The music streaming wars are about to heat up again, as two major services are preparing to announce very enticing prices.
The New York Times reports that Amazon and Pandora are both readying cheap music streaming services that’ll cost half the price of Spotify and Apple Music, both of which charge $10/month. The lower prices are a result of fresh negotiations with record labels.
Amazon and Pandora’s cheaper music streaming plans are expected to each cost $5/month. This would bring the annual price of streaming music from $120 per year to $60 — lower than the $80 average we spent on music in 1999.
Pandora’s new $5 service will offer customers “new features like the ability to skip more unwanted songs and store several hours’ worth of playlists online,” in addition to removing ads.
And at the end of the year, Pandora will announce a service similar to Spotify and Apple Music’s streaming library services for the same $10 price tag.
Meanwhile, Amazon is readying a Spotify-like, “full catalogue” service priced at $10/month. Interestingly, the NYT says that users of their popular Echo device (it’s Siri for the home) will only be charged “about half” of the regular monthly fee.
The Echo doubles as a home speaker system, so you can see why Amazon wants to associate their new music streaming service with the device.
The New York Times does not reveal whether or not this $10/month service from Amazon will be offered to Amazon Prime subscribers at no extra charge. If it were, many customers who are already signed up for Amazon Prime (which includes free two-day shipping and a Netflix-like video streaming service) will likely be tempted to cancel Spotify, Apple Music, etc. and just use the Prime package they already have at Amazon.
The NYT notes that both Amazon and Pandora “have spent months negotiating new licensing terms with record companies and music publishers to allow their new streaming offerings, and they are close to completing those deals.”
These cheap music streaming services sound like good alternatives to Spotify and Apple Music, and should encourage more people to sign up for this modern way of listening to music.
Source: The New York Times
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