If I were Spotify I wouldn’t touch the price. Spotify Premium is 9.99/mo right now. I would just ditch the “Premium” branding, rename it “Hifi”, and move everyone in that tier to cd quality streaming. That would be the most expedient way to do away with all/most competition in the market.
Will they go that route? Probably not. They’ll probably keep the Premium tier and tack on $5 for Hifi. That would still put them well below the price of Tidal Hifi and on par with Qobuz, but with a much bigger catalog. The way I see it, either way they’re all but guaranteed to wipe out the competition. And I think Jay-Z knows it.
I have a lot of old ripped CDs that I enjoy, and Roon gives me that. It also helps me discover new music with the Roon Radio feature. But yeah, it’s a lot of money.
The thing is we don’t know what Spotify plans are for ROON Support. Right now all I read is pure speculation.
Is see Spotify upping its price for the “HiFi” but most likely in line with Qobuz and well under Tidal.; Now these NEW lets call them owners of Tidal could very well drop their price as well to try to hold on to what little subscribers they have.
The part that Spotify already has in advantage to the others is their widespread integration directly with major manufacturers. There are far more Marantz/Denon/Yamaha/Bose/etc. users out there who will subscribe to Spotify because it’s already implemented (although not always well) into their products.
Spotify is also well established in home control systems such as Alexa/Google etc.
More like how much Spotify will charge Roon to integrate their service. Tidal & Qobuz could use Roon to bolster their user base; Spotify doesn’t need Roon, and they’re not likely to let Roon ride their coattails without paying handsomely for the privilege of doing so.
Here’s a thought: it ocurred to me today that Square is heavily invested in the crypto/blockchain space. Imogen Heap (I am a HUGE fan. You should be too!) has been spearheading a project to implement blockchain in the music industry for years (“Project Mycelia”). Coincidentally,or perhaps not, below is a link from Tidal talking about the project, as well as another more detailed article from Forbes. If I recall correctly Imogen has said in the past that JayZ was on board with the project. I wonder if Square, with their crypto/blockchain cred, buying Tidal is a step toward the full realization of Project Mycelia?