Spotify lets free users choose their own songs

Spotify has lifted restrictions that prevented free users from listening to certain songs. As the service finally rolls out lossless audio to paid subscribers, it also announced that it will allow free listeners to search, play, and share any song without having to upgrade to a Premium subscription.

This update, which is rolling out globally, removes one of the most annoying limitations of Spotify's free experience, where playback was limited to random order. Instead of playing a specific song that a user searched for or selected from an album or playlist, Spotify played songs in random order. This forced users to skip songs until they got to the one they actually wanted to listen to, with the number of skips being limited to six per hour.

Now, even users without a paid subscription can “select and play any song they want,” the company said. However, some restrictions still apply, as free users can only listen to one song before the app switches back to shuffle.

As Spotify spokesperson Luke Mackay explained, “only Spotify Premium users have full control over how much music they can play and skip without limits.” He added that mobile users of the updated free experience will be able to select any song or search for it and play it, and if they don’t like a song, they can skip it and continue listening. However, each user will have “a daily allotted amount of time for on-demand playback.” Once that limit is reached, users will once again be limited to six skips per hour.

The free experience will still include ads, but the new update makes it less of a reason for free listeners to switch to competing services like YouTube when they want to listen to a particular song. It also helps Spotify achieve its goal of getting users to share links to music online, as free users were previously unable to immediately play songs that friends shared on social media.