One thing that separates Spotify from so many other companies is that they offer a 'freemium' service to those who do not want to pay. What this means is that they can still access a lot of their music, but they have to listen to ads every so often. Also, they do not get access to all of the features that paid members have, such as downloading music for offline use.

In 2009, Spotify opened up public registration, so even if you didn't want to pay for Spotify, you could open up a free account. I remember back in high school when Spotify was released and everyone had this application on their computer. Facebook integration was able to ramp up popularity. I also used this application to discover several different bands at this time. However in recent years, it has been made clear that Spotify cares more about it's desktop application rather than the mobile platform. If you use Spotify on your mobile device, you may have noticed a change in the past few weeks. A lot of fans are outraged because Spotify got rid of the 'Recently Played' section on the 'Your Library' tab. Instead, the page just displays your playlists, your favorite artists, and your saved albums. Reactions have ranged from people being upset, people vocally stating their disgust for the change, as well as people switching streaming platforms because of it.

There are other platforms like Spotify, so Spotify isn't the only platform competing for new people. You have Apple Music, TIDAL, Google Play Music, and Amazon Music, just to name a few. These platforms also offer similar pricing plans similar to Spotify, so if you like the layout of another platform, you could switch without having to pay extra. In a recent study, Apple Music has actually passed Spotify in the amount of paid streamers it has. Spotify still has more active users because of the 'freemium' aspect, but this does raise some concern for Spotify.

If you live in the United States, chances are you have an iPhone. Apple is a large competitor in the US mobile phone market. Apple phones also have Apple Music pre-installed. With Apple Music already being installed on your phone, that makes it more available and ready to use rather than Spotify. Because of this, this creates an obstacle for Spotify since they do not create mobile phones. Also, some Android phones come with Google Music. While Spotify has been around longer and gets more attention than some of the other streaming services, it is difficult since their application is not pre-installed on phones.

Do you use music streaming services? Do you think Spotify will continue to lose subscribers? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments section!

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