Spotify has long been the music streaming service of choice in the UK and most of Europe, but remains unavailable in the US. Rumour has it the Sweden-based company is plotting its invasion of America at some point later this year – but Apple may be about to stamp out any chance of widespread Stateside success. iCloud could kill Spotify before the latter even launches.
Okay, so we don’t know for certain what iCloud will be and how much El Jobs and co will charge us for it – that’ll presumably be revealed at WWDC on Monday – but lets assume for a minute that today’s LA Times story is correct: that iCloud will allow iTunes users to upload their music into the cloud, then play it from a web browser or any internet-connected Apple device. It’ll charge $25 (£17) a year for this, although there’ll be a free trial period. Warner, Sony, Universal and EMI are all on board.
Spotify is a different service, of course – more akin to a totally customisable radio station, in that you don’t have to actually own the music in order to stream it to your computer or phone. There’s a free version, but it’s unavailable on mobile devices, forces you to listen to (often infuriating) ads and limits you to 10 hours of music a month. What Spotify really wants is you to pay for the ad-free Spotify Unlimited (£4.99 a month or £59.88 a year), or the ad-free and mobile-enabled Spotify Premium (£9.99 a month or £119.88 a year).
Spotify’s US pricing could be different, of course, but assuming it’s broadly in line with the UK pricing you’re looking at Spotify Premium costing around $175 a year to iCloud’s $25. Sure, you get to listen to music you haven’t paid for yet, but it’s still a huge gulf in price.
And consider the brand. Americans love their Apple products – they are fiercely brand loyal. I live in New York City at the moment (home to no fewer than four Apple Stores) and even clued-up, ultra-hip Brooklynites who know Cults from The Cult haven’t heard of Spotify. But you can bet your arse (or ass) they’ll know all about iCloud by the middle of next week.
Spotify’s hesitance to launch in the US may be its downfall across the pond. If the service had been around for a year, been advertised and marketed and gushed over in the US mainstream media, then hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans would be paying for it already. But by the time it does eventually arrive, most tech-minded music lovers will be using iCloud.
Of course, there are places where iCloud probably won’t go: onto Android phones and BlackBerries, and non-iPad tablets. So Spotify still has a market in the US – it just may have had a much bigger one if it had launched last year. As a committed Spotify subscriber I’ll be watching Steve Jobs WWDC keynote on Monday with great interest.
