Free audiobook listening time for all Premium members

[SamBuzz]

While I'm grateful for the move to bring audiobooks to Spotify, the exclusive benefit of free audiobooks for the "plan manager" in duo and family memberships seems unjust. It diminishes the premium experience for other members who pay the same amount as their friends and family but don't enjoy the full premium benefits. 

I acknowledge the cost-effectiveness of duo and family memberships, but the solution to a fairer listening experience could be to distribute the 15 hours among all members in your party. This way, duo members, for instance, would get 7.5 hours free—a reasonable compromise for the reduced cost.

It ensures fairness to all users and gives users the option to customise their audiobook time based on their plan size and budget.

[MihailY]

Updated on 2023-10-10

Hello @SamBuzz,

Thanks for submitting your idea to the Idea Exchange!

We've gone ahead and marked this as a new suggestion. Spotify Staff will look into this idea once it reaches the necessary number of votes.

More info on how your feedback reaches Spotify via the Idea Exchange can be found here.

Cheers!

[filling_silence]

Make the account member have the same benefits as the account holder, ie access to audiobooks for free.

[overstep]

This would be a great potential improvement, and I agree that sharing the 15 hours between all Members is a good compromise.

Very well presented as well!

[Blanketyblank]

Family and duo plans are sold as premium, we’re told it’s two premium accounts and now you tell us of a new catagory, account mangager that gets audiobooks and the other accounts on the plan don’t? How are they premium if they’re denied the same benefits as individual premium accounts. Poorly thought out, misleading. Deeply disappointed. Sort it out. Just saying there’s a timeline for this isn’t enough. When can we expect it to be sorted?

[kmelehan]

The idea that only one of two people get to listen to audiobooks is ridiculous! Here I am, listening to some great audiobooks and wanting share the experience with my partner ... but he can't, because I'm the "manager", and he's just a "member". RIDICULOUS!

PLEASE MAKE AUDIOBOOKS AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS AS WELL AS MANAGERS. 

[Jbaum]

I agree. I appreciate the access to the audiobooks but want to share this with my family. Please update so the whole family gets access!

[tabithaw]

It absolutely diminishes the experience, and I'm a bit shocked they approved the rollout like this. The duo and family plans were never marketed as a less "full" premium experience. We share a duo plan and it explicitly states it includes 2 premium accounts. Not one full premium account and one partial premium account that's labeled the same but doesn't actually include all premium features. The "member" accounts on duo and family plans were never marketed as a lower-tier account option, and to suddenly make it such without clearly communicating that or providing an easy option for users to upgrade feels shady and misleading at best.

And then to roll it out without an option to share the hours, easily adjust the plan manager, or even have a additional buy-in option for all members to have that access feels like a really insulting oversight. Our plan "manager" won't even use the audiobooks and wants me to have them, yet has no way to transfer that usage to me. We would have created the account with myself as "manager" if Spotify made it clear this is the only one who would have full premium access to current and upcoming features, but again, that's never what these plans were marketed as. It's just not good practice.

[Noahr7]

Agree with the above comments. As a good gesture to your premium members, how about at least offering credits or refunds for Members who purchase audiobooks until this gets sorted out?

[AlysRose]

I find pretty absurd that the post has to have a certain number of votes for Spotify to consider something that should be there in the first place. Especially considering that pretty much no one knows about this forum and the vote thing.

I don't even understand how Spotify could have come up with the idea that only the plan manager can have all the premium benefits.

It's totally unfair. My partner and I have the duo membership and we pay half each but he can't listen to audiobooks.

Please consider doing this without waiting for people to vote this post. It's the right and obvious thing to do.

[KGuerra29]

Hi there,

I have the Duo Premium Plan for my partner and I. I am the one who manages the account and received notice from Spotify of the new Audiobook feature - a fantastic idea and great addition!!! 🙂

However, my partner and I travel often solo, as a family or separately with our kids to the next school event, sport event, etc and utilize Spotify often. One of our goals we set for ourselves recently is to "read" more but since we're always on the go, we thought this feature would be great. We realized though, the audiobook feature is ONLY for the primary account holder (me) and is not extended to her. We are pretty disappointed and do hope that Spotify will extend this feature for my partner and for other Duo/Family Premium Plans in this same boat.

If this is something that Spotify will not be extending anytime in the near future, please let me know so that I can coordinate with cancelling my subscription. Thank you for your time and consideration on this matter. I hope to hear from someone soon.

Warm Regards,

Kelly