Spotify has long promised this. Too much time. The greatest service of streaming musical affirmed that among his plans was to launch a high-quality modality for his subscribers, but we have been waiting for more than two years with nothing that can be glimpsed.
And it’s not that Spotify has climbed to its laurels: the job would already be done and what has happened is a change of plans. A turn of course that has been caused by Apple and its strategy, that when you understand you understand the reason for this long wait.
A few years ago, the only service of streaming of music that had a “Hi-Fi” mode was Tidal. and that modality it had a price that doubled the standard plan: almost 20 euros per month. It was the sacrifice that had to be made if we wanted to not have audio losses.
It made sense: sending that audio quality means using more bandwidth, which requires extra effort from the servers. According to an interview The Verge has given to Spotify co-chairman Gustav Söderström, such a plan was laid out and underway for the service. They were ready to release it for over a year.
The plans were overturned by Apple Music, whose prices knocked down the strategy that had been up to now
But ah, then what we already know happened: Apple began to offer the quality lossless with spatial audio and Dolby Atmos in Apple Music’s own standard mode. Without paying more, without that being an extra. High quality for everyone who had headphones capable of playing it, like the AirPods Pro 2.
That derailed Spotify’s plans. Söderström affirms in the interview that he still intends to launch a special plan of high quality and that it will cost more, but he will now have to fight against the Apple Music plan that costs 10.99 euros per month. It won’t be easy, which is why Söderström doesn’t give any release dates. What he does say is that We will see it in one way or another “that works at the cost level”. There is little room left to doubt.
While we wait, Spotify will also have to keep an eye on user reaction to the new “Tiktokized” interface they want to launch. At the moment the initial opinions are not very good due to the randomness of the content and for imitating social networks, although for my part I prefer to wait to try the new experience to say my verdict.
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