The Apple of Your Eye - Spooked by Spotify’s latest price hike? Time to reconsider your streaming choices.

With streaming platforms as ubiquitous as the smartphones in our pockets, Spotify is taking a big swing with its latest announcement. For the second time in just one year in the US and the third globally, Spotify in the July billing cycle will see price increases across its standard monthly streaming plans: with options galore, is Spotify still the apple of your eye?

Understanding Spotify's Sweet and Sour Move

A Taste of the New Prices

First, its Premium subscription will increase from $11 to $12 a month; a Duo subscription’s bills will grow from $15 to $17; and a Family plan will jump the highest, from $17 all the way to $20. Spotify’s faithful clients are assured that there will always be a free, less-featured plan But why?

Why the Price Hike?

Spotify’s logic is, on one level, depressingly simple. ‘In order to keep investing in and improving our product features and provide users with the best experience possible, we sometimes revise our prices,’ the company said in a blog post. ‘By shifting costs from one business segment to another, companies can increase revenue without changing their total costs.’ It is a justification for the upward redistribution of income. But is it one that the consumer can accept?

The Ripple Effect: Comparing Competitors

Given this, it’s time to look at Spotify’s new pricing in the context of its competitors. Its biggest rival in the streaming war, Apple Music, ups the incentive to include an individual plan for $11 per month and a family plan for $17. Tidal is similarly priced. Amazon Music and YouTube Music offer their own competitive tiers. Given the tight competition, is Spotify’s price increase a gamble, then?

The CORE OF LOYALTY: Spotify's Secret Sauce

So even as they seethe about ticking up yet another penny per month, Spotify listeners remain a remarkably devoted lot. An October report in Bloomberg, citing figures from the research firm Antenna, noted that Spotify’s followers are the least likely to switch services of any streaming brand’s fans. It’s a loyalty, to be sure, that Spotify can be justifiably proud of. But just how far does it run?

The Domino Effect: Will Others Follow Suit?

But Spotify’s move is inevitably the first in what will become a wider industry discussion. If the gamble pays off, and Spotify maintains its global subscriber base, and perhaps even improves on it, will other services feel compelled to up their game? A domino effect is a very real prospect. The industry’s pricing structure could be altered as a consequence.

A Listener's Dilemma: To Stay or Not to Stay?

At the centre of this trend is the quandary of the consumer. As the cost of being loyal creeps up, residents may starting asking themselves if Spotify’s huge library and ease of use are reasons enough to take a big bite out of their wallets. Or will the promise of cheaper options and the bad taste of a price hike send a fleet of refugees streaming from Spotify’s shores?

Exploring Alternatives: THE APPLE IN THE ROOM

Out of all the alternatives, Apple Music is the best Spotify competitor to pay attention to right now, because it’s cheap and backed by a tech company that does ecosystem and innovation well. If you are looking for a place to park your music collection – a place that could be your Spotify, your Rdio, your Google Music, your MOG, your iTunes, or any other collection of audio in the cloud – your decision is suddenly more interesting.

Understanding APPLE in the Streaming Play

In the company of behemoths, Apple Music distinguishes itself by offering the elegance of its integration with Apple’s ecosystem – iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and so on – and its coherence as a package. The smartwatch functions as yet another interaction point along a system of interlinked hardware and software that is designed to connect a user deeply embedded in the Apple world. The additional content also helps: Apple Music enhances its offering by supplying exclusives, hand-curated lists by human beings, and high-definition audio.

Now that the dust has settled on Spotify’s price hike – and with Apple and other streaming rivals waiting in the wings to capture dissatisfied Spotify users – the streaming wars are at a crossroads. It remains to be seen whether the streaming tide will shift, such that loyalists change sides. Only time will tell whether Spotify will indeed throw open the gates. But one thing is certain: In the struggle for streaming dominance, the power of choice is now more listener-driven than ever.