how about NOT MAKING US PAY TO SEE THE LYRICS

[alexsuckmy]

add the lyrics back.

[sub3]

Spotify, why in the **bleep** would u need premium lyrics?? Like can you don't make**bleep** so pay to win. It's just listening to songs! Im okay if you need to pay for no ads and no shuffle but lyrics? I think you should remove this pls. Sometimes people also read the lyrics. I'm sorry if I'm too harsh but pls remove this feature. Thanks

[31npd7rxamqhpmlnqe2o]

I was on Spotify and listening to music as usual, I like to see the lyrics but when I click on it, I get this pop-up saying, "Get premium to see the lyrics". Excuse me, NO ONE asked for this update. So why are we adding it? To fish for more money. It's honestly ridiculous.  Why are we punishing users for not wanting to pay 10.99$ a month? It sounds pretty targeted in my opinion, especially to lower-class people. Who wants to pay THAT much to skip a few more songs and to see the lyrics?

[Bee15]

YYEEEAAH SCREW THAT STUPID PAYWALL

[Mitre226644]

“I WanT FRee StUFF” 😫

[EverestG]

Dear Spotify Team,

Okay look, I get the whole profit aspect that you guys (Spotify) need to maintain here as a company. And people swearing about the change or at you guys isn't really conducive to getting a mutual understanding. I felt like a decent attempt at convincing you guys against the change is worth a shot.

So... here are some of my arguments:

1) Locking features behind a paywall to free users after previously having access to it as a QoL aspect is completely unfair. I don't know the term exactly but taking something away that had been previously expected causes disapproval to those who had relied on or anticipated the continued provision of that service or benefit. Even if it is just an experiment, particularly if they had no choice in the matter (Perhaps a voluntary beta-test version of Spotify with some small incentive or not to get these sorts of experiments/features ahead of time). 

2) Requiring users to pay for lyrics on Spotify, when a significant number of songs lack this feature entirely, could be seen as unfair. While most songs with lyrics are accurate, the absence of lyrics for a large portion of the music library may detract from your overall listening experience. A good amount of the songs I encounter and listen to have no lyrics, or rarely a mistake. (Maybe if it was improved upon, I would be more willing to accept it as a paid feature. Again, it's a difficult thing to implement but if I only complained and didn't even try to offer an alternative, I'd be a whiner.)

3) Possible Cobra Effect? It's a favourite term of mine which refers to the unintended consequences of an attempted solution to a problem that actually makes the problem worse. If the lyrics are locked behind a paywall, more people may become incentivised to find alternatives or work-arounds, in recent, one example of this was YouTube's adblocker popups that actually caused a significant amount of people to use free and even paid adblockers. This may be an exaggerated possibility, and people may only resort to googling the lyrics instead, however it sets a precedent, privileges can be taken behind a paywall. 

4) Negative PR in the short to long term, if this kind of precedent is set then your reputation as an actually really good company would be dirtied. Negative publicity and backlash from users who perceive it as a greedy move by the company, so on and so forth.

5) Making old features premium and not innovating newer ideas/features would lead to a risk of losing the current foothold you guys have in the music industry. I think many would agree with me that Spotify is one of the best ways to experience old and new songs, artists and etc, so to a large degree, we only want the best for and from you.

Sincerely,

Just a guy who enjoys music in his life, and occasionally singing/dancing by himself to lyrics he may or may not remember. 🙂

P.S. I might repost this on other places if it fits, I made a forum account just now for this issue, so I am not aware of everything here.

[EverestG]

Dear Spotify Team,

Okay look, I get the whole profit aspect that you guys (Spotify) need to maintain here as a company. And people swearing about the change or at you guys isn't really conducive to getting a mutual understanding. I felt like a decent attempt at convincing you guys against the change is worth a shot.

So... here are some of my arguments:

1) Locking features behind a paywall to free users after previously having access to it as a QoL aspect is completely unfair. I don't know the term exactly but taking something away that had been previously expected causes disapproval to those who had relied on or anticipated the continued provision of that service or benefit. Even if it is just an experiment, particularly if they had no choice in the matter (Perhaps a voluntary beta-test version of Spotify with some small incentive or not to get these sorts of experiments/features ahead of time). 

2) Requiring users to pay for lyrics on Spotify, when a significant number of songs lack this feature entirely, could be seen as unfair. While most songs with lyrics are accurate, the absence of lyrics for a large portion of the music library may detract from your overall listening experience. A good amount of the songs I encounter and listen to have no lyrics, or rarely a mistake. (Maybe if it was improved upon, I would be more willing to accept it as a paid feature. Again, it's a difficult thing to implement but if I only complained and didn't even try to offer an alternative, I'd be a whiner.)

3) Possible Cobra Effect? It's a favourite term of mine which refers to the unintended consequences of an attempted solution to a problem that actually makes the problem worse. If the lyrics are locked behind a paywall, more people may become incentivised to find alternatives or work-arounds, in recent, one example of this was YouTube's adblocker popups that actually caused a significant amount of people to use free and even paid adblockers. This may be an exaggerated possibility, and people may only resort to googling the lyrics instead, however it sets a precedent, privileges can be taken behind a paywall. 

4) Negative PR in the short to long term, if this kind of precedent is set then your reputation as an actually really good company would be dirtied. Negative publicity and backlash from users who perceive it as a greedy move by the company, so on and so forth.

5) Making old features premium and not innovating newer ideas/features would lead to a risk of losing the current foothold you guys have in the music industry. I think many would agree with me that Spotify is one of the best ways to experience old and new songs, artists and etc, so to a large degree, we only want the best for and from you.

Sincerely,

Just a guy who enjoys music in his life, and occasionally singing/dancing by himself to lyrics he may or may not remember. 🙂

P.S. I might repost this on other places if it fits, I made a forum account just now for this issue, so I am not aware of everything here.

[Mitre226644]

“The whole profit aspect” = genius. 

[Marion15]

I'm also annoyed by paywalls but appreciate a free quick look . Someplace in between someone has to pay the employees and equipment bills.

It's not fair to subscribers for unwilling free lookers to gripe about something they are not willing to pay for. The service and features on Spot are the best value I've found on the net and the service costs money to run either through advertising that I WILL NOT ACCEPT or pay for. A reasonable fee to keep the service available to people willing to pay for it. And the free option for Free users that aren't willing to pay for the service. It's appropriate that subscription users receive more useful functions. Free users can complain about the service are still allowed a voice. If all the major features were free there would be little incentive to subscribe.

[snownings]

Just because I'm poor doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to see the lyrics to a song

[Mitre226644]

Free users are not freeloaders. They are being served ads, which makes money for Spotify. Not much, but it’s still something. 

Advertising is an enigma. No one likes to be served ads, and yet advertisers pay for “free” services, and make everything move and flow. 

I believe that the reckoning will come to the sites, apps, etc., who use ads recklessly, so much that it makes a site or service practically unusable, especially on a mobile device. Then the revolt will begin in full force.

UPDATE: This wasn’t meant to insinuate this is what Spotify is doing. The amount of what I imagine to be hate-inspired “likes” is concerning to me given my stance on this and in light of the astounding backlash to this issue I don’t want to be misconstrued. Buy premium to support artists and improve the platform if you are able, or live with the free subscription as Spotify sees appropriate. They are not monsters, nor are they breaking any laws, they are a big, well-informed company.