Spotify has been getting more and more features removed from the free version recently. Many students at the school are using Spotify on a daily basis and many of them do not have the premium version, this means that they are getting the unfortunate effects of Spotify trying to make more money.
Spotify has made it so you can only look at a limited number of song lyrics per month. They say that you only have ads every half hour, but as I have experienced and as many people have told me, it’s every other song.
Not only are the ads more frequent, you also have more ads grouped together. Spotify has also taken the liberty to add in songs that match your playlist automatically. This would be fine, but you cannot remove the songs if you do not like them.
Emmalynn Hemphill, a freshman at Gloucester High School, who does not have a premium subscription, uses Spotify for music and for some of the sleeping podcasts that they have there. She likes that there are no ads in the middle of the podcasts, otherwise she would not use them to go to sleep.
Hemphill does not like that you are not able to look at the lyrics and the frequent ads, however, she probably will not change platforms because there are ways to get around the ads and the limited lyrics.
Freshman Isabella Doss also does not have a premium subscription and she uses Spotify for music. Doss said that the limited lyric viewing does not really affect her, but the ads, automatic shuffling of playlists and the addition of random songs to her playlist is very annoying.
Another thing that was pointed out was that Spotify works differently on different types of devices. Doss stated that if she wasn’t so used to using her phone for Spotify, she’d definitely use a different device for listening to music at home. She also expressed that the new changes have not made her want to pay for premium but have instead made her want to switch the platform she uses to YouTube Music or Pandora.
“Spotify used to be great but now it’s not worth it,” said Doss.
In the eyes of non premium subscribers, “Spotify needs to step up its game,” Hemphill stated.
People who have a premium subscription do not know about the recent changes to Spotify. When freshman Jayden Sheffield was told about the changes she was surprised by this.
She has had a premium subscription for about three years now because of a family plan. Despite being told about the changes, she expressed that if she did not have a subscription, she’d still stay with Spotify because of how familiar it is to her.
Bailey Kittrell, another freshman at GHS, has a premium membership too, but she has only had her premium account since Feb. 2024. Still, she was also not aware of the recent changes.
Kittrell has the family plan as well and said that it is worth it. When told about the changes she voiced that if she did not have a subscription that she would switch to YouTube Music because of how much more user friendly it is.
Another thing that was brought up was that although Kittrell has premium, she still has some problems with Spotify. Kittrell said that, “having a premium subscription is good, but Spotify doesn’t have every song and so I can’t add them to my playlists.”
On the other hand, Sheffield says that the premium subscription is worth it and that “It’s the best and I love it.”
The changes that Spotify has made have affected the way people, both with and without a subscription, use and think of Spotify.Based on student reactions, people without a subscription will most likely leave Spotify if more changes are made and students with premium subscriptions will either continue on a subscription or leave if there are changes that begin to impact their listening.
