YouTube Music is cracking down on free users who rely on lyrics to complete their music experience. The platform has begun limiting the display of song lyrics for non-paying subscribers, forcing them to shell out $10.99 per month for a Premium subscription.
The change, which was initially tested with a limited group of users starting in September, now appears to be rolling out to all free users. The "Lyrics" tab on the Now Playing screen now displays a warning message stating that users have a certain number of views remaining and can unlock lyrics by upgrading to Premium.
After five songs are displayed, the rest of the lyrics become blurred, essentially stripping away one of the main features that made YouTube Music an attractive option for those who don't want to pay. While this change may not seem drastic on its own, it's a significant shift in how free users interact with the platform.
The move is believed to be aimed at recouping costs spent by Google with lyric aggregators like Musixmatch. In a similar move last year, Spotify put lyrics behind its Premium paywall but was forced to reinstate them after user backlash. It remains to be seen if YouTube will follow suit.
The change, which was initially tested with a limited group of users starting in September, now appears to be rolling out to all free users. The "Lyrics" tab on the Now Playing screen now displays a warning message stating that users have a certain number of views remaining and can unlock lyrics by upgrading to Premium.
After five songs are displayed, the rest of the lyrics become blurred, essentially stripping away one of the main features that made YouTube Music an attractive option for those who don't want to pay. While this change may not seem drastic on its own, it's a significant shift in how free users interact with the platform.
The move is believed to be aimed at recouping costs spent by Google with lyric aggregators like Musixmatch. In a similar move last year, Spotify put lyrics behind its Premium paywall but was forced to reinstate them after user backlash. It remains to be seen if YouTube will follow suit.
the change is pretty annoying though, like i get it google needs to make some cash, but can't they just let us free users enjoy our fave songs w/o worrying about lyrics being all blurry? it's like they're trying to nickel & dime us 
they're just gonna keep taking away more things from free users... first it's the ads, now it's the lyrics... what's next? 
maybe they should just make YouTube Premium a cheaper option or make the free plan worth something too 
. Maybe they can find another way to make that money instead? 
, like, what's the point of using YouTube Music if u can't even see the lyrics?! It's literally half the fun for me 
. I get why they wanna recoup costs from lyric aggregators tho 
, I'll just find another way to access lyrics... maybe on another platform? 
, this new rule is gonna make it super frustrating for me and maybe even some other free users too 
. But at the same time, this new rule feels like it's pushing users towards subscribing, and I'm worried some people might lose interest in the platform if they can't access lyrics easily 
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! Like I get it, they wanna make some cash, but what's the point of even having YouTube Music if you can't see the lyrics? It's like they're trying to nickel and dime us out of a feature that's part of the whole music streaming experience. And $10.99? That's not cheap! They should be worried about losing subscribers who are gonna go elsewhere instead of shelling out more cash for something they already have. 
so they're gonna charge us for the lyrics we want lol what's next? they gotta start charging us for likes and views too 
but seriously its a bummer cuz i was really into using youtube music for like my daily commute or whatever and now im forced to pay just to get the lyrics idk about these guys tho maybe its time for me to switch to spotify or apple music 
I swear this is a way for them to make more cash off us, not like we didn't already pay to use the app in the first place 
. Not happy about this one 
i know they gotta make some cash but limiting lyrics on free users is a big no from me 
its like they wanna take away what made youtube music so awesome in the first place 
anyway im still gonna use youtube music but maybe ill just listen to the songs for like 5 seconds before its too blurry 