Spotify announced Monday it will be adding a family share plan option, allowing anyone with a premium account to add up to four family members at half the price of a normal subscription.
The feature is called Spotify Family and it fortunately does not merge accounts. Instead it allows users to keep separate usernames, including listening history and playlists.
"This is one of the most asked-for features from our audience," said Ken Parks, chief content officer at Spotify. "With today's announcement we're making it easier than ever for the whole family to experience Spotify Premium on their phones, at home and on the go."
While there are a number of Spotify users who share accounts with others through logging on in multiple devices, shared account holders aren't able to listen to music at the same time. Not only that, but things like playlists and social connections are also shared between the two people. Spotify Family allows users in a family to have completely different accounts while saving money.
Spotify is the latest tech company to attempt to address a growing tension between sellers and consumers of digital media. Households used to only need one copy of a book, album, or movie. Content providers in the digital age have had to try and persuade consumers to continue paying for digital media, leading to restrictions on how files can be shared and different definitions of piracy.
Both Apple and Amazon have also recently announced updates to services that allow family members to link accounts, allowing users to access media that family members have already downloaded.
While families in which multiple people have accounts will surely welcome the new feature, Spotify will be facing a number of challenges in coming years. Many of its competitors are not really in the music industry and have income from other areas. For example, Apple really only uses music services to sell hardware like the iPhone or Mac. Google Music locks users into Google's ecosystem, in which Google makes money from advertising. Amazon gives music away for free as part of its Prime subscription service, which encourages users to buy physical goods from the Amazon store.
Spotify does not have the luxury of being able to make money in other markets, meaning the company has to find other ways to remain competitive.
Spotify Family will be rolling out across the globe in the coming weeks, although no specific date for the service has been given.
Spotify Family lets the account holder invite up to four family members to share one billing account. Each user's listening history, recommendations and playlists are kept separate and each additional user gets 50 percent off Spotify Premium, so it costs $4.99 for each additional account. Under the new family plan, a family of five would pay $29.99 rather than $50. Spotify Premium costs $9.99 a month.
