Since speculation over what form Spotify’s forthcoming Hi-Fi tier would take began, a rumor has circulated that ads would be added to the standard Premium tier. With ad-free listening then becoming a perk of the Hi-Fi tier. But Spotify has now addressed that rumor…
Is Spotify Adding Ads to Its Premium Tier?
If you have heard the rumor that Spotify is planning to add adverts to its Premium tier, don’t worry, as it’s not true. That is according to Spotify, which has denied the rumor in a carefully-worded post on X. The post explicitly says that “Premium music listening is and will remain ad-free.”
If we’re honest, we hadn’t even heard this rumor until Spotify posted its denial. However, Spotify has probably done the right thing by trying to shut it down before it took hold in any major way. Especially as some Premium subscribers have reported seeing ads over the last few months, an issue that Spotify maintains was just an error and has now been fixed.
Crucially, one word missing from Spotify’s post on X is the word “always.” But then the internet never forgets, and claiming that “Premium music listening is and [always] will remain ad-free” would put the company in a bind if it ever decided to change course. Which it may well do as the streaming business shifts in the decades to come.
For Spotify to come out with a public post on social media must mean that the company is fully committed to keeping ads off of its Premium tier. However, as we have learned from other companies and their social media pronouncements, things can change, and quickly.
Probably the best example is this now-infamous tweet from Netflix. In March 2017, the streaming company proclaimed that “Love is sharing a password.” However, a few years later, the company decided that people sharing passwords with each other was harming its business, so it shut it down.
That’s One Less Perk for Hi-Fi Subscribers
The elephant in the room here, and likely the spark for these rumors, is the emergence of Spotify Hi-Fi as a future subscription tier. After years of speculation, in February, Bloomberg published a lengthy report about the development of this high-fidelity tier which is likely to debut at some point in 2025.
For an extra few dollars, Hi-Fi subscribers are likely to gain access to lossless audio, remixing tools, more AI features, and (potentially) priority gig tickets. However, moving the ad-free experience behind this paywall could have been a killer feature, and one which Spotify has now committed to not doing.
