Are there any plans to offer Spotify Kids in Austria

[anzthom]

As a premium for family subscriber I would love to get the Kids app to be available also in Austria. For Germany it has been rolled out already and I would hope to get it for Austria too any time soon - my kids love to listen to audibles and music but the interface for adults is not really something kids.

Is there any roadmap where we could get information about when things will be rolled out in different countries?

[Luan]

Hey, @anzthom 
Welcome to Spotify Community and thanks for reaching out here!

Spotify works hard to expand its catalog, features, and services around the world as faster as it can. Spotify Kids is being launched in more and more countries where Spotify for Family is already available.

I cannot say exactly when Spotify Kids will be rolled out in Austria, but I suggest that you keep an eye on Spotify Newsroom to be up-to-date on each new step taken by Spotify.

If you have any other further questions or need more help, let me know! I'd love to help!

Best Regards,
Luan

[gerbera37]

Please make a note to the description of the family abo that is not possible for austrian users to download the kids app. It cost me so much time to figure that out. And the child security function was the reason why I have chosen the more expensive family abo. 🙄

[Alex]

Hey there @gerbera37,

Thanks for the post.

We appreciate your feedback. We've passed it on to the right team at Spotify.

However we don't have access to official information on when or if it will be updated.

Cheers!

[CpNo]

Same thing for the Netherlands. My 6y/o daughter loves music, she has a Mighty player connected to her Spotify account as part of a family plan. I’d love for her to be able to explore new music by herself on a spare phone we have lying around, but we need those parental controls. 

Really don’t see why it takes so long to roll this out in different countries…

[Jeremy]

Hi there @CpNo,

Thank you for your reply and feedback.

As mentioned above - we don't have access to official information on when or if it will be updated.

In this case we suggest that you check out out Newsroom from time to time for possible information regarding this.

Let us know if we can help you with anything else in the meantime.

Take care!

[sioux444]

Hi,
Please write this properly on the overview page of the subscriptions.
I have now taken out a Family premium subscription and now I find that there is no kids app for Austria.
This costs time, money and is very annoying...
BR

[Angermatt]

Gleiches gilt auch für die Schweiz! Ich finde es sehr schade, dass Spotify mit einem Abo lockt, welches nicht in allen Ländern funktioniert. Auch wird beim Abschluss NICHT darauf hingewiesen, dass es in der Region/Land wo ich lebe nicht funktioniert. Ich hoffe, dass sich Spotify bemüht, diese Kids App bis zu Weihnachten auch in der Schweiz anbietet, ansonsten sehe ich den Sinn nicht, ein solches Abo zu finanzieren.

[Mr_L]

Dear Spotify team,

how difficult could it be to roll-out an existing app into a specific market?? Obviously, there are a lot of parents (in Europe) who have subscribed to Spotify Family to enable a save access to music for their kids...and there is NO mention of Spotify Kids not being available in specific countries, actually it STATES Spotify Kids as a selling argument !!

Really disappointing realizing that this does not work in all countries...

What is the roadmap to roll-off Spotify Kids to other countries?? I think many will then evaluate whether it makes sense to stay with Spotify or not!

Thanks,

GL

[michaelfeldweber]

Hey spotify team,

i really really would like to give my kids the spotify kids app here in austria. There is still no timeline of release... i just asked half a year ago. We live next to the german border, our friends there love the app with their kids. Please let us know a timeline 😉

best greetings from austria

[cartesian1]

Spotify is such a hopelessly disorganized company in terms of information exchange, documentation and customer support. First, on the Austrian site, they sell you, at significant expense the premium family plan in Austria for up to 6 family members living at the same address. Then, when you invite your kids, you find out they can't join if they're under 14! Then (maybe) you find out there's a special Spotify Kids app and decide to download that. Then you find out the Kids app is available on the Play Store in the US, Canada and Germany (so it is GDPR compliant), but for no apparent reason has never been made available on the Austrian Play Store! Then you find out people have pointed out this problem to Spotify on their forum. Then you find out Spotify have done nothing, and won't say "if or when" they might release Spotify Kids in Austria. Just ridiculous. So pointlessly disappointing!

[CpNo]

Jeremy, thanks for your reply.

I find it very disturbing that, as a paying customer, I just have to ‘sit and wait’ for this kind of crucial feature, that’s being used as an argument to convince people to take out a subscription. 

Adding to that the decision to not take a stand on spreading of disinformation on this platform (the Rogan/Young controversy), which all the more proves the necessity for parental control features, as obviously Spotify cannot be trusted to provide a safe environment for children and teenagers. As perhaps it shouldn’t, because who is to say what comprises a ‘safe’ environment? Leave that to parents then, they know what’s best for their children. Spotify needs to roll out the tools already in place in order for parents to do so, but they can’t even seem to provide a roadmap for this. 

And to top it all, there seems to be no way to raise any of these issues with Spotify itself. The community is used as a barrier between paying customers with legitimate concerns and complaints, and Spotify employees who can actually take these concerns up the decision making chain. 

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate you and other community members for helping others out and solving lots of issues for many users, and I thank you again for it. If you have any means at your disposal to relay these concerns to Spotify employees, I’d appreciate that. 

EDIT 30 January: it seems there actually is a way to contact Spotify directly. The Dutch language version is here.
It’s a live-chat customer support service. The Spotify employee I spoke to couldn’t give any more info on the roll-out of Spotify Kids, and assured me that they get asked a lot about it. She seemed to suggest the community-discussions on the topic are well monitored, too. In an attempt to find alternatives for the meantime, she pointed me to the option to block explicit content, specific artists or shows. Which is obviously not very helpful for parents of young children, because you’d need to block 99,9% of Spotify’s catalogue 🥴

Ah well, it’s back to sit-and-wait, apparently. 

[anzthom]

Unfortunately the truth seems to be that Spotify will not roll out the kids program to any other country. Last activity in this area was in 2020. 

So to me it looks like the program is dead.

Someone from Spotify should just have the courage to make this an official statement instead of fooling their customers.