The adage “everything good in life is free” seems to hold true, which may explain why Spotify is now allowing me to access premium features without having to pay for a premium subscription. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Spotify is a free service that you can use whenever you want. Similar to most other major streaming services, the company provides an initial trial period of free service that allows users to get a feel for the service without having to pay a penny. There are, of course, some caveats to this. For starters, unless you have a paid subscription, you will not be able to search for and select specific songs. At the very least, according to the company’s website, you should not be able to. Free users can only choose songs to listen to from specific playlists, but for some reason, I’ve had no trouble searching for songs all day from any album I’ve wanted to listen to so far (like my current jam Motion by Emotional Oranges). Something like this should not be something I am able to do without having to pay a monthly subscription fee. Aside from being served an annoying number of advertisements in between songs, I should also be served an annoying number of advertisements in between songs, but this hasn’t happened in the last few hours that I’ve been jamming out.
What Is Spotify?
Spotify is a music-streaming service that was launched in October 2008 by Swedish company Spotify AB. It has its origins in Sweden, and since then, it has grown into the worldwide phenomenon that we are familiar with. It is now available in 79 countries on five continents around the world, expanding its reach. According to Spotify, which is currently the largest and most popular music streaming platform, the service has 286 million active users monthly. Spotify Premium subscribers account for 130 million of these total subscribers. Furthermore, there are currently more than 50 million tracks available on the platform, which is an impressive number. If you’ve never used this music platform before or are still debating whether to do so, you’ve come to the right place. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you will have determined whether or not Spotify is right for you.
Read More: Top Hacks to Create Interesting Instagram Reels
How Does Spotify Work?
It’s simple to get started listening to music on Spotify: just follow these steps:
Sign up for Spotify by going to the website. Signing up with Facebook if you don’t already have one is highly recommended because it will make it easier to find and follow friends, see what they’re listening to, and share songs with them in the future. Select your desired level of subscription. We recommend upgrading to Spotify Premium because it provides access to more features, is more flexible, and is compatible with a greater number of devices. Spotify is a free application that can be downloaded and installed. There are desktop versions, as well as iPhone/iPad and Android phone versions. The basic setup is fairly straightforward, but once you start digging into Spotify, you’ll discover that it has a lot more to offer and that it gets smarter the more you use it.
Can You Download Music From Spotify?
Both yes and no. When using Spotify Premium, you can choose to make music available “offline,” but this is not the same as downloading music in the traditional sense of the word. For example, you are not permitted to attempt to game the system by downloading an album and then canceling your subscription at a later date. Furthermore, you will not be able to download the tracks in order to burn them to a CD or copy them to other devices. It is the goal of Spotify’s offline mode to provide you with access to your favorite music when you are attempting to conserve mobile data or traveling to a location where internet access may be difficult. With Spotify Premium, you can download up to 10,000 songs and listen to them on up to five different devices at the same time, without having to connect to the internet. It is also very simple to download songs, albums, or playlists from Spotify, which is a huge plus. Simply select Download from the drop-down menu next to the album you’d like to download and listen to it offline. To download the file, you can also select it by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and selecting “Download.”
How Does Spotify Work?
If this is the first time you’ve heard of or learned about music streaming platforms, you don’t have to be concerned about being overwhelmed. We are currently living in a high-tech world in which convenience is essential. After all of this is said and done, getting started with Spotify is as simple as following these steps:
- To create a new Spotify account, go to the website.
- Choose a subscription plan (Spotify free, Spotify Premium). The differences between the two will be discussed further down.
- From the Google Play Store or the App Store, get the Spotify app.
- Sign in to your account and open the app.
Listening to a limitless amount of music is as simple as that! Now, let’s speak about what you may anticipate to see when you open the app.
The listening Experience With Free Spotify
When it comes to the mobile interface, there are some significant functional differences between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium, particularly in terms of audio quality. With the free mobile version, you can only skip six tracks per hour, however with the Premium version, you can skip as many as you want throughout the day. Although skip restrictions can be a nuisance if you find yourself consistently disinclined to listen to specific randomized music, they are a minor inconvenience that is easily forgiven
Listen Offline With Spotify Premium
With Spotify Premium, you have the ability to download an unlimited amount of music and listen to them offline. For long flights or if you want to switch off your data while away from home, this is a great feature to have. Because there is no option for downloading music when using Free Spotify, you may find yourself paying more money on data consumption than you would have with a Premium subscription. On the desktop version of the Spotify client, there are fewer differences between Free Spotify and Spotify Premium content. For example, on the desktop client, you may choose any single song you want and go through it as many times as you like, regardless of whether or not you have Spotify Premium. You will, however, continue to see advertisements on Free Spotify when using the desktop application, and you will not be able to download music for offline listening on your computer unless you have Spotify Premium.
A Glitch To Spotify Free Affords Premium Features
There was a bug with Free Spotify that allowed for unlimited skips, specific song selection, and ad-free listening on both the mobile and desktop versions of the streaming service back in the summer of 2015. Because of this bug, it became nearly identical to Spotify Premium, with the exception of the option to download music for offline listening. I contacted Spotify customer service, who responded by saying, “To my knowledge, we have adverts and only a limited number of skips on the Free version.” This bug will almost certainly not endure indefinitely, therefore I’m going to have to declare the winner of the finest listening experience on Spotify Premium for the time being.
