Spotify has quietly expanded what free accounts can do. Free listeners can now pick and play specific songs. They can also search for a song and play it. The company calls the features Pick and Play Search and Play and Share and Play. The rollout is global and begins this week.
The change ends a long stretch in which many mobile free users were limited to shuffle only on most playlists. Spotify says the move will give more people a reason to open the app and to hear ads. Many news outlets report that the update aims to boost ad revenue and to raise engagement among the 433 million free users on the platform.
New Free Controls
Pick and Play lets a free user tap play on any track inside a playlist or album and hear that track immediately. Search and Play lets free users type the name of a song and play it on demand. Share and Play lets listeners open a track link they find on social media and hear the song in the app. These moves make the free tier feel much closer to the paid experience while still showing ads.
Spotify will not give full parity with Premium. Mobile free accounts receive an allocation of on demand time each day. When a user reaches that allotment the app will restrict actions and limit skips. Spotify said it will limit skips after the on demand time is used but it did not publish the exact daily allotment. Some reporting notes that after the on demand time a listener can only skip a small number of times per hour.
Limits And Tips
Ads will appear to you in case you are on the free tier. Spotify will find such ad impressions more useful with the new controls in place. That is the corporate need of the change. Premium will also be ad-free and retain such features as lossless audio AI Playlists and Mix. Spotify claims that they remain subscriber-only content.
To test the new features, you can use one playlist and hold a record of the on demand time consumed. The search play option should only be used sparingly until a learner can understand the behavior of the daily allotment. In case you prefer to have full control and no advertisements then Premium is the easiest way to go. The new free controls will suffice to make playlists and social shares useful to many casual listeners.