Taylor Kerns / Android Authority
Spotify is adding the option to purchase books through its app. Starting this spring, thanks to a newly announced partnership with Bookshop.org, Spotify subscribers will be able to get physical books, sourced from independent book stores, shipped to their doors. The partnership ties into Spotify’s new Page Match feature, which lets you scan the book you’re reading with your phone’s camera to skip straight to that part of the audiobook (assuming it’s in Spotify’s library).
That’s all pretty cool, and people who listen to a lot of audiobooks on Spotify might get a lot out of it. But as a subscriber who uses Spotify almost entirely as a music-streaming app, I can’t say I’m excited about yet more stuff in the app’s already crowded interface. The announcement coming alongside the platform’s third price hike in as many years doesn’t help, either.
All this has me thinking it’s time to give a new music platform a shot.
Do you listen to anything other than music on Spotify? 55 votes Yes, I listen to podcasts on Spotify. 16 % Yes, I listen to audiobooks on Spotify. 5 % Yes, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on Spotify. 7 % No, I only use Spotify to listen to music. 71 %
I’m just here for the music
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Spotify’s introduction of non-music features is nothing new. By the time I jumped ship from YouTube Music in 2021, Spotify had already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build out its podcast operation with the stated goal of becoming “the world’s leading audio platform.” Audiobooks came soon after, in 2022.
These other types of media aren’t what I go to Spotify for, and lately, my experience using the platform has felt crowded by them. Books and podcasts populate the app’s home screen, mixed in with music recommendations. Opening Spotify on my phone this morning, I was greeted with a full-width, auto-playing video — an episode of a podcast I’d never listened to (much less watched), on Spotify or any other platform.
And now, starting this spring, Spotify will need to find a place to work physical book sales into its ever-expanding UI. With any luck, the addition will be discreet, tucked away in the Audiobooks tab I rarely visit.
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