A recent Stuff article has me slightly worried about Spotify, the darling music streaming service that we have in the UK.

Spotify have a business built on the age-old "free content, laced with ads" model popular online, as well as a premium offering.

However, it seems that people are still unwilling to pay for their online music and only tend to be using the free version.

Plus with the current economic climate, advertisers aren't buying as many ads as they once were, so the service's free version (as well as the trick so that you never hear an ad on the service, however, we wont spread that) is being utilised by the majority yet isn't bringing in the money.

It seems that we either need to start buying the premium version, or they need to tweak their model.

Perhaps, when you set-up a playlist, give you the option to download the entire playlist to burn to a CD for a reasonable price or if they offered their own DRM-free music store.

Either way, unless they secure more investment, add a new revenue stream, get more ads, or get a greater uptake of users going for the premium offering, there could be a rocky road ahead.

[Spotify]