The news, the traffic, sports and talk shows- the typical things associated with listening to the radio on your way to and from work. Now more than ever that is all radio is and the biggest listeners are the older generation.

Meanwhile Spotify Free has taken over the planet, users listen to music throughout their day and enjoy music that they want to listen to. Across the largest cities in the United States, Spotify is in the <a href="http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/06/16/spotify-free-bigger-radio-stations/">Top 10</a> for weekly listeners.

Gone are the days when you sit by the radio, ready to hit record and capture your favorite song, hoping the DJ doesn’t talk over the end of it.

Like YouTube, it has come under intense pressure to shut down the free service, with claims that it is having an impact on artists and labels.

It’s just radio though, right? Radio through another medium, radio that is tailored to your musical taste. Where you can build your own playlist or choose a preloaded playlist for your current mood or activity. So you can listen to music while you work, without being distracted. You can find an energy fueled mix to get you through spin class. So perhaps it isn’t radio, maybe it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a jukebox.

Access to Spotify Free doesn’t necessarily mean that users won’t join paid services, or pay for music. When you think about it, Spotify Free opens your ears to music that you might not normally listen to, but because it’s free you are more willing to give it a listen and check it out. How else do you find new music? Kind of like tapas allows you to taste new things.

It’s also interesting to note that advertisers are aiming at the millennial crowd, too, and they’re not capturing their attention on traditional radio. Spotify Free holds a pretty powerful sway on that front, especially when it comes to those 34 and under, which makes up 69% of Spotify Free Users, with those 35-54 making up 26% and the over 55’s just 5% of users.

So, Spotify Free offers a unique opportunity for both users <em>and</em> advertisers. Advertisers know who they are tailoring their ads to, and users can customize their playlists to exactly what they want to experience at that given moment.

It’s basically everything that we’ve ever dreamed of and it’s now here and it’s free. A nerd’s paradise.

So, is radio over? Is Spotify even radio? Or is it a personal jukebox?

Does it even matter? As long as we're able to use this amazing service to listen to the music that we like whenever we like, what’s the problem?