After announcing price hikes in over 50 countries (including the US and UK) in July, Spotify is once again bringing “joy and happiness”, this time to its free-tier users. The number one music streaming service in the US is testing a new feature that is essentially a paywall for the in-app lyrics panel.
A number of Spotify free users have noticed they couldn’t access the lyrics feature in their app in the last few days. Instead of the usual blocks of lyrics, they found a message that reads “Enjoy lyrics on Spotify Premium”, plus a link to join the paid subscription.
The Verge got a comment from CJ Stanley, Spotify’s co-head of global communications:
At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests, some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We don’t have any further news to share at this time. In keeping with our standard practices, we’re currently testing this with a limited number of users in a pair of markets.
There’s no information on when the tests will end and whether they will affect more users. On a side note: this author’s Spotify app (version 8.8.66.563) is showing lyrics just fine as of now. Users in India, though, are reporting they’re starting to get the paywall message in their Spotify applications:
Spotify rolled out lyrics to everybody (free tier or not, mobile or web) less than two years ago – in November, 2021. Prior to that, the much-requested feature was being tested as early as 2019.
