Subscribers and free users are very different kettles of fish. And there are too many gaping holes in the catalogue to justify a fee. Nice while it lasted, but not essential.

Seems like an odd move but then I don't really understand the model. If I run out of listening time I'll simply use another streaming site like We7 and Spotify isn't going to increase its revenue that way. I would imagine that if 10 hours isn't enough then nor was 20 hours because you listen all the time.

I didn't actually realise there was a 20-hour ceiling before now. I used to be a Premium subscriber, and still think it's brilliant value - stopped as I just wanted to cut back on a few monthly costs, and I still get more than enough out of the free service.
It is a bit annoying that you might now reach a limit and that you can only listen to tracks a certain number of times, but Spotify is a brilliant service and whatever has to be done (within limits) to keep it viable is ok with me.

Kind of expected a continual erosion of the offer over time. See previous thread on this..

http://bit.ly/gwKPiD

Napster is still around and still offering the same £15 deal for a far more extensive catalogue and unlimited streaming on any machine via the web.

This doesn't seem like a voluntary/planned move to me - either the labels have imposed these restrictions as their "price" for allowing the long-delayed US version to happen, and/or the beancounters have pointed out that they need to force more subscribers into the user mix, or they'll be doomed with X months.

Either way, once you start nibbling away at the "all the music, all the time, all for free" paradigm, I can't help thinking that the number of people who'll desert the "hobbled" service and look elsewhere will far outweigh those who finally start paying. Shame it had to come to this.

I was a huge advocate of Spotify when I first discovered it, and was able to assemble playlists of tunes, never owned or long forgotten.
It was always frustrating that they didn't have everything, and annoying at the amount of 're-recorded by members of the original group' stuff that popped up.
My use of it over time has declined, but my son has gone the other way. He's now at university in a town without DAB so his access to free new music is limited, therefore he's gone to Premium route. He also tells me it saves him money, as he doesn't buy so many CDs.
So good luck to Spotify, 10 hours should still work for me, as I tend to use it now to sample new CDs, before buying or not.