What is Spotify and How to Use It

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Everything about why the music service is so popular and how to use it as conveniently as possible.

What is Spotify

Spotify is a Swedish music service available in nearly 120 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. Its catalog contains more than 50 million songs and 4 billion playlists with tracks by Russian and international artists. The service can be used on the web, on desktops, mobile devices, game consoles, TVs and stereos.

The link can download clients for all other devices.

Why Spotify Is So Popular

Spotify offers the legal ability to listen to online tracks from its huge music catalog, which has tons of albums not available on other platforms. However, users love the service not only for this.

The main advantage of Spotify is its music selection algorithms that adapt almost perfectly to the tastes of the listeners. If you enable the Music Non-Stop function in the settings, similar tracks will automatically play at the end of the playlist. Often there you can find something new for yourself.

In addition, there are thematic playlists, compiled by other users and the musicians themselves. These collections will be waiting for you every week. And daily "Mixes of the Day" are available - playlists sorted by genre from the tracks you listened to and similar ones.

Experienced users will also be waiting for a selection of the best of the year, summer tracks, something that was once played on repeat. It is so pleasant to delve into all this and remember the events and emotions associated with your favorite music.

Spotify also has very strong personalized radio stations based on your preferences. You can create a station not only by genre, playlist or artist, but also by a separate track.

And finally, synchronization is very convenient in the service. You can start listening to a track on one device and continue from the same place on another. And you can also turn on music on your computer and at the same time control the player from your smartphone.

How much is it

Spotify is free to listen to. True, in this case, you have to put up with the inconveniences:

• Advertising inserts appear periodically.
• On mobile, songs in playlists and albums are played randomly (in desktop applications, this is not).
• You cannot skip more than six tracks per hour.
• You will not be able to download music for offline listening.
• Maximum quality (320 Kbps) cannot be selected.

As you can see, the restrictions are relatively mild and there is no feeling that the free version is formal and serves only to lure premiums. For example, I have been using Spotify without a preferred subscription for many years, because I listen to music more often in the macOS app, and there is no inconvenience at all.

If this does not suit you, there are as many as four Premium options: for students - for 85 rubles per month, for singles - for 169, for two - for 219, for families - for 269 rubles. Everywhere there is a free trial period for 3 months.

Premium removes all limitations of the free version. In family subscriptions, as a bonus, the service makes general selections in accordance with the tastes of the members.

How to register a Spotify account

Go to Spotify's website and click Sign Up.

Choose to login with Facebook or enter your email and create a password.

Fill in your personal data and, agreeing to the terms, confirm the registration.

In the same way, you can create an account directly from the application on your smartphone or tablet. On iOS, authorization is available through the "Sign in with Apple" function.

How to pay for a Premium subscription

It is very easy to subscribe now. And although the corresponding section is in the mobile application, this can only be done in a browser from a computer or smartphone.

Go and scroll down the page.

Choose one of the preferred version options and click Subscribe.

Enter and confirm the card details for payment (money will be debited only after 3 months).

How to transfer your library from other services

If you have used other streaming before, then you probably want to transfer the accumulated playlists to Spotify, so as not to start from scratch. How simple and quick to do this, Lifehacker spoke in detail in a separate article.