I know Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to refer to a specific dynamic with social media, but what he described is really just a particular example of a more fundamental process that happens to virtually all notably successful companies. And this is a prime example of it.
In the beginning, the company gains success by offering a quality product that people want at a reasonable price. They actually provide a product or service the people want at terms with which they’ll agree, and thereby succeed, and that’s where the focus is.
But along the way, they pick up a layer of essentially parasitic executives and shareholders who are paid obscene amounts of money mostly just for having achieved their positions. They bring little if anything of value to the company - they just funnel enormous sums of money into their own and each other’s pockets.
And then the focus changes. It goes from winning customers through offering the best possible service or product at the best possible price to maximizing revenue with which to pay grotesquely inflated salaries and dividends to a relative few by offering the shittiest possible service or product at the highest possible price, and counting on market share, lack of competition, name recognition and inertia to keep the company going in spite of the fact that it’s now… enshittified.
And that’s what we’re seeing at Spotify right now.
See also : Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Google…
This isn’t a “tech” issue. This is what happens without competition. Notice how in areas without many coffee shops, the few that exist get away with serving crappy coffee? But if there’s a lot of coffee shops the quality increases?
This is a fundamental part of economics. More choices result in better quality because of competition. Of course this relies on many things: being able to switch easily, customers understanding the product, etc. Literally every other industry wants to consolidate and avoid competition but it’s only possible in some of them.
This is what happens without competition.
I used Napster for the better part of a year. The app was horrible, the web player bad. It would be missing random albums, and some albums had missing songs. I finally went back to Spotify. But am once again looking for an alternative, hopefully one with business licensing so I can play it in my shop.
Just going do drop this here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Spotify said it’s increasing prices so that it can “continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience."
For example, a reported user going by “ccolburn” on Spotify’s online forum reacted to this news with a post titled, "I only want music only!
Spotify stock opened 5.5 percent higher on news of subscription prices rising, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
The announcement of price changes follows Spotify’s recent decision this December to brick its Car Thing hardware after releasing it to the general public in February 2022.
Spotify has previously declined to specify to Ars Technica the exact criteria required for receiving a full refund on Car Thing.
As Spotify tries to push toward profitability by raising prices and adding new endeavors and by distancing itself from old ones, it walks a tightrope in maintaining the type of customer satisfaction and trust that’ll keep people subscribing.
The original article contains 769 words, the summary contains 154 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
“Frustrated subs”, indeed. 😆
