Spotify is making changes for its free users in India. Until now, free users could pick songs they wanted to listen to and rewind them. But that’s changing. Spotify believes that the Indian market has grown enough since its launch in 2019 to ask for a monthly fee from users.
Here’s what’s happening: Spotify has noticed that while many people in India use its free service, not enough are upgrading to the paid version. The company told TechCrunch. It thinks that this is because most Indians like to listen to music with ads. So, to encourage more people to go premium, it is putting some restrictions on the free service.
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If one wants to select specific songs play them in a certain order, or even rewind a song, they will need to pay a monthly fee, which starts at Rs 119. There might be discounts for students or family plans. With a premium membership, one can enjoy all the features they have been using for free until now.
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Spotify believes that the Indian music market has matured, so they need to make these changes to sustain their platform and provide a better experience to users. For free users, the default way to listen will be Smart Shuffle. This means Spotify will suggest songs based on one’s taste or the playlist they’re playing, but one won’t have full control over song selection.
Notably, Spotify largely competes with Apple Music and the latter costs Rs 99 per month.
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