There are two blatant lies in this thread that need correction.

1) Spotify has far more free users than Premium users. In March of this year, Spotify reported that it had 30 million paying subscribers and 100 million total users. So 70% of their user base is Free.

2) There are no indications that Spotify is removing the free tier. A lone article in the Financial Times, published in September, reported that Spotify "is considering changing its tune" on the issue. No other major reports have been published since on this topic, and Spotify has never stated that they'll be removing free.

Financially, it does not make a lot of sense for them to remove the free tier. Spotify is the only major streaming service with a free tier, which allows it to earn the loyalty of tens of millions of music consumers who might otherwise be ambivalent towards it. Furthermore, it is likely that a sizeable chunk of free users would switch to listening to music on YouTube or illegally downloading it if Spotify chose to eliminate its free tier. The 2015 Nielsen year-end report found that the single most important factor for consumers in deciding which streaming service to use is cost, with 83% of consumers saying this. Additionally, an incredible 78% of consumers said that they were either somewhat or very unlikely to pay for a streaming service in the next 6 months. By eliminating its free tier, Spotify would decrease its revenue and lose millions of customers, so I really believe that it's not happening anytime soon.

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Obviously Taylor has to come back to Spotify-- otherwise, her next lead will perform relatively poorly compared to her previous leads.

There are two blatant lies in this thread that need correction.

1) Spotify has far more free users than Premium users. In March of this year, Spotify reported that it had 30 million paying subscribers and 100 million total users. So 70% of their user base is Free.

2) There are no indications that Spotify is removing the free tier. A lone article in the Financial Times, published in September, reported that Spotify "is considering changing its tune" on the issue. No other major reports have been published since on this topic, and Spotify has never stated that they'll be removing free.

Financially, it does not make a lot of sense for them to remove the free tier. Spotify is the only major streaming service with a free tier, which allows it to earn the loyalty of tens of millions of music consumers who might otherwise be ambivalent towards it. Furthermore, it is likely that a sizeable chunk of free users would switch to listening to music on YouTube or illegally downloading it if Spotify chose to eliminate its free tier. The 2015 Nielsen year-end report found that the single most important factor for consumers in deciding which streaming service to use is cost, with 83% of consumers saying this. Additionally, an incredible 78% of consumers said that they were either somewhat or very unlikely to pay for a streaming service in the next 6 months. By eliminating its free tier, Spotify would decrease its revenue and lose millions of customers, so I really believe that it's not happening anytime soon.

--

Obviously Taylor has to come back to Spotify-- otherwise, her next lead will perform relatively poorly compared to her previous leads.