Spotify has become one of the online services essential for any music lover. Although Apple Music pursues at a good pace, continues to lead the sector surpassing 100 million users. Of course, most of these users are still free, and according to the latest data announced in September payment users exceed 40 million.

That’s why, because more than half of its user base remains unpaid, in May 2016 they aggressively reduced the price of their family plans, making it even more attractive. But how is the payment service of this service today? Let’s review how Spotify’s Premium mode, what it has and what it lacks, and whether it’s worth paying the subscription considering what it offers users.

On a personal level, I have to admit that since Spotify Premium began offering the possibility of downloading your favorite discs to listen to them offline on the mobile, the service has managed not to re-download music for torrent for being more complicated than doing it from your App. But since there are not two users alike, let’s start by reviewing the main differencesbetween the mode of payment and the free one.

Spotify Free vs Spotify Premium

The main differences between both modalities are explained in a very basic way Spotify itself in the Premium section that you access to inform you about the service. The main one is just the one you’re thinking about, being able to say goodbye to advertising so you do not suddenly skip the announcement of a group you hate in the middle of your favorite playlist. But there is much more than that.

For example, the second big advantage is that the Premium mode makes the mobile application useful . If you do not pay, the app for Android or iPhone is pretty basic, and in fact the only thing you can do with it is to listen to music at random. This changes in the Premium mode, where you have access to the letter to the whole catalog to listen to what you want whenever you want.

Being the free mode of the mobile app basically a playlist, it is quite annoying that the number of songs you can skip is limited. That is because they have left only for the users of payment the possibility of being able to skip without any limit all the clues that you do not like or you do not want to listen.

Also keep in mind that, depending on the rights and negotiations with artists and record labels, there are some albums or specific songs that you can not reproduce if you are not a paying user. In addition, the social functions of sharing music with your friends are also somewhat limited in free mode.

When you are a Free user you will not have another of the most important functions of the service, that of being able to download music. When you’re Premium, Spotify lets you download up to 3333 songs on three different devices, for example your mobile, tablet and laptop. This way you can listen to your favorite discs or playlists offline, something that makes the difference when traveling or saving data.

And of course, if you have good speakers or headphones in your home you will not want to settle for basic sound qualities. Premium mode unlocks 320 kbps quality for both desktop and mobile clients.

What’s missing from Spotify?

But in all services there is always room for improvement, and Spotify is no exception. To start with, you should ask them for a better designed mobile application, since the one they have now has some shortcomings. In this aspect it seems that they are already testing a new design for their new applications, it will be necessary to see what improvements it incorporates beyond giving more presence to the covers during the reproduction.

Neither should he rest on his laurels in the matter of catalog. There are still a lot of discs that are not , which forces you to buy and digitize them or directly resort to P2P downloads. The exclusivity of other competing services and the artists who decide to later release their album on Spotify are also a problem for their subscribers, so it would have to be marked as a new year’s purpose to negotiate that aspect better.

The more audiophiles may also miss some concrete options with which to get a little more juice. Visually Spotify does not have any type of graphic equalizer, a reproduction that many other offline players have taken years. Neither has any option to listen to music with lossless quality, something that would not hurt for the most demanding, although it would have to pay a little more for it.

And finally, Spotify could use it to unify its content by offering on the desktop the same as on the mobile. If you are a user of Spotify Premium, your mobile application has long included a catalog of video channels and another of podcasts, but these two sections are not on the desktop. It’s absurd, especially in terms of videos that are sure to look better on your desktop monitor.

So, is Spotify worth it?

As always happens, the final answer to the biggest questions we ask ourselves today depends on how you listen to music. If you only do it casually, always on the PC, and you are not the one who listens to music on your cell phone you can possibly pass perfectly without paying the service, although eating advertisements from time to time.

However, if you are a person who listens to music with assiduity then you will certainly be worth the 10 euros that your Premium service costs. In fact, if you get together with friends and family the thing gets even better, since for 15 euros you have your famous Family Plan, which can benefit up to six different users, an offer currently almost unmatched by other services of the competition.

Personally I have to say that Spotify has changed the way I listen to music . Some of the benefits of Premium do not appreciate them until you use them, but once you do, you find it impossible to go back and return to the basic model, especially thanks to the world of possibilities that opens the online mode with high quality music .

Before, what I was doing was digitizing my extensive physical collection of CDs, complementing it with some P2P downloads and carrying everything on the microSD of the mobile using some Android player. Now what I have in the SD are almost a hundred discs downloaded directly with Spotify. It’s exactly the same experience , only it’s easier to download them on your mobile and you know that you’re contributing your money so that your favorite artists can continue to make the music you like.

Although I am a user of Spotify, I do not want you to stop looking at what the competition offers. In fact, here is a comparison with what each of the different music streaming services offers. But if you are hesitating between Spotify Free and Premium, I believe that to date the mode of payment is absolutely worth it , since you take advantage of the money you invest.