Spotify is officially ending a feature that was launched recently. According to the latest reports, Spotify has decided to stop the GPS Location verification process that was enabled for Family Plan subscribers. Users had to manually go and prove their GPS location when trying to log into Spotify family account. Inability to do so would have prevented the users from accessing the service altogether. Of course, this was one of Spotify’s ways to make sure that the Family Plan is not abused and that only family members use this plan, unlike the current scenario. However, it seems the verification process is not the best option to do that.
Users have found it extremely difficult to go through this process. It should be noted that Spotify is checking whether the user lives at the same place as of the other users. This should have, technically, allowed the company to make sure that non-family members — or members who are away — do not have access to the service. In the long run, it was also supposed to increase the number of subscription sales. The problem was that even legit family members were troubled by this poorly-designed verification system. The removal happened following the online backlash.
There is no denial that abuse of family plans is indeed a problem. Family plans are brought and then shared between strangers, friends or even distant relatives. When users do this, Spotify is facing a loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars every month. The company has also been trying to prevent this from happening for an extended period of time, and GPS verification is the latest trump-card. Now that the method has been proven incredibly ineffective, the company will have to do something subtler and more effective. Spotify has not yet talked about anything about the further plans.
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