

Rdio also hopes that users who enjoy the free service will be tempted to hand over a few bucks each month for a more feature-rich experience. In October, rival service Rdio relaunched its ‘Stations’ service to offer mobile users in the US, Canada, and Australia free streaming music, notably ad free. In any case, Spotify and the music labels will be able to share revenue from ads, so it’s a win-win situation for all involved. One of the goals of the free service is to eventually convert users to ad-free subscription plans as Spotify seeks to improve on its current 20 percent switch rate of users coming from the free desktop/laptop service to a paid plan. The service is also limited so that you still have a reason to pay for a Spotify subscription. “We’re the first and only service to obtain licensing rights to do this,” Ek said at a press conference earlier today.
