Photo Credit: Adrien Olichon
Spotify still has a Basic subscription tier, but it’s not available to everyone. Digital Music News takes a look at the many dark patterns in play to hide it.
Earlier this month, DMN reported that Spotify seems to be sunsetting its “Basic” music-only subscription offering, only enabling existing subscribers the option to switch to the tier once. But it turns out that Spotify isn’t actually putting an end to the Basic tier—because keeping it around gives the company something to point to when critics decry the lack of a non-bundled option.
Instead, Spotify has been employing a number of deceptive patterns on its app and website—including “comparison prevention,” “obstruction,” and “sneaking”—to obfuscate the existence of the Basic tier, which is then only available to “eligible” Premium subscribers at Spotify’s discretion.
These “dark patterns” are defined as tricks used on websites and apps to guide users into taking actions they might not have otherwise. For example, “comparison prevention” causes the user to struggle to compare products because features and prices are combined in a complex manner or because essential information is difficult to find.
Spotify does have a support page detailing information about its Basic plan, but that information differs now from when the tier was first rolled out. According to the support page, once you cancel, it’s not possible to resubscribe to Basic. That fact is reinforced elsewhere on Spotify, like on its community forums.
“In order to be eligible for a Basic plan, you need to have been on a recurring Premium subscription before the Basic plan was launched in your country,” said a Spotify community moderator in response to a subscriber who questioned why the Basic option was not available to them. “If you’re not seeing it as an option to switch to, it means your account is not eligible for this subscription.”
Spotify asserts this has always been the case. A Spotify spokesperson told DMN:
“There’s been no change to Spotify Basic. Since launch, it has been available only to existing subscribers, and customers who cancel are not able to re-subscribe, something that’s been clearly outlined on our support site from the start.”
But that’s only partially true.
We previously covered when Spotify Basic was first introduced in the wake of the streaming platform’s pivot to audiobook bundles. Even back then, you had to have signed up for a Spotify Premium subscription before you had the option to downgrade to Basic. But you had more than one shot at downgrading to Basic; you still had to resubscribe to Spotify Premium and then go through the downgrade process again.
It was also an option for any Premium subscriber, not just those grandfathered in before the changes. Now, it seems as if “eligibility” is entirely at Spotify’s discretion. And that’s the key issue—Spotify doesn’t want you to know about its Basic tier, and definitely doesn’t want you to actually downgrade to it.
Presumably, the continued existence of the Basic plan is to assuage concerns that such a plan doesn’t exist at all. It gives the streaming giant something to point to in order to prove they still have a non-bundled tier available when music rightsholders complain about the lower royalties doled out from Spotify’s audiobook bundled subscription tiers.
Ultimately, no matter how Spotify wants to spin it, the Basic tier does appear to be sunsetting. The company would prefer nobody downgrade to it and has made it more difficult to use by limiting eligibility. Only pre-existing Premium subscribers can downgrade; new Premium subscribers cannot downgrade at all—and very few users even know Basic subscriptions exist.
And that makes sense. Last year, DMN Pro covered how over 99% of Spotify’s plans are bundled now. If the company only sees less than 1% of its subscribers tied to a Basic tier, then it can still argue that not all of its offerings are bundled. But that won’t be enough to quell the discontent of music publishers, who have been battling Spotify in court over the royalty discounts that accompany the streamer’s bundled offerings.
