{"id":10698,"date":"2016-07-07T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/?p=10698"},"modified":"2016-07-07T10:21:11","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T10:21:11","slug":"guvera-users-jumping-ship-after-update-makes-them-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/guvera-users-jumping-ship-after-update-makes-them-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Guvera users jumping ship after update makes them pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian music streaming service Guvera has been losing popularity after a recent update adding a paywall to their previously free music streaming.<\/h4>\n

Guvera most recently updated their app on June 8th, an update that has received a one-and-a-half star rating on the Apple App Store. The Google Play Store on the other hand doesn’t show ratings for specific updates, but needless to say it’s recent ratings haven’t been positive since the update.<\/p>\n

The reason it’s so unpopular is because the Australian streamer moved from a free, ad-supported platform to a cost of $6-$15 a month. The free tier of Guvera, known as Play+, allowed listeners free reign over their music like Spotify. Play+ is no longer,\u00a0potentially due to money problems including a loss of $81 million AUD last year and their $75 million IPO rejected<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

On their website Guvera explain why they discontinued their Play+ tier, saying:<\/p>\n

Providing a free music service to our customers has always been a priority for Guvera. We have aimed to offer a viable and engaging music alternative to piracy over the last several years. Unfortunately, the time has come for us to refine our product offering in Australia in order to ensure long-term\u00a0sustainability. Our full functionality free tier of product Play+ will no longer be available after June 30, 2016.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From July 1 2016, our two tiers of product will be Play and Platinum<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whilst they’ve introduced another free platform “Play” it features restricted play, in that you can’t select your music but rather listen to streams based on what you want to listen to. Many users have been complaining that thanks to the restricted access to the platform’s music they can’t access their playlists anymore. The update has also disallowed offline play for free users, restricting it to subscribers.<\/p>\n

\"music<\/p>\n

Guvera are going to have to kiss some Australian asses if they want people to continue using their service and, preferably for them, start paying for it. With the aim\u00a0of increasing their branded channels from 20 to 200 within the next year they’re going to have make sure they retain enough customers to draw advertisers to their platform.<\/p>\n

Users have been making their opinions on the changes clear, though whether that will lead to a reversal of Guvera’s new tiering is unlikely. Here’s some reviews from the Google Play Store<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Bethany Eve –\u00a0<\/strong>The new update stinks. I used to live by Guvera and always got my tunes from there. Honestly the new updates sucks worse than hell and everybody thinks so. Definitely apologizing to all my friends that I recommended it too. Thanks Guvera.<\/p>\n

Kimberly King –\u00a0<\/strong>I used to live by this app! It was amazing. With all my offline tracks and set up Playlist, it was the perfect go to for music but now it’s changed to stupid stations and all my saved songs are gone. I’m so dissaponted! (sic)<\/p>\n

Christian Thomas –\u00a0<\/strong>Biggest waste of time since the new update. Personally would’ve recommended to anyone and everyone now I have deleted it due to the only good thing being erased.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can watch Guvera founder Claes Loberg talk about his passion, and\u00a0trying to “monetise the 95% of people in the world that get free content” below.<\/p>\n