10 hour per month limit

[RFran]

Surely the 10 hour per month listening limit must affect advertisers on Spotify.

It reduces the capture time of listeners on the Spotify Free whilst on Premium Account  Spotify the adverisers are completely denied access to some listeners.

When advertisers wake up to this fact I can see a reduction in advertising revenue for Spotify.

I don't mind the occasional advert popping up in my playlists.

Some are amusing and  they can be  informative.

RFran

[Liam]

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@RFran wrote:

Surely the 10 hour per month listening limit must affect advertisers on Spotify.

It reduces the capture time of listeners on the Spotify Free whilst on Premium Account  Spotify the adverisers are completely denied access to some listeners.

When advertisers wake up to this fact I can see a reduction in advertising revenue for Spotify.

I don't mind the occasional advert popping up in my playlists.

Some are amusing and  they can be  informative.

RFran

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Hi, I moved this post as it has abosultely nothing to do with Spotify on Android 😉

It is possible that it affects advertisers - but people do get 'unlimited' listens for the first 6 months - the limits only come into effect after 6 months from account creation.

[Peter__]

Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂 

The Spotify adverts are there to subsidise the cost of the free service. Spotify is a subscription revenue based company, therefore the free restrictions are designed to move customers onto paid subscriptions after they are comfortable with the free service (my opinion). Really the adverts are only there to make some money back from providing the free service. 

Peter

Clarification: Spotify are not to blame for the restrictions (see below), music labels have a large say in the licensing agreements that govern Spotify. I just don't believe that it is all down to the licensing myself.

[SteveBrammer]

I really think that you should ask Spotify before making a statement like this.

Time after time Spotify have stressed that the restrictions are not in any way meant as a means to coerce people into buying a paid subscription. The restrictions are forced onto Spotify by the record companies and they would rather not have them at all.

[Peter__]

Its the same principle. Someone has got to make money from the service, and the labels clearly have the power to enforce the restrictions there must be a financial reason for it!

Peter

[SteveBrammer]

I'm not disputing that. All I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't make statements sounding like you represent Spotify and their views as a company. You should make it clear that what you said is your opinion and does not represent the views of Spotify.

[Peter__]

Everything I post is my opinion, I have never once said or implied that I work or am anyway professionally involved with Spotify as a company. As it says in the community guidelines, there is no official support here. 

As I pointed out in my first post, why else would the restrictions be imposed if the purpose was not to move people from the free service. Maybe its not Spotify making that call, I never said it was, I know the labels still make a lot of decisions about the content available on Spotify, but it is clear that someone is. From a customer perspective, it makes no difference who. 

Peter

[pcoventry76]

Or get a VPN in the USA as they dont have the limit ever. 

It works ive tried it 

[pcoventry76]

And new accounts get 20 hours. Not sure if that's in total or a month but it's not unlimited for the first 6 months at all! 

[Peter__]

I have never seen/heard/run into this time limit on free accounts before 6 months is up.

Peter

[velkon]

its hidden deep in terms and conditions and not metioned other than that

[Peter__]

Can you provide a link to where?

I can't find such a reference anywhere.

Peter

[pcoventry76]

Just go through the create a new account motion. It's in the " things you get " section

[Stupify]

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@SteveBrammer wrote:

I really think that you should ask Spotify before making a statement like this.

Time after time Spotify have stressed that the restrictions are not in any way meant as a means to coerce people into buying a paid subscription. The restrictions are forced onto Spotify by the record companies and they would rather not have them at all.

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When the restrictions were originally placed, the Spotify client always had a timer at the top right corner telling you how much time you have left. However, an update was later made which hid the timer until you only had one hour left.

This was, quite obviously, done to inconvenience free users because they no longer know exactly how long they can listen to. To get rid of the inconvenience of not knowing when the music will stop, they can subscribe and make it unlimited. Why do you think this was done, if not to make people more likely to subscribe? It's also quite a technical detail, so the decision to hide the timer had to be done by Spotify, not the record labels.

[Richard]

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@pcoventry76 wrote:

Just go through the create a new account motion. It's in the " things you get " section

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Could you get a screenshot of this for us?

[pcoventry76]

Sure..

After you enter your details you get this page..

Unless I am seeing things it says 20 hours?

[pcoventry76]

I've got to say I think it's pretty bad that someone can create a new account and get 6 months without problems. But my account (which has had alot of payments for premium) can only have 10 hours.. With masses of playlists too!

But there you go. 

I see today Deezer made double what spotify raised in finance. So maybe they are a good place to look.

[Peter__]

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@pcoventry76 wrote:

Sure..

After you enter your details you get this page..

Unless I am seeing things it says 20 hours?

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Confirmed, I also see this text (UK).

Peter

[pcoventry76]

The problem is that when you get to that screen you've already created the account

[Richard]

Thanks for bringing this up for us, the web team have now updated that page.

To clarify, all new accounts have no limits  for the first six months, and then 10 hours/month after that (and 5 plays per track in some regions, see here)