Spotify takes aim at YouTube Music with update to their free service

For years, the biggest frustration with using Spotify’s free service has been the dreaded shuffle-only limitation. You’d search for a specific song, press play, and instead be launched into a randomized playlist with a measly six skips per hour to find what you were actually looking for. Well, in a new update that’s rolling out now, that’s all over. Spotify is now allowing all non-paying listeners to play any song they want.

That’s right, the old, restrictive shuffle-only experience is officially gone, folks. Now, free users can search for any track in Spotify’s library, select it from an album or playlist, and listen to it instantly. This also fixes the awkwardness of sharing music. If a friend sends you a link to a song, you can now actually play that song without having to upgrade to a Premium plan.

Of course, the free experience will still include ads between songs, which is to be expected. But the removal of the on-demand playback restriction is a huge win for casual listeners and makes the free version of Spotify dramatically more useful.

While this is a nice gift to free listeners, I think this is a strategic move, too. The ability to play specific songs on demand has long been the key advantage of YouTube Music’s free offering, and by closing this feature gap, Spotify is directly challenging YouTube Music for the ears of listeners who aren’t willing to pay for a subscription.

The timing is also significant. This massive update for the free tier comes right on the heels of Spotify’s long-awaited lossless audio rollout for Premium subscribers. It’s a powerful one-two punch, delivering significant upgrades for users at every level of the service and making a clear statement that they intend to compete aggressively across the board.

The update is now rolling out globally, so you should see the changes in your app soon.