Price increase in Germany is apparently imminent

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At the end of May, Spotify had informed its customers of new terms of use and set a deadline for rejection of June 30th. Now customers who rejected actually get the cancellation.

Clear communication looks different. In the long customer email that Spotify had sent out in the spring, all of this had read in a very friendly manner. According to the provider, the terms of use have been made and they have been made clearer and more legible.

Only one point positioned quite far down was noticeable. In it, Spotify had formulated a new reservation that would allow the service to “adjust the subscription fees as the total cost of the Spotify services increases so that you can continue to enjoy our full streaming experience in the future”.

This passage, which was completely missing up to this point in time, was taken as a clear indication of an imminent price increase. Formally, in order to avoid legal problems, Spotify had to allow itself the possibility of a price increase at all. In Germany, this results from the so-called price adjustment clause according to the German Civil Code (BGB). The extent to which formulations such as the fact that Spotify can “change the subscription fees and other prices at its own discretion” then legally hold, has yet to be proven in court.

In any case, Spotify had formulated these terms and conditions in this way and sent them to its users with the stipulation that they would object to them by June 30, 2021 if they did not agree to them. The company had not mentioned possible consequences, but referred to the existing special right of termination in general. With a reasonable assessment of the circumstances, users could actually have expected, based on this formulation, that the rejection would have consequences.

And so accounts are not only canceled in the context of the author of this article. Spotify notifies the data subjects via email that their accounts will be closed due to the rejection of the new terms of use as of September 30, 2021. Also the colleagues from Golem there are corresponding emails.

The assumption that Spotify will also set higher prices in Germany from October 1, 2021 should therefore prove to be true. In other European countries there are no protective regulations such as the price adjustment clause of the German Civil Code (BGB). Spotify had already implemented the price increase there. Most of the subscriptions were one euro more expensive.

For Germany, this would mean that the cost of the premium subscription could rise from 10 to 11 euros per month. Spotify Duo probably cost 14 to 13 euros, only the family subscription might even increase by three euros to 18 euros per month according to experiences from other countries.

Since the last price increase in Germany was a good eight years ago, the service should have good arguments, even in the event of a dispute, to explain the moderately rising price. After all, a number of features and other artists with their songs have been added since then. Spotify has been working on strengthening its podcast portfolio for a good two years and has also invested a lot in this.

It seems conceivable that the expected price increase will directly cover the “Spotify Hifi” offer expected for autumn with streams in audio CD quality. Spotify is now months behind in this area. Both Apple Music and Amazon Music have already made their Lossless media libraries available and have not even increased the prices for them. It is hardly conceivable that Spotify customers would first accept a general price increase and then nod off a further increase some time later because of the hi-fi offer.

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