Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall | Mashable.
Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall
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| Spotify's free tier is deteriorating. Credit: picture alliance/getty images |
Spotify's free tier has just gotten a little worse.
The company recently put yet another popular feature behind its Spotify Premium paywall: song lyrics. As noticed by numerous users on Reddit (via Android Authority), to see song lyrics you now need to have a Spotify Premium subscription, which starts at $10.99 ($5.99 for students).
Some users are reporting that song lyrics aren't completely unavailable on the free tier; instead, there's a monthly limit on lyrics for non-Premium subscribers.
Spotify's free tier doesn't cost anything, but it contains ads, and doesn't let users download or play songs in any order, among other limitations. On the flip side, the company also increased the prices of its Premium subscription tiers, with reports claiming that it's going to get even more expensive this year.
For comparison, Apple Music does not offer a free tier, and neither does Tidal (there used to be a free Tidal tier, but it was recently canceled). YouTube Music does have a free tier, and it is in many ways less restrictive than Spotify's, and includes the ability to see song lyrics.
Topics Music
Then people will just go to Genius. Did they really think they did something here?
ReplyDeleteDoes Spotify realise that the lyrics are always available on this thing called the Internet?
ReplyDeleteand that the general public are the one's providing those lyrics to them through Musixmatch?
DeleteStill haven’t gotten them even with a subscription 😡
ReplyDeleteLaughs in Genius 😂
ReplyDeleteThat’s so ghetto considering they’re wrong half the time
ReplyDeleteIf it was still coming from genius with artist annotations & all then, it would be more understandable
Deletepeople still use this crap ? youtube music is the thing now and they aslo lyrics for free like google
ReplyDeleteYou can also just google them?
ReplyDeleteBut Apple is why they’re failing constantly, right? Riiiight. 🙄
ReplyDeleteCheap skates use the free tier though
ReplyDeleteLol. Petty Betty.
ReplyDeleteyoutube + adblock
ReplyDeletedoes anyone know to easily move my playlist over to youtube music?
ReplyDeletewho cares?
ReplyDeleteThey are trying to make some profit, apart from the premium.
ReplyDeletebut it's a bad move, it was already good before, why change it? There are so many other platforms to listen to music and see lyrics, this change to Spotify won't influence anything
💯💯
DeletePay for the service, or move on to something else. Whining over a free service not giving you what you want is dumb.
ReplyDeleteThe days of FREE! to build subscriber numbers are past. Companies want paying subscribers and actual income, not just subscribers to sell investors on the idea that someday, maybe, they can turn a profit.
I have more karma than you have accounts with mod points, buddy...
Delete(Translation) Spoiled investors sucking down premium no-percent loans for years, suddenly found themselves being served Banking whine at 5% instead. Suddenly they remembered profit still matters because math doesn’t give a shit about feelings.
DeleteAll the music, ever, in the world, instantly, on any device, with no limit.
ReplyDelete"I can't believe they expect us to PAY for this!"
smh
Spotify's free tier has ads, just like radio; so they are getting paid for free users and the more they have the more ad revenue potential.
DeleteSpotify wants you to pay but whines when they have to pay Apple to be on the App Store; at least Spotify pays artists well.
(For the sarcasm impaired the text after the semi colon is sarcasm.)
I'm paying for it. I used to have a shuffle that didn't reset my list back to the first song when I turned it off. Now I have to use moron shuffle since it can't be turned off.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a app that turned the screen off automatically when I was driving. I had car mode off. Now car mode is on and I cant turn it back off unless I setup car thing. FUCK THAT!.
I want them to leave my setting alone and let me use it the way I want to.
That is why I am starting to consider sailing the seven seas for music again.
Not to mention its not all of the music. Several albums I like are no longer available since spotify likes craptastic live albums and compilation albums that just have a few songs. I can see where I used to have the whole thing since they let you see what they removed.
They do this because its cheaper. Never mind they had more but now have less
So please, continue to sarcastically mock us about paying for it when we are paying more and getting less.
That's really sad. Have you considered therapy?
Deleteif i dont know the lyrics i just make up my own lyrics, its just a dumb song anyway
ReplyDelete'Scuse me while I kiss this guy [kissthisguy.com]!
