My justifications are as follows.

Discovery

They make it easy to find new authentic music. None of this half uploaded music or music that has someone’s echoing voice-over for the first 5 minutes of the track.

Between their large database of available music and Facebook friend suggestions I am set.

You can argue that there are web based music streaming services out there, but do they have the same music collection size or quality that Spotify does?  I’m open to suggestions.  I would go back to GrooveShark if Spotify did not exist.

Spotify is targeting people who pirate music and they just might win. Although there is something to be said for “ownership.”  A feature that is not included in Spotify.

Desktop Clients Matters

Spotify did a wonderful job of creating their desktop client.  Their desktop client allows for making music available offline in case you have a slow internet connection or foresee being disconnected in the immediate future.  You might just like the songs that much and refuse to sacrifice your precious bandwidth.

Web based browsing has a couple of flaws associated with it.  I’m not a fan of having to visit the page to let it know that “yes, I am in fact still listening.”  I’m also not a fan of tip-toeing around my browser tabs avoiding the accidental “oops I closed my streaming music again.”  I’m a web developer and web browsers get started and shutdown all day for me.

Music Timeline

This point might travel hand in hand with discovery, but it’s worth it’s own heading.

Spotify keeps a log of the music you’ve listened to, as I’m sure most of these services do. The difference is, they share this music history with their customers.

Earlier I talked about finding new music through Spotify by following your Facebook friends.  I’m not sure how the negotiations went down, but if I had to sum it up.  I would say they went fairly well for Spotify.

The native music app that comes with Facebook tracks your friends music making it easy to browse what they’ve recently listened to.

On top of this, our new profile pages [coming soon to all users] include a timeline of all the music you’ve ever listened to.  That’s just a nicety in itself.  I’m a big believer in music being my portal to nostalgia and having the option to go back to birth to find out what kind of music I liked is a plus.  Not that I have birth music.

Facebook Music Profile Page