What We Know About Spotify’s Restrictions on Free Features in India
Spotify wants to limit the number of features its free ad tier offers users. The platform has sent a pop-up to Spotify users in India this week confirming changes related to playing songs in order or repeating the previous song and more.
Spotify assures that free users of the platform can continue listening to their favorite artists, albums and playlists and use Spotify’s recommendation engine. It is likely that Spotify will gradually reduce the benefits available to free users in markets like India.
The company is trying every trick in the book to get more people to pay for its premium service. In fact, we had recently done a song about Spotify’s desperation to force people to pay to hear the same song again. As for the new changes for Spotify free users, here’s what the platform is locking in for them starting this week:
It’s obvious that the developers have made sure to force users to get a subscription to do the bare minimum you’d expect from any music platform. And if it comes to paying, there are two groups of users: someone who has already paid for Spotify Premium, and the rest who find getting Apple Music or even YouTube Premium a better deal.
It cannot be denied that Spotify has tried to get users to pay for new features, but nothing has worked, at least in India. The company is even said to be planning to launch a more expensive service with benefits such as Hi-Fi sound in the near future.
If Spotify really wants to grow in India, it needs to think beyond just ‘push come to shove’ and forcing people to spend on its features instead of just offering a free service with no real content or value.