DeleteHaha, thanks!
Deletewelcome to computers, September, you control them or they control you
ReplyDeleteha ha just kidding, by the label you're already implicitly helpless at the wheel, enjoy renting everything and digitally asking Mother May I with every device and feature you "buy"
As a free tier user ..you have lost your appeal for Spotify. You are the product...the consumers/clients are the billionaires of the world.
ReplyDeleteUsually the purpose of the free tier is to make the site popular enough to be attractive to the paid tiers. I'm not sure how that would work with Spotify though. Who the hell cares what other Spotify users are listing to?
ReplyDelete"Louie Louie" denied.
ReplyDeleteGet her way down low
DeleteYoutube has all the songs anyway, with videos.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the appeal of spotify?
I would guess that the appeal of Spotify is that you only have to stream the audio, not the video as well. If you have a data cap on your internet/mobile plan this could be significant for you. Personally, I prefer using my library of mp3's that I have built up over the years: it requires no internet connection at all, and the songs on it can't be revoked. What little music I do stream I stream from Youtube, since I don't have any data caps to worry about.
DeletePlaylist, discographies, discovery options. Audio quality even on free tier is way higher than youtube too. Paid tier lets you download your playlists for offline access.
DeleteIt's like those horrific days in the distant past when music was unusable and pointless.
ReplyDeleteYou know... radio.
What savages we were. Certainly we were incapable of singing along unless somebody published the words in the newspaper.
Singing along to what? Today’s lyrical mumbling makes Pearl Jam sound like James Earl Jones.
DeleteYou know it’s bad when Closed Captioning translation is now a recognized form of comedy entertainment.
"Today’s lyrical mumbling makes Pearl Jam sound like James Earl Jones."
DeleteOkay, now that's a quotable quote, right there. Filing it away.
Also loading up, "Smells Like Nirvana" to revisit a classic.
Embedding the lyrics into the file should just be a standard part of any mastering process. But, nooooo, let's instead create of a bunch of useless jobs and make it all purposefully inefficient.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was the old way of things too, but it's even more so now.
ReplyDeleteNot your mp3s, not your music. Buy a flash drive or a hard drive and keep them local.
I don't mind wasting some space on my cell phone for music, and I've got flash drives for the car. I love the drives. They're dirt cheap, so I've set a few up with genres like "Easy Listening" and "Rock" as well as just full-on random. I generally use 320kbps, even though it's overkill. Why not? I don't have to be efficient. Also, I think the artists make out better when I dump the contents of CDs I've bought onto a "car drive". Spotify screws the people who make the music.
Deletewas crap from the git-go. I still have no idea why anyone uses is, never mind pay for it.
ReplyDeleteWow. If this is the worst thing that tortures your soul then you truely are a privileged snowflake. Hope you solve your first world problems one day.
ReplyDeleteI've been a spotify subscriber for... well since they opened up to the USA, and I have never noticed anything about lyrics. I only play it in my ears and in the car, and now I'm shocked to find that they actually display lyrics at all. That's the first thing I think, and the second is: what? Most songs never display lyrics when you listen to them, at least that's how it's been for most of my life so I don't even understand what the fuss is about. Do you need spotify to tell you the lyrics so badly that you might be upset about them going away? I guess maybe I'm just 'get off my lawn'ing here, but this seems like a silly thing to make such a fuss over
ReplyDeleteWait... people expect a service for free, then go moaning and complaining part of that service is put behind a "paywall"?!
ReplyDeleteYOU DID NOT PAY FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
They must get their money from somewhere. In the case of Spotify, it's injecting ads between songs and withholding services they consider premium. Guess what, THEY'RE TOTALLY IN THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO. They must get their income from somewhere, you know. They probably sell what you've listened to in the past eternity to the highest bidder as well. Guess what, you're making use of a free service... deal with it.
I pay for spotify. I like it mostly. Yes, there's most certainly things which can be improved. Does that automatically mean it sucks?
Oh. My. God! You WON'T be able to! NO. Not at all. WON'T.
ReplyDelete"know the lyrics already" ?!?! Ayfkm? Knowing things is for losers.
