Spotify Stops Selling Downloads

Spotify, which makes its money selling streaming music subscriptions, has shut down a feature that let European users purchase individual tracks.

Here’s a statement from the company on the move, first noticed by Pocketlint: “We recently updated Spotify to further simplify the service and pave the way for new features announced at the end of last year. In-app purchases aren’t part of this update but we’re not ruling out their return. Credits/gift cards already purchased are still redeemable.”

In plain English: Spotify has shut down its MP3 store, which has never been an important part of the company’s strategy. At one point, it might have seemed like a good idea for the company to sell music a la Apple’s iTunes, but Spotify never pushed downloads, and its users were happy to ignore them.

Meanwhile Spotify’s U.S. users won’t notice the change, since they’ve never been able to buy tracks from the service at all.