Free Spotify Vs Spotify Premium: Discovery Features Are Identical
One of the most beneficial aspects of Spotify is the way it encourages the discovery of new music. This is evident in its algorithmically generated playlists, which are designed to propose musical tastes that correspond to your previous listening experience. The playlists “Discover Weekly” and “Daily Mix” are updated on a regular basis with new choices. If you really dislike a recommended song or artist, you can tap a button to tell the app to stop playing that style of music in the future or to remove that artist from your profile entirely, for example. A new release from an artist you follow gets added to the “Release Radar” playlist, which is updated once a week.
One Of Spotify’s Best Features Is Available To Free And Premium Users.
Spotify’s Browse page contains a huge number of genres, moods, and other categories, and it is from here that you may listen to its editorial playlists in order to find new music to listen to. As a result of your listening activity, it will also recommend editorial playlists to you, and it will algorithmically construct “Radio” playlists for every song, artist, album, and playlist that you listen to. In the process of creating a new playlist on Spotify, the algorithm recommends music to you depending on the title of your playlist and the songs you’ve previously added to it. Regardless of whether or not you have subscribed to Spotify Premium, these discovery capabilities are available and quite useful.
Free Or Paid, Enjoy The Same Social Features
However, things have changed significantly from the days when my father would buy the latest Neil Young song on vinyl and play it with his friends in front of the turntable in his living room. Of course, people continue to gather to listen to music in modern times—though probably not as frequently as they will in 2020. Even when you’re cooped up at home, there’s something wonderful about spreading the social advantages of music to others. Spotify makes use of a variety of technologies on its site to encourage music sharing, and you don’t have to be a Premium subscriber to enjoy any of these features.
Enjoy Collaborative Playlists On Spotify
To build collaborative playlists, pick “Collaborative Playlist” from the drop-down menu that appears at the top-right of your screen (on mobile devices) or next to the playlist title (on desktop computers). Afterward, you can distribute the playlist link to your friends. They will be able to add and remove songs from the playlist as needed. Anyone who has access to the connection may do so, and it is private unless someone else has access to the link. When you and your roommates are having a party or going on a road trip with pals, collaborative playlists are a terrific way to get everyone involved. To be honest, they’re even useful when you just want to share some music with someone on a regular basis. In a similar vein, if you have a Premium Family membership or a Premium Duo subscription, Spotify will automatically build a “Family Mix” or a “Duo Mix” of songs based on the listening history of all of the members of your family or duo subscription. This isn’t exactly a social feature because these playlists are made by Spotify rather than by the users themselves, so I’m not going to hold it against Free Spotify because it’s not included in the trial version.
Some Music May Be Unavailable If You Don’t Pay For Premium
Spotify’s free version pays artists less per stream than Spotify Premium’s version. To address this disparity, Spotify now allows artists to impose a paywall on their content for the first two weeks following a release. If an artist chooses this option, their release will only be available to Premium subscribers for the first two weeks after it is made available to the general public. In the event that you value having access to all of the most recent releases, this may be a feature that encourages you to subscribe to Spotify Premium. Furthermore, if you place high importance on the amount of money that your favorite artists are paid, Premium is far superior in this regard as well. In the accompanying chart, you can see the average amount of money Spotify pays to artists for each stream.
There Are Different Priced Memberships For Premium, But Free Is Free
Spotify Premium subscriptions are available in four different flavors, with some of them offering extremely attractive discounts. Spotify Premium Individual subscription costs $9.99 per month and is the first of these two options. Access to all Premium features, such as no ad interruptions, on-demand playback, and downloading music for offline listening, is granted as a result of this purchase. Students enrolled in full-time courses at an accredited institution or college should be eligible for the Premium Student subscription, which costs $4.99 per month. Not only does this provide you access to all of the same features as Spotify Premium, but if you are a student in the United States, it also includes a subscription to SHOWTIME as well as the ad-supported version of Hulu (if available). Premium Duo is a shared Premium account that allows you to share a Premium account with your live-in partner. It will cost you $12.99 a month, and you and your spouse will each have your own separate accounts.. In addition to all of the other Premium features, you have the option to participate in “Duo Mix.” You and your companion can both go to the “Duo Mix” section of your “Made for You” page on the mobile app, pick “Join Duo Mix,” and then click the three dots at the bottom of the screen. Spotify will create a playlist that is appealing to both you and your spouse based on algorithmic design. Based on your mood, you can adjust the mix to be more chill or more cheerful. In addition, you can eliminate any explicit songs from the mix if you so desire. As a result, you can see which listening behavior the song was derived from by looking at the profile picture of either you or your partner next to each song.
Spotify Offers A Family Plan, A Plan For Couples, And A Student Rate.
Due to the fact that all members must reside at the same address, Spotify Premium Family is quite comparable to Spotify Premium Duo. Unlike that, Premium Family allows you to have as many as six unique accounts and costs $14.99 per month. Parents can choose to restrict access to explicit music for particular members of their family, and children can use their Premium Family account on the Spotify Kids app to listen to the music they choose. The “Family Mix” is a created mix that operates similarly to the “Duo Mix” and is available in addition to all of the other standard Premium features for you and your family to enjoy. All of these subscription alternatives are fantastic, but when it comes down to it, nothing beats the value of a free download. You should choose Free Spotify if the freedom from having to pay a portion of your paycheck every month is sufficient reason for you to put up with the advertisements, lack of features, and inconveniences of the service. Otherwise, Premium Spotify is the better choice.
Follow TechR for more informative articles.