Amazon launches free version of music service

Amazon has started offering a free version of its music service. This allows customers to listen to selected playlists with ads in between on devices with Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa.

The service is currently only available in the United States, Amazon reports. It is the third music subscription from the tech giant. Amazon has a limited music service as a standard part of its Prime bundle of subscriptions and services and also sells a more extensive Music Unlimited service.

With the free service, customers cannