Spotify still wants to release subscription with lossless music

Spotify still wants to release a hi-fi version of its service. The Swedish company announced that a few years ago, but there is currently no option to listen with higher quality. The function is already in use internally.

A top executive of Spotify says in an interview with The Verge that the hi-fi option has been paused, as the industry has changed since the announcement. Early last year, Spotify said it would become part of its Premium subscription, but the company hasn’t said anything about it since.

Since the announcement of Spotify, the option for lossless music has been included in the regular subscriptions of various competitors. Spotify probably wanted to charge a higher price for its hi-fi option. The streaming service has been testing this for some time; the first messages from users who received invitations for such tests date back to 2017. During those tests, users were offered to listen to music in higher quality at an additional cost.

The CEO of Spotify confirms that the feature is still coming. “We’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it in a way that makes sense to us and to our users. The industry has changed and we’ve had to adapt.” What that will look like is unknown. Spotify could have announced it at its event last week, but didn’t. Then it came out that it will put a TikTok-like feed on the home screen.