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The Swedish music streaming mafia Spotify is experimenting with an idea to make its popular lyrics feature a premium-only feature with the motive of attracting more people to sign up with its subscription services (1).
However, several Spotify users have expressed dissatisfaction with the sole concept of its ads and are expressing miserable thoughts on its experiment to make even lyrics a premium-only feature.
it’s kinda crazy to think how useless Spotify is without premium, might aswell make that shit paid first to download it 🤦
— ammarapolo (@tecnologiaftw) September 5, 2023
Premium to see lyrics bro, shit mad OD
Many users have started to find the in-app lyrics hidden behind a paywall on Spotify. The users have also started receiving a message from the team, "Enjoy lyrics on Spotify Premium" along with a link to sign up.
The feature is currently in its experiment stage and has not been rolled out entirely for everyone but since you are already here reading this and aware of the situation, bear in mind that you will now have to pay to read the lyrics of your favorite song.
The company mentions the feature is an experiment just like every other update wherein it first checks the public poll and impact. The same is to happen this time, before the official announcement, this is just a trailer.
The company has not given any further comments on the matter and shall soon release an update with the feature officially rolling worldwide. But what led Spotify to experiment with such a dreadful feature?
Competitive Move
Spotify decided to lock lyrics in the premium subscription as a competitive measure since other music streaming services such as Apple Music offer no free tier features for users, and the recent price hike is another reason (2).
The free tier of Spotify allows its users to listen to songs and different playlists and albums in shuffle mode but with in-between advertisements and limited skips while the premium unlocks ad-free music, unlimited skips, offline mode, and now another feature to add lyrics.
C.J. Stanley (3), Spotify's co-head of global communications quoted, "We at Spotify conduct several experiments of tests, some of which end up paving their way to the final product, while others serve only as important as learning."
With no further news to share, Stanley hinted the test experiment could also be annihilated if the user base witnessed a low in growth. Meanwhile, the price of Spotify premium is yet another headline worth understanding.
Spotify Premium Price Hike
Hiking prices of premium subscriptions are not uncommon among music streaming services. As the popularity of the platform and consumption grows, platforms start developing new features to advance their user's experience, which comes with a price.
Spotify mentioned in July that it would be raising the price range of premium subscriptions in a handful of areas of the world. Before premium individual subscription cost around $9.99 and now it is $10.99 (4).
Moreover, the premium duo plan costs $12.99 and is now hiked to $14.99, the premium family plan costs $15.99 and is now hiked to $16.99, and the student plan costs $4.99 is now hiked to $5.99.
Spotify Premium Hike applied on regions (a-z):
- Andorra
- Albania
- Argentina
- Austria
- Australia
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Brazil
- Canada
- Chile
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Cyprus
- Denmark
- Ecuador
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Greece
- Guatemala
- Hong Kong
- Croatia
- Iceland
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Mexico
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- North Macedonia
- Norway
- Peru
- Portugal
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Singapore
- Slovenia
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Thailand
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States
Meanwhile, the company in an official statement mentioned the monthly subscribers of its ad-supported tier witnessed an increase of 34% year on year and the paid tier witnessed a 17% increase. The company is also planning to integrate artificial intelligence-enhanced DJ into new nations across the world.
