Family members showing audiobooks locked, even under premium family account

[cliffordboobyer]

Plan

Premium Family

Device

(iPad)

Operating System

(iOS latest)

My Question or Issue

Hi, when i browse my app under my account, I can see audiobooks which are able to be played. However when I use my kids premium family login under their iPad, same audiobooks shown as locked. What gives? Some kind of early restrictions or teething issues as it seems audiobooks for streaming is quite new.

[roadrunnerxps]

Are you the primary holder of the account? If not only the primary holders
seem to have access to free audiobooks....Spotify needs to change this.

[ii191]

As the account manager for my family plan of 5 people, this is a ridiculous stance. Either give every member of the plan audio book access or none of us. Please don't fragment duo and family plans members with unequal features.

[doveyjunc]

Agree with everything everyone else has said. Why would you do this Spotify? I mean I guess we know why (a combination of greed and thoughtlessness probably) but being so blatant about it sucks. Sort it out.

[RawrTigerlily]

At the very least they should enable the plan manager to assign the credit to someone else on the account, perhaps on a monthly basis. My husband is the plan manager in our family, but has absolutely zero interest in audiobooks. 

My son and I would either one would make good use of the audiobook allocation, but neither of us has access to it. 

I can understand that for the price of the family plan, it wouldn't make sense for every member on the account to get the audiobook credit, but to make it assignable to the member most likely to use it makes a lot more sense than the current situation.   

[Noea27]

Absolutely ridiculous!! Agree with all of the above. Just found out why my family can't listen to books. I guess I'll stick to Prime music and Audible and cancel Spotify. Bye.

[Eunique]

This is pretty frustrating! I have Spotify Premium and share it with my family. Upon hearing about this new perk, I sent a mass text out to the family because we all like to read, only for my mom to try and listen to a book and be unable to. Upon digging some more, I realized the perk was exclusively for the plan manager, which is insane. All other benefits are spread equally across all members of a shared plan, why would this be any different? It should be the same amount of hours for all members of a plan, or at MINIMUM, the plan manager should be able to choose who can use it. I already use Libby and haven no intentions on switching so my 15 hours are basically going to waste unless I cancel the account and reset it up under my mom or give her my login, neither of which seem like reasonable/feasible solutions. I hope there's a true solution in the works for this, otherwise, this roll out was not well thought out! 

[Areyoujennray]

This is such BS!! what’s the point of having a family plan if one of the features is only available to one person, what a stupid rule. I really hope they change this soon otherwise may be reconsidering my premium subscription 

[ChefGeoff]

Thats trash Spotify. I found a great book that I think may really help my marriage. I send it to my wife and she agrees to listen to it only when she tries, its locked!!??

[AngryKid]

Exactly. And the prices keep going up for as Spotify has stated: “to cover the costs of audiobooks and podcast entertainers”….and yet limited hours a month and only one of my users. So why the increase in rate for this? Bc Spotify, again in their words, made a massive billion dollar mistake by being the only provider to have exclusive podcasts from some of the worst people on this planet, I suffer a price increase and still don’t get full benefits. But sure**bleep**, the CEO and other execs made their bonuses even with the massive loss. 

[blissclaire]

This is the most ABSURD thing that I've ever heard. My husband is our manager, and doesn't EVER listen to audiobooks! Heck, maybe implement that X amount of books can be listened to at a time, but not lock it all! This is bonkers, Spotify! Make it right! 

[roadrunnerxps]

And I have a question. W T F is a "Casual Listener"

[#13]

I have family plan
I'm fully paid up
UK based
As plan manager I can listen to audio books
But other family users audio books are locked

[MariaBedia]

Spotify, change this!!!

[Beliskner]

I’m the plan manager and yet every audiobook is locked and when I try to select one it says “Want to listen? You can’t buy audiobooks in the app…….”  
is it me, am I doing something wrong?  Having looked at the listening times for many books though they exceed 15 hours so seems a bit of con!

[Vasil]

Hey @Beliskner,

Thanks for joining the thread!

We have Audiobook titles only available for purchase and aside from that we also have the subscriber catalogue where you can use your Audiobook listening hours 🙂

Audiobooks that are part of the subscriber catalog are labeled Included in Premium. To locate those:

1. Go to Search.
2. Under Browse All, select Audiobooks.
3. Browse featured titles, or scroll down to browse by category.
    

Note: The titles available in our audiobooks subscriber catalogue may vary from time-to-time at Spotify’s or a third party rightsholder’s discretion. As a result, the titles in our audiobooks subscriber catalogue may not be the same as those available for purchase on Spotify.

Note: The audiobooks subscriber catalog may also vary between countries. You can always explore titles in the same genre or by the same author to find something similar.

Hope this helps! We're here for you should any further questions come to mind.

[sblocks94]

Spotify in this thread said back in October they were looking into this, we need an update from them

[AfroRicanLibra]

This is absolutely and undeniably one of the most ludicrous things I've encountered since being a subscriber, and I've been a loyal subscriber since you first launched in the US. This seems so disingenuous, it literally has me contemplating cancellation. I pay for my entire family but my family can't listen to audiobooks?! Nah, that doesn't fly with me. YouTube Music is enticing...

[leithgooner2]

@vasil
Eh? What?

is this meant to be a “solution” from Spotify? 

try again pal

[giftedorb]

Outrageous response just make it happen Spotify we pay for family premium so all members of our family can use Spotify premium!! Wow 

[Busymom1213]

I also have a family plan and my other family members can't listen to audio books. This kind of stinks since the whole point is to have PREMIUM memberships for EVERYONE. Why pay for a service you can't use? I really hope you guys fix this. I even noticed some podcasts that used to be free are now free with ads or pay for it, even on the Premium Manager Account. Are you serious?