Spotify is making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately. In November 2023, Spotify announced that they wouldn't be paying royalties for any song that didn't get at least 1,000 streams yearly, effectively getting free labor from some artists. Then in December the company laid off 17% of its staff, and last week CEO Daniel Ek made some incredibly terrible comments about "the cost of creating content being close to zero."
Now, despite awful (or no) royalty checks to artists, Spotify has raised its subscription prices. The Spotify Premium Individual plan is going up from $10.99 monthly to $11.99, the Premium Duo plan from $14.99 to $16.99, and the Premium Family plan from $16.99 to $19.99. Keep in mind that this is the second price hike in under one year, as Spotify jacked prices up in July 2023.
So why the price hike? According to a press release on the company's website, it's "we can continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience, we occasionally update our prices." So all the corporate nothingspeak you'd expect when justifying a price hike. I guess we'll see if this translates to artists actually getting cut a slightly bigger chunk of the bottom line.
