Spotify has removed yet another restriction to its free offering, as competition continues to bite at the heels of one of the leading streaming music services.
While this feature has always been offered as a 6 month trial, the recent announcement ditches the streaming time limit completely for users in all countries.
Previously, Spotify users who accessed music over the web and didn’t pay for a subscription were limited to ten hours of listening a month and five plays of each song.
Those restrictions are now gone, letting free users listen as long as they’d like.
“In the past, we had to restrict your listening time to some hours a month once a six-month unlimited grace period had passed,” communications manager Diego Planas Rego said in a post on the Spotify blog. “But now, if you haven’t noticed, there’s no more time limit if you are using Spotify for free. We have removed these caps completely across all platforms – you can listen to your favourite songs as many times as you like, for as long as you want.”
The move follows Spotify last month allowing free users to stream from tablets and smartphones, which was previously limited to desktop web users.
While some music streaming services seem to be having a problem balancing the paid subscription based model and the ad-driven free business, Spotify is finding a way to keep things moving and profitable.
The streaming-music market has become increasingly competitive, with launches from rival services including big names such as Google. Spotify’s changes come days before the high-profile arrival of another service, Beats Music, in the US.