Spotify downloads are not MP3s. It makes sense – you’re not supposed to download songs off of Spotify for perpetual use as an MP3, which can be copied and transferred indefinitely without Spotify being there to play it. Instead, Spotify downloads are a proprietary file type that only Spotify can play. This, in theory, provides a bridge between ‘always on’ and spotty cell service that should satisfy the people who want to pay for Spotify instead of each song they like individually. For the amount of artists you can find today, that makes sense. You’d spend a lot of money, and if you don’t have an iPhone, there isn’t a super good place to find MP3s for sale that has every conceivable artist on it.
However, the drawback of this is that you need Spotify, and if you don’t want to listen to ads or pay for Spotify, then you lose access to that music. Youtube is another solution – Youtube has the same problems. Any service offering to play music for you outside of the MP3s and CDs of old, including the radio, will include ads or charge you money, and universally you will not be allowed to take anything with you should you depart that service. It’s a rental. You lose money on rentals.
Photoshop announcing it would switch to a subscription model after living for years under a one-and-done purchase understandably upset artists, but they never switched off of that plan; today, the outcry is more of a tired sigh that what once was ownable is now not. You cannot lose the key to your original copy, lest you have to shell out to rent it. The general attitude now is that the customer will complain, but they rarely have a good enough alternative to leave, so they’re usually good for a pretty sizeable wad of cash before they’re milked dry across every subscription they have to manage.
The worst is the power the rent model gives to the company. Spotify can pull indie artists, and they have basically no recourse. They’re just not on Spotify anymore. When Adobe announced it’s new model with Pantone, artists who used Pantone colors discovered that Adobe had blacked out the Pantone colors in completed works of art, art finished way before the Pantone deal was announced. Essentially, every file made with Adobe before this new partnership plan was even a stray thought was now a hostage to the subscription plan. Kindle is now threatening to prevent eBook transfer over USB, which, yikes. You own the book, right? Right? Why can’t you export that eBook anymore if it’s your book? A book ban won’t simply remove the book from your library without refunding you, right? Do we know that for certain? The rental model is not only a way to turn one-time buys into perpetual money siphons, its also a way for big companies to control their consumers.
