Back in 2021, Spotify announced it would let everyone “listen to their favourite songs the way artists intended”. Which was a bit rich, because artists probably didn’t intend for you to experience their life’s work through a service that pays them peanuts. Fortunately, what Spotify actually meant was the audio quality was about to go up, due to Spotify Lossless hi-fi streams.
First they were coming as a premium tier. Then they didn’t show up at all. Meanwhile, Apple and Amazon simultaneously guffawed and torched Spotify’s business plan by sneakily rolling out lossless audio for free. I imagine this was followed by sheer panic at Spotify HQ as it slowly dawned that it would be impossible to charge an extra tenner a month for this feature. (Heck, even Tidal figured that out last year.)
All that was left was to glumly pick a name for the inevitable rollout of a freebie upgrade. And I’ve heard plenty since 2021. Spotify Platinum. The ‘Supremium’ tier. Spotify Deluxe. (I imagine ‘Spotify Please Please Give Us More Money For Nothing’ was too on the nose.) The winner? Spotify Lossless (with a capital L), which offers 24-bit/44.1kHz streaming across 50 markets. And, yes, it won’t cost extra. Which is good, because that’s the only way this was ever going to fly in 2025. Here’s why.
Everyone else already offers this
I mentioned Apple, Amazon and Tidal. But there are others too, like Deezer and Qobuz. Even after Apple and Amazon lobbed a double-bass-sized wrench into the streaming music works, some companies clung to their premium tiers. But one by one they folded. Turns out ‘pay us extra for no good reasons other than we’d like more of your money, please’ isn’t a killer business model after all.
Compression was always a tech problem
Compressed audio wasn’t invented to fleece you – it was a necessity. When people started flinging digital music around in the 1990s, internet connectivity was so poor that even downloading an MP3 weighing in at a few megabytes was painful. An entire album of CD-quality is half a gig. But that problem’s now gone. Video files remain chunky, but audio isn’t. There’s no good reason music streaming and downloads shouldn’t default to lossless, only switching to compressed audio at the user’s command. Nice to see Spotify finally agrees.
You won’t notice anyway
Maybe you’ve got bat ears and an audio set-up worth more than my house. Perhaps you’re furious Spotify Lossless is ‘only’ 24-bit/44.1kHz because you just bought new tuning sticks from Snake Oil Music Co. and are eager to bang on about ‘soundstages’ and how your very specific SSD somehow makes Phil Collins sound silky smooth, whereas anything less than your gear makes it sound like he’s smacking a tin can while sitting in a bin.
The thing is, most people, most of the time, wouldn’t be able to tell Spotify’s old best settings from lossless. Their ears aren’t capable. Their gear isn’t either. And I know you don’t want to hear this, but in all likelihood neither is yours. But, hey, that’s another good reason why no one is paying extra for this, right?
You might still grumble – at this column, about the injustice of Spotify not beaming 128-bit/1.44 THz audio directly into your skull, or even about not paying more to be part of a super-special high-res audio club. But think yourself lucky. At least Spotify hasn’t unleashed yet more infinite karaoke on the world, like Apple Music. For that alone, we should all be quietly grateful.
