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by d2vid 4575 days ago
If tweens listen to 10 hrs/day of Justin Bieber on repeat using free accounts, Bieber shouldn't get money from adults who listen a few hours a day to anything but him using premium accounts.

I think it's quite reasonable to assume that differences in listening and paying habits between users would NOT average out, and a per user split would be fairer.
3 comments
e12e 4575 days ago
I agree that a per person split would be might be better (for how I think royalties should be distributed) -- but one would also take into account the ad revenue those tweens (and other "free" users) generate.

I don't know how Spotify is doing financially, but hopefully they make money off free users as well as paid users (but I'd not be surprised if they end up a bit like Opera did -- making money from paid users and licensing/bundling deals -- and just using the commercial breaks/ads as stick to guide users towards the paid service).

Either way I'd much prefer being able to pay for lossless records that I get to keep -- I gave up on Spotify quite early as it ended up a little like youtube -- come back to a playlist after a few months and half the songs were gone. I know they're better now, but that experience just underlined the idea that paying for licensing content in a way that leaves you vulnerable to that content disappearing is a very bad deal for me as a listener/consumer.

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maccard 4575 days ago
Its interesting that you mention their ad breaks. For 6 months, I had no idea that spotify operated a premium service whatsoever, until they imposed the 2.5hr limit per week on my account and hit me with more ads. I subscribed immediately.
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bitJericho 4574 days ago
I think by broadening the pool they are effectively bringing more music to Spotify. This is good even if it's of the Bieber variety because then users like me can discover artists I wouldn't normally listen to or discover new CDs from artists that used to be in fashion and are no longer.
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Already__Taken 4575 days ago
in 5 years of such use by said tweens how many more users might be brought into the system. How many tweens parents a there accounts made for.

Things are not so simple.

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