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Spotify Has Banned Three Popular Features Of Its Free Services

Published

3 years ago

October 10, 2023

Aakash Gour

HIGHLIGHTS

Spotify’s free services have changed
Spotify’s new restrictions for free users in India
Spotify has banned three popular features of its free services in India.

Spotify is a music and podcast application that lets users play millions of songs, albums, and even original podcasts for free. Also, a couple of weeks ago, the company added audiobooks to the application so that users will be able to enjoy thousands of stories anytime, anywhere. In India, Spotify has now added listening restrictions for its free users. Check out the article for detailed information.

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Spotify is on the way to add restrictions for free users who are receding in India. The company has removed features such as repeat and manual shuffle from its free tier. The Managing Director of Spotify India has stated that the company will focus on regional music and explore various genres to stretch its library in India.

New Restrictions Of Spotify For Free Users In India

Spotify blocked three well-known features from October 9 for free users in India. And if the users want back all the 3 features, they have to pay for Spotify Premium ship. However, previously, the only difference between the Premium and free plans was limited to ads and the ability to download songs. But now, with this new change, if the users want to use convenient features, they must have Premium plans.

Three Features On Which Spotify Added Restriction For Free Users In India

Now, the users using the free tier will not be able to seek and return to a specific part of the song.

The button for Repeat Mode gets disabled for the free plans.

Now, without the Premium plan, users aren’t able to shuffle songs manually and will be asked to use Spotify’s Smart Shuffle recommendations.

Spotify also mentioned that they have not restricted the multiple songs a user can play. The free plan will allow the users to stream as many songs as they want, but obviously, above three restrictions.

Indian Managing Director of Spotify, Amarjit Singh Batra, has formally confirmed that Spotify has no plans for increasing the subscription prices in India. In place of raising prices, the platform will announce more features to the Premium plan to drive users from the free tire. It is also said that Spotify wants to free users from listening to low-quality pirated music.

What’s The Actual Reason Behind Adding Listening Restrictions

By adding listening restrictions for the free tier, it seems that Spotify encourages free users to subscribe to Premium. When the users lose their convenient features like repeat, manual shuffle and many more, somewhere they look forward to the premium subscription for enhancing their seamless experience with all the supreme features, which get blocked from them being free users.

On the other hand, the ultimate goal of Spotify in India is to bring more users to its free plan by announcing regional music in various languages and genres.

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