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.

[nicolettekady]

why not have the opportunity to still purchase the audiobooks then?

[Officechick]

My husband and I are really disappointed that we can’t share the audiobooks within our duo. We are hoping for an update soon!

[Lauragil0412]

Messed up, you should say all those things, the idea is for everyone in the family to be actually PREMIUM

[azgin76]

I agree and hope that this gets changed. Why have a family plan with items that can't be used by all family members? I don't understand why this is setup with a limit on users. Please reconsider this policy.

[samthonis]

Hi, this is a bad policy. Please fix it.

[Niahlate]

You can in the spotify main website. They are costly thats for sure. I purchased Fourth Wing for my spouse as we was also mislead. Cost 28 dollars after taxes. Never again.

[Niahlate]

This is false advertising and very misleading. Spotify needs to fix this. Stuff like this is why people pirate and file class action lawsuits. Nothing states that only the account manager will have the true “Premium”. But of course this is just another greedy company in corporate America.

[Weedorama]

Is this a joke? Only one member of the family plan has access? How is this a thing that appears as normal for Spotify? Adding audiobooks but limiting it to one person? Make it make sense. 

Spotify has dropped the ball on this one, the costs per month has gone up and up and yet the access is limited. Hmmm, is it time to switch services?

[Penguinpuffin]

Not only is this disappointing, but it makes absolutely no sense. The account manager of the family plan I am a part of doesn't even use audiobooks, whereas another member and I are avid readers and audiobook listeners. Those hours are now going to waste. I hope changes will be made soon, but in the meantime, Spotify won't see any audiobook traffic from me. Good thing Libby exists.

[Xavier98]

It says solved up the top. Nothing is solved. I'm not interested in audiobooks but my partner is. How can I transfer the account management to her so she can use it, or should I just give her my login and reduce my subscription? Pretty broken feature really. We already have limited hours. Why not just limit the hours to a subscription rather than an account, that way everyone can access the feature. Better that way than being unable to do anything apart from unsubscribing.

[indy2]

Spotify when are you going to fix this?  If the plan holder is allotted audiobook hours it should be up to THEM on who in the family can listen to audiobooks!  I don't know why you are blocking this from paying customers!  

[willie1foot]

I just downgraded to Duo purely because of this ridiculous limitation. When will it be fixed?

[12134032866]

Agreed that this decision should be reviewed and even maybe how the books are split.

I guess there is a reasoning to give 15 hours right now, and have the plan manager decide who gets the 15 hours. For example, as a plan manager, I should be able to give a book of the time of my choice (I see the length right) and decide to give it to whoever family member accounts there is. To be honest. I split that family plan with some members who also payback their share of the account to me, yet I have more features then them, It would be the bare minimal that I can decide to "share" my audiobook time with them, risking that they might listen to the whole book and take 5 hours of my 15.

But yet again, why hours instead of number of books? I see that I have re-listened a chapter, and that consumed twice the amount of time as well. Why is it like that? When I buy a book, I can reread the same chapter as many times as I want? When I listen to a song, I download it and cache it and not use spotify bandwidth multiple times? Why is it different with audiobooks?

TLDR:

- Plan manager should be able to lend a maximum number of hours to family members. If those hours are taken, withdraw. If not, don't. "You should listen to your book before I use all our hours, son! I'm going to listen to my book now!"

- As an account manager, if family members are talking to me about a book they would want to listen to, I should be able to give it to them. Let it be book based here as alternative approach then above suggestion.
Otherwise, I have to say I love this addition to Canada subscribers that arrived to me recently, I didn't know it was a thing, never thought I would prefer listening to books then watch stupid stuff on tv before going to bed. I love it, and so would my family members (They actually think its totally unjust, and they are right). They continue to repay me their share of the account though... But I reduced the value of their share a little bit since they are jealous of those 15 hours I spend with my earbuds on not moving my head like I normally do, in my chair, looking in the void.

Please change that policy and go time sharing or book sharing and stop double dipping in the listening time for a same book chapter being repeated?

[SSEAM]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Device

(iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy 9, Macbook Pro late 2016)

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issue

[dianacee]

Absolutely agree with everyone here. The inability to listen to audiobooks unless you are a plan manager is very unacceptable and a clear roadmap for when this will be resolved should be provided to us as paying customers. When we pay for premium, we expect to receive the same benefits as all other premium users otherwise this is false advertising. Spotify please respond. 

[mommaB]

Also stating my disappointment! My kids have far more time, and need, to listen to audiobooks than I do! Might have to take Amazon music up on their 3-months free offer and reactivate our audible!

[vmason1216]

That is ridiculous, if I'm paying for a premium account, the same access should be granted to all of my family.

[annechapman4]

Please provide explicit, easy to find, easy to see information about the fact that Audiobooks included for Premium plan managers are NOT included for plan members. Terms and conditions does not cut it as communicating transparently with customers who you are selling premium plans to. Better yet, just INCLUDE the audiobooks you provide in premium to EVERYONE in a premium family.

I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out why my family members could not listen to the audiobooks I could. And it took searching around the app, and then website, and then dealing with bots, and then finally chatting with a person to find out that premium family does not include audiobooks for anyone but the plan manager. That feels like a bait and switch. Just make it explicit in the description of Premium Family so people know what they're getting. Terms and conditions is not how you communicate this kind of information if you want people to actually see and understand it.

[Blue_v_addict]

What a joke! It's now May 2024 and this is still an issue! I'm in NZ and free audiobooks have just been released here and this is still not available. Considering what we pay for this accessible content that we could find online for free, it is a joke. Can the family not share the 15 hours!!? And don't reply to this with the same copy and paste answer Spotify!

[PurpleAlienGirl]

I hate that we have to have premium to listen to audiobooks I loveeee audiobooks especially when I am taking a nice drive. And They also have a limit of looking at the lyrics. They are only doing this for the money 💰