Spotify checks cohabitation for family subscriptions

Spotify is introducing new measures to verify whether users of a family subscription actually live together. The company has announced that members may soon be asked to confirm their address. This step is intended to combat abuse of family subscriptions, where users share their subscriptions with friends who do not live in the same household.

The family subscription offers significant discounts for groups living together, but Spotify has found that this option is often misused. With the new checks, Spotify hopes to bring consistency to the use of this subscription model and ensure that only eligible users benefit from the advantages. If a user cannot prove that they live together with the other family members, their access to the subscription may be revoked.

Spotify has not yet disclosed what methods will be used to demonstrate that users indeed live together, and the exact details of these checks remain unclear for now. The changes are a response to growing concerns about subscription sharing and its impact on the business results of streaming services.

The adjustment of the terms and implementation of checks underscores a broader trend within the industry, where companies are becoming increasingly active in managing user accounts and identifying abuse. It remains unclear how these changes will affect the use of family subscriptions in the long term.

Read the full article from Bright.