The world’s most popular music streaming service was somewhat left behind in 2021. While rivals Apple Music and Amazon Music significantly upgraded their catalogues’ audio quality to 24-bit hi-res, all loyal Spotify subscribers could do was watch helplessly on, as the service’s promise to improve its own, lowly 320kbps library failed to materialise. (The non-loyal subscribers? They jumped ship.) This went on for four years.
Sure, Spotify continued to pioneer the streaming experience during that time with innovative discovery features, its milestone addition and growth of audiobooks and podcasts, and the pop culture hit Spotify Wrapped playlist – and had market-leading subscriber numbers to show for it.
