The rise of streaming audio services like Spotify initially had one significant liability relative to physical media (or even high-res digital files): the sound quality just wasn’t as good. In the years since then, some streaming services have arisen that reckoned with this to some extent — including Tidal, which offers a premium tier with high fidelity audio quality. But the question of whether or not Spotify would follow suit has loomed over the streaming audio space for a while now.
It turns out we might have our answer. The Verge’s Chris Welch reported the news of a recent post on Reddit’s r/truespotify forum, where a user known as nearlymind noted that they recently received a survey from Spotify after canceling their subscription. The survey asked, as nearlymind phrased it, “if I would switch to Spotify Platinum in the ‘next 30 days’.”
The post also contains an image suggesting that Platinum would cost $19.99 per month, and would include “HiFi” as one of its perks — along with a headphone tuner and reduced ads on Spotify’s podcasts, among other features.
A previous attempt to launch Spotify HiFi never materialized. Assuming this survey is accurate — as of this writing, The Verge is awaiting comment from Spotify — it could be a big step forward for Spotify on one of the big issues that’s been in demand. And then maybe some of that HiFi revenue can go towards paying artists more.
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