Amazon Music is Now Free… with a Catch
Music streaming services are abundant nowadays – from established players like Spotify and YouTube, to retail giants like Amazon, it seems that almost every big tech brand out there has a way for loyal subscribers to enjoy their favourite music and artists from the comfort of their smartphones. Amazon in particular has enjoyed relative success with its “Amazon Music” platform, and it looks like the service will be getting a new free tier of sorts.
According to the online commerce company, Amazon Prime subscribers will now be able to access Amazon music for free and listen to their favourite tracks without any ads. One big caveat however is that listeners will only be able to use the service free in shuffle mode, meaning that you’ll lack the ability to manually program and select playlists and individual songs, except when searching for an artist and their catalogue, for example.
With that said, you won’t be bombarded by ads whether during music streams or podcast sessions, which is a silver lining especially compared to other music platforms out there which offer free listening but with ads in-between songs. On the other hand, you won’t need a subscription to use those, unlike the Prime subscription pre-requisite with this new change to Amazon Music.
If you really need full control though, you’ll have to sign up for a separate Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, which comes with full playback options, as well as settings for spatial audio with compatible hardware.
Source: About Amazon