Spotify, the music streaming giant, is making changes to its free tier in India, which may impact user experience.
Basic Features of Spotify
Basic features such as repeat, rewinding to specific song sections, revisiting previous songs, and customizing playlist orders are no longer available to free Spotify users in India.
Musically reported these changes, and Spotify will notify users of these changes via in-app notifications.
Not only that, but Spotify is replacing the standard shuffle feature with ‘Smart Shuffle’ as the default playback method for free-tier users.
Smart Shuffle incorporates songs that are not in the user’s playlist, taking advantage of their listening habits. As a result, free users will no longer have access to the traditional shuffle option.
Free-Tier Users
This shift in strategy appears to reflect Spotify’s goal of encouraging free-tier users to consider premium subscriptions.
Nonetheless, many users are likely to be dissatisfied with the removal of fundamental features such as rewind and the ability to navigate to the previous song.
As these changes take effect, it will be interesting to see how Indian users react, and whether it will inspire them to look into premium subscription options or consider platforms like YouTube Music, which continue to provide these features for free.
However, we are only hearing about this change in India for the time being, but if Spotify is truly desperate to push more people into premium, it would not be surprising to see this downgrade in other regions.
To read our blog on “Spotify launches Talal Qureshi’s TURBO on Estadio Olímpico,” click here
