Nothing in life is free... Especially free music

Spotify have announced major changes to their free music offering which seem conflict with their mantra to make music on-demand available to all.

The changes are clearly an attempt by the Scandinavian music service to upscale the majority of its European users to their premium, paid-for model, potentially paving the way for the company to strike deals in the US with the so-far resistant label chiefs that could see the music provider really take off in the lucrative American market.

It seems the company has been obsessed over the last couple of years with cracking the US market, potentially to the detriment to the service it provides to a growing audience elsewhere in the world.

For me, these changes (which I've listed below) are a real backwards step for Spotify, meaning large numbers of devoted users and music lovers will simply switch service opening up new opportunities for a free streaming service to jump in. I understand the financial need to crack the states and importance of jumping into bed with the record labels but I think they should concentrate on offering the best service possible to users.

For me they need to grow their free user base in the rest of the world and work harder on incentivizing these users to pay for the service. The company has dipped its toe in an attempt to make the service more socially integrated but could have huge gains here and ultimately this could be the answer to its monetizing issues.

Only time will tell as to whether these new changes have a huge impact on the services audience, but I for one, will be on the look out for the next great free music service.

Here’s how the changes will work:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.
• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.