Even though YouTube Music is up against industry juggernauts like Spotify and Apple Music, the service is quickly bridging the gap as more users get on board. Much like Spotify, YouTube Music also offers an unpaid or free experience, albeit with some limits in place to encourage listeners to purchase a subscription. It now looks like YouTube Music is experimenting with more restrictions.
As highlighted by Xinfinte on Reddit, YouTube Music is letting users know that they have limited views of lyrics, prompting them to “Unlock lyrics with Premium.” This appears to be part of a limited test, and I was unable to replicate this onscreen message using a free YouTube Music account.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that YouTube Music is at least considering the idea, though it’s too early to tell if the app will go ahead and roll out this limitation to all free accounts. One user in the Reddit post’s comments suggests that this particular individual was likely chosen at random for this test, with not many seeing this message pop up on their accounts.
Should you be worried? Probably not
Some Redditors believe that this is YouTube Music’s way of recovering some of the money it spends on contracts with lyrics aggregators like LyricFind and Musixmatch, but that’s purely speculation at the moment (via Android Authority).
If all of this feels familiar, that’s because Spotify set up a similar limitation of three songs per month for its non-paying subscribers last year. The company rolled back that policy a couple of months later after facing widespread criticism. With this in mind, a decision like this is unlikely to be well-received by existing YouTube Music users.
Enforcing a move like this could compel people to switch to Spotify, which doesn’t hide its lyrics behind a paywall. Perhaps there are better ways to ask people to pay $11/month for YouTube Music Premium than by taking away benefits that have always existed.
Are you seeing this message on your free YouTube Music account?
