Last.fm is going through major changes and has decided to focus almost entirely on music recommendations rather than music streaming subscriptions. Amid losses, the service has cancelled its subscription service and is struggling to compete against far more popular services like Pandora and Spotify.
The majority of subscription-based music services have had trouble when it comes to generating a profit since the royalties paid out to artists are very high. Now that it is not focusing on actual streaming, Last.Fm may be able to survive and its current owner (CBS) obviously wants that to happen.
Following the launch of the new Last.fm Player earlier this year and Last.fm’s partnership with Spotify for on-demand playback, we’ve revised the subscription service in order to focus on the new Last.fm Player and Last.fm’s over-arching mission: world-class music recommendations, – Simon Moran, managing director, Last.fm
Starting on April 28, Last.Fm will link to songs on YouTube and Spotify through desktop and mobile apps. Even though this will significantly cut the company’s revenue, it will also get rid of a large portion of its expenses.
Current subscribers who have paid for long-term service will receive partial refunds but many users are unhappy about the change, since people are no longer actually getting their music from Last.fm.
Scrobbling will now be a big part of what Last.fm does and for those of you that don’t know, scrobbling is Last.fm’s way to build a music profile for its users.
It was not as popular as other apps but Last.fm’s streaming service was cheaper than what Spotify offers which is one of the main reasons why people stuck with it.
Back in January, the site announced that it would be partnering with Spotify and would also provide on-demand music through YouTube. This partnership now appears to be the basis for the company’s latest business model switch-up.
Question – Is Last.fm going to survive if it only offers music recommendations?
Summary: Last.fm is cancelling all of its music streaming subscription services. Instead of streaming, it will now have on-demand music through Spotify and YouTube as well as music recommendations.
image credit: okgeek