Record this name, Most High, because it’s possible that it will end up being the name of Spotify’s expected plan in HiFi quality. Now I’m also telling you that considering the background, it’s best not to get your hopes up (unless of course you’re one of those people still waiting) because it could take a long time, and it’s even possible that it ends up being stored in the same drawer again, in which is already two years.

We better start doing some memory. It was February 2021, bit by bit we were restoring traces of the old normality, we were still recovering from the shock that Filomena had caused (with the coming heat I’m sure many will miss her) and Spotify had finally confirmed its plans to launch a new subscription level service in which music would it had HiFi quality. This was nothing new, in fact there have been rumors of this enhancement for years and even the company itself made some progress in 2017. So it was a confirmation of something highly anticipated.

We all expected Spotify’s HiFi plan to be more expensive than the regular one, but then came Apple, who updated the Apple Music catalog to HiFi quality without increasing the price. Amazon immediately responded and removed the standard Prime Music plan, which was replaced by HiFi Mode, at the standard price. This is where Spotify’s plans fell apart, as it was already much more difficult to charge more than its opponents. And it still had Tidal, but that service also made the same jump at the end of that year.

Plans were therefore pushed back and such grotesque moments arose as the interview with Gustav Söderström, co-chairman of the company last March. And perhaps thanks to such pressure measures, it seems that the nestor of streaming music has given flashlights. So as we can read in Bloomberg, Spotify could launch Supremium, the name of its HiFi-quality subscription, sometime in 2023. It is not specified which markets it will debut in, but it will be outside the United States in the first phase.

This leak also points to the Supremium subscription tier (which is an internal name for now) will be more expensive than the standard subscription, a rather bold position given that its main competitors offer HiFi in their standard plans. And as a compensation to subscribers of the current premium modality (the one for 9.99 euros/month, which would maintain this price and not have access to the HiFi catalog), Spotify plans to offer several hours of audiobooks. At this time, there are no clues as to what the Ultimate Tier will cost.

Definitely, Spotify is delayed (if it arrives, I repeat I won’t believe it until I see it, they already snuck it into me once) and if so even at a higher price than its competitors who have already established HiFi quality as the market standard, it seems difficult that this model can work . Only a design that is able to stand out from its competition in any way could prevent this modality from being born doomed.