Who in their right mind is willing to look up something? ON ANOTHER WEBSITE?! WTF?
Also, what's a "website?".. isn't there and app for that?
Imagine "memorizing" lyrics!! OMG. That is work. Why would I do that if the app will remember for me? Makes sense, doesn't it?
(apologies to the person above who said they actually knew the lyrics)
Social media uses operant conditioning to train you to be as dumb as possible. The message is: Don't do ANYTHING. Doing things is for losers, use an app to think. Thinking is for losers.
There's an unhealthy interdependence between people like Android Police, who have to write words, and companies who have to give the impression of progress by hyping very little into a big deal. Example: Microsoft moved a button, and now it's easier to press. Actually, the button presses itself with AI.
I'm thinking of changing my sig to: Convenience has lead to fanatical avoidance of thinking.
What do you think? Um.. sorry, the app for that is still in development.. and it's going to take a LOT of money...
i wanna create an extension to pull up genius lyrics on spotify, another think ive noticed is spotify lyrics are incorrect
ReplyDeletego listen to some kinda hate by the misfits, in the spotify lyrics its "the maggots in the eye of love do copulate" when the lyrics are actually "the maggots in the iron lung dont copulate'
extension would be lovely <3
DeletePlease update me when you made extension, thank you <3
Deleteextension would be pretty good
Deletean extension would be a lifesaver!
DeleteThere's an extension called lyric plus, you can install it through Spicetify in Spotify Desktop app, it's work with multiple sources and work million time better than default Spotify app lyrics.
DeleteThis sounds interesting, mind elaborating more on what this is?
DeleteSame goes with the song "why we lose"". The lyric goes like "sugar theres a reason why we lose", but in spotify it shows Like "surely theres a reason why we lose". I searched in google And it clearly says sugar. After Some time We might need premium just to open spotify
Deletethere's a userscript on tampermonkey called Spotify Genius Lyrics
DeleteThere's problems with other ones as well, like Wanna Don't Wanna by Reignwolf invented the word "facel" and More Like You by Capital Soiree is so wrong it hurts.
DeleteOh my fuckin god..
ReplyDeletespotify without the premium plan is quite unusable lol
ReplyDeleteYou can download the web app with an adblocker and you get 0 ads and its basically like the premium - the lyrics and the offline listening
Deletethis is exactly what i do. i have no problems but the convenience of lyrics WERE nice.
DeleteI absolute hate this change. It's just below the belt.
ReplyDeleteThey're taking away features, [accessibility features, mind you!] that we've already had access to, and making us pay more for them. This should not be happening, might switch services if they don't change it. Mad.
ReplyDeleteif you’re using a service that costs money for the company why is it unreasonable for you to pay to use it?
ReplyDeleteIt's unreasonable for them to take things from our hands. Lyrics were already implemented and free. They can make all new features paid for all i care, but taking away access to things is a shitty move. Of course they have a right to do so even if i don't like it, it's their app, but i then i have the right to modify the code on my computer to circumvent these things for free. It's my computer.
DeleteSpotify makes money off of ads, lyrics are such a basic feature that do not affect profitability in the slightest, and were a free feature for years with no problems. When a company intentionally worsens their product, especially hampering accessibility features, it upsets people. If youtube suddenly removed captions, or descriptions, people would rightfully be upset
DeleteYou do know Spotify pays Musixmatch for the lyrics, right? It's the reason why Spotify didn't have lyrics for a couple years because they didn't have the rights to it.
Delete........
DeleteHow's the boot taste?
DeleteImagine this: you're a little kid that likes to go to a park that's open for free where they got all the things a kid could want. They got the best slides, swings, those climbing things that every kid falls off for some reason, etc. Of course there's some things that you have to pay for but they don't bother you that you're not using them because they only make the experience a bit better for you. Now imagine on one random day you gotta pay to get on a slide, swing, etc, but you can't afford it because you don't got the money and now they're raising the prices for everything and tearing down the equipment for some reason or the other. How would that make you feel?
Deleteimagine this: you run spotify and listen to your consumers and make the free version more enjoyable, many people opt to cancel the paid subscription as the free subscription works just fine. they lose millions upon millions of dollars, go bankrupt and then bye bye spotify
DeleteI'm not talking about making making the app the same for both users I'm talking about them making family plans and other plans mote expensive and removing FREE FEATURES so that the people that idk maybe already can't afford it and are comfortable with just having the base level of the app but guess what? They're forcing those people to pay FOR FEATURES PREVIOUSLY GIVEN FOR FREE. You sir, are scum. You are defending a greedy company for what? No one in the board of directors or the owner themselve is giving you anything in return.
Deleteso many other platforms ex. spotifys biggest competition, apple music, doesn’t even let u listen unless you pay. spotifys free is not good at all but the fact they do allow you to listen without paying at all that’s not bad and i think if you don’t like it and don’t wanna pay then find an alternative
DeleteWell awfully I like to listen to music while I game and oh my goodness what a coincidence that I'm kinda stuck with spotify cuz it's the only one play station and Xbox offer.
Deleteimagine defending capitalism and MULTIBILLION companies milking the users, i am convinced this app has the most braindead users there are.
DeleteI agree. Like bro I am 16. I don't want to reveal a lot about my personal life, but I am in no position to pay the money for premium and I really don't mind the ads. I love reading lyrics because they make me understand a song better especially with fast-paced songs. I also just like sharing lyrics that i relate to on my socials. Spotify already has been removing lyrics or getting them completely wrong which makes this even worse. They're like nestle but for music.
Deletehow do u expect the platform to run if they give it away for free???
Deletecmon man just think from spotifys pov. i agree i would love if i could use spotify free but unfortunately not much in life is free
To a certain extent, yes, but at this rate they'll also be losing consumers to YT Music. They do make money from ads in the free version. They'd be losing customers because of this, so it doesn't make sense.
DeleteIf they need premium to run the app why then are they putting in ads doesnt that make them money to
DeleteYou're equating a FREE, government-funded public area (that's always been free and open to the public) to what's considered, for all intents and purposes, a non-necessary luxury item. Get real.
Delete
DeleteWho said anything about government funding? Yk there's public parks that are owned by certain people or companies, right? And I am getting real I'm just setting an example that someone else reading might understand. I'm not talking about the park itself I'm talking about the fact that something free that provides joy or understand to certain people is now getting taken away, put behind a price, and rapidly deteriorating in quality.
Because why would you paywall a basic QoL feature??
Deletethe fact they even let you listen for free is pretty good considering most services don’t even let you listen unless you pay
DeleteWhat idiot would pay for missing, incorrect or broken lyrics
DeleteBruh they're becoming EA now
First its lyrics then the whole platform needs premium to play
lol
DeleteWow! That makes even more P2W!!!
ReplyDeletebecause spotify is losing money every year. it's been a while since they've returned a profit. you should look at their financials
ReplyDeleteoh so i guess the fact that they have a gross profit of $1B is nothing
DeleteYou said it yourself: it's the gross profit, so you can't deem it a gain or a loss yet.
Deleteand in 2021, Spotify generated $9.6 billion in revenue.
DeleteAll I can see is Spotify digging its own grave because of greed, retard management and devs at Spotify
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis is just soo fuckin stupid
ReplyDeleteI'm really sorry man, that's unfair.... You can download Deezer, it's French and less known but it works the same
ReplyDeleteNext thing: Upgrade to Premium to use our app!
ReplyDeleteMusixmatch.com
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand this tbh. They can’t pay wall the actual lyrics the lyrics on the song exist in plenty of other places even in the song itself so how they have the cheek to do this is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteso ass lol
ReplyDeletedislike me all you want but he has a damn point
DeleteSpotify: we’re desperate.
ReplyDeletetheyre a billion dollar company dawg what more do they want
Deletefrr
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteBro is using a cracked version of the app and wondering why Spotify is doing things like this
DeleteThe self awareness is incredible
So you’re stealing Premium and still complaining lol amazing
Deletewhat is xmanager?
Deleteim convinced half this sub is rich old men sipping tea with their gold monicles hysterically laughing "these brokies gotta pay for lryics mahaha"
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeleteLil bro I use pirated spotify
Delete