- Spotify gets a new direct message feature on “Select Markets”
- It allows you to share music, podcasts and audiobooks with friends
- The feature will be available for both free and premium subscribers
Spotify has announced a surprising new feature for both free and premium subscribers – the opportunity to send direct messages to friends on the mobile app.
The Messages feature has landed to encourage you to share music, podcast and audiobook recommendations with friends. But rather than just letting you share links, the feature will be a full-blown messaging app in Spotify on iOS and Android.
An important detail is missing – Spotify says the feature is rolling out for free and premium users aged 16 years or older this week “in selected markets on mobile devices”, but it has not yet specified which markets. We have asked Spotify to clarify accessibility and we update this story when we hear back.
You can access Spotify messages in a few ways. Your message history will live in your profile section in the upper left corner of the app. Once you have accepted a message request, you can then respond with emojier and send text messages, like a WhatsApp DM.
Spotify will of course encourage you to send messages throughout the app as well. In the now playing view, which is already quite cluttered, the stock will also give you the opportunity to send a message to a friend.
How does Spotify plan to prevent messages from becoming a spam party? For starters, you can opt out of the feature completely in the app’s settings. You also get the option of accepting or rejecting messages, blocking other users, or reporting insulting messages.
Spotify also says messages are protected by “industrial standard encryption”, though it does not specify what it is. The streaming service will also use “proactive detection technology to scan messages for a particular illegal and harmful content” that can expose many from sharing something beyond their new favorite song.
Analysis: an explosion of the past but not the hifi -future that many want
It’s almost exactly 15 years since Apple announced the bad iTunes Ping, a “music -oriented social network” designed to “follow your favorite artists and friends to find out what music they’re talking about”.
While Spotify messages are not quite the same thing that takes the private DM route rather than the public social network, it feels motivated by the same desires. Namely, to keep you glued to Spotify’s own app instead of sharing your favorite tunes like WhatsApp.
Spotify had a similar feature as messages left in the very early days, but it was a long time ago for most current users to remember. As a person who has paid for Spotify in the last decade, I do not see myself using the feature very much when it is so easy to share links on dedicated messaging apps -and the initial reaction from Spotify fans has been frosty.
Comments on those like Reddit apologize “Feature Creep” in Spotify’s app, which is something I wrote about a few years ago when it added its vertical roll in Tiktok style.
In response to Spotify’s message on X, other users continue their cry to “bring hifi” and refer to the long -awaited lossless audio plan. There is still a chance that Spotify could deliver it by 2025, with rumors earlier this year pointing to the launch of a Music Pro plan.
This speculation suggested that the plan could give you lossless sound, concert ticket deals and AI-driven Remixing tools (which sounds a lot like Spotify’s new mix tool) for an extra $ 6 on top of $ 12-PR. Month Premium plan (or an additional £ 6 in the UK and AU $ 7 in Australia).
However, it’s been several months since these rumors, so I don’t accuse other Spotify fans of getting Antsy when the service prioritizes new features as messages that few have asked for.
Messages could eventually prove to be popular with some, but I would bet that most users have (like me) already established their music sharing habits in a similar way, and messages could become another feature that dilutes Spotify’s increasingly wide offerings, causing many to look at alternatives among the best music streaming services.
