As of September 15 the free user experience on Spotify was upgraded. There are now free features such as Search & Play, Pick and Play, Playlist Customization, Listen to Lyrics, and Share and Play.

Normally, premium features are now available to free users for a better listening experience on Spotify.  However, there are still limitations, such as ads, no downloads, and limited skips.

Pro: Previously, if a user wanted a specific song on a playlist, they had to wait for it to come around in the rotation, but now it’s free sailing.  Users can go through the playlist and select a specific song.

Con: Listeners can now pick the song, which gets rid of song previews, if a user wants to hear one to jog their memory of a song. It is also not available for all playlists, and auto shuffle is still applied to free users.

Pro: Search & Play, another new feature is the ability to search for a song and directly listen to it instead of getting a mix of the artist’s songs. 

Con: A user may encounter an ad before their chosen song plays.

Pro: Playlist customization is another new Spotify feature. In addition to the ones made by Spotify experts, users can now create their own curated playlist and receive song recommendation of the mobile app. This includes choosing a personalized “cover art.” Users who want to make their playlists unique and choose the title now have control over playlist customizations.

Con: It may feel unnecessary and bothersome to users who don’t care about the customization. The cover art is one cover art per playlist at a time, and if changed, the previous one is gone for good.

Pro: Listen to Lyrics allows users to read the lyrics while listening to a song. This allows users to remember the words better than before when using Spotify. If the free user wants to view the lyrics of the song playing, they can now. 

Con: Not all of the songs have lyrics available, so it might not be possible to view the lyrics.

Pro: The share & play feature allows free users to share a song with a friend. It now has the sharing feature for free users where you can share songs with other users, because this feature now has an upgraded version for Premium users. It is also now possible to listen to songs shared and add them directly from social media platforms on mobile devices. Tracks shared by artists on social media also apply to this new rule.

Con: It could be difficult to share songs between premium and free users because of the different access levels.

This is the result of the new Spotify update for free users. Head to the Spotify app to check out these new features.