Spotify's HiFi tier could finally be about to launch

So, assuming it does eventually roll out and the quality is up to Qobuz standards — a big if I’d submit — at $20/month it’s at an 85% premium to my annual Qobuz subscription.  All else being equal I’d be willing to pay a little more for better playlist creation and music search/discovery capabilities (Qobuz search function sucks IME), but not 85% more.  We’ll see how it shakes out I guess. 

I will happily pay them $20. Their UI is unmatched. Spotify recommendations are also so much better than Tidal and Qobuz, at least for my listening preference. Best of all, their Connect feature rocks! It is so seamless.

Shame they spend so much on podcast guests (25 million Harry & Meghan) and the staff have to pay for it.  When will we get hi-res!? 

So, there are 2 school of thoughts here. The layoffs happened because Spotify is getting ready to launch HiFi and that is going to cost them - hence reduce people and save costs. The other thought is they laid off to save cost and will not launch HiFi. No one other than Spotify knows which one is the correct one.