Spotify becomes one of the biggest social music sharing in the planet. It took them 2 years since its launch in 2008 to reach 10 million users (2,5 million in pay subscription). Today we are over 15 million and growing. It is a great way to share and listen to the music we like. With the subscription we can even listen to all the music we want on mobile and without internet connection… why should we buy music still?

The web 2.0 and the internet economy brought a second social and industrial revolution since the one at the end of the 19th century. Never so many changes happened so fast in terms of human behavior in society. The music went digital, the films, the art, the relationships, the news, the radios, the television, books… well basically everything that can be on a binary base, we have it!

Nevertheless, there is something quite interesting with the digitalization of content, it is the un-materiality of it. In deed before all of this, we had at home books, cds, DVD and video cassettes. Real true 3D objects getting dusty and taking your space. We paid for one copy of the artistic work and we had it at home. We could enjoy it alone, in groups or even friends could borrow it from you for an evening, a week or more.

Today, things are a little different. With the VOD for online rental movies, and Spotify for Music, you do not “own” anymore a copy of the artistic work. You just have bought the limited rights to listen or watch it.

In terms of Films, basically you get the same thing as in the traditional rental shop. You pay a few dollars for the evening and you can watch your preferred movie during those 4 to 8 hours rental.

With music, things were much more complex. You do not wish to “rent” music. Either you listen to the Radio or you own a copy of the music you are listening to. When the digital revolution came into the Radio topic, we got the birth of services like Deezer in which you could listen to music, create your own playlists, basically generate your own personal radio station. Soundcloud brought a more “connoisseur” approach and added interesting features for Social Sharing. I will not speak about Myspace as it has no interest anymore.

Spotify takes you a little further. Of course you can listen online to music, you can also create your own playlists and listen to other’s people playlists. But since Spotify came up with their paid offer on mobile, you can basically take all the music you want everywhere with you and even listen to it off-line. You download the music streamings inside the app and keep it as long as you wish for off-line listening.

So the question is: Why should we still buy music? With a monthly subscription of around 10$US/month, you can basically have access to all the music you wish no matter if you are online or offline. So for the price of one music album per month, you already paid your Spotify subscription. Today out of 15 million users, 7 million have a paid account.

This looks tempting and Spotify makes everything so that you get the subscription after a while. You start with a free account and during 30 days you get a premium account in which you can listen to all the music you wish, benefit from all the mobile features. After one month, you can keep a free account and get to the basic free subscription. During 6 month you can listen to music online with a Desktop. After 6 month you are limited to 6 hours per month. Nothing is for free on this world. Finally you realize that you pay for a radio station that broadcast only the music you want. Not bad, especially if you listen to music on mobile a lot.

Students have now a special offer, -50% off.

Check more details on spotify website: www.spotify.com.

Spotify once, spotify always ?

LA

Info sourced on spotify website and Gizmodo. All images are copyrighted with no reproduction rights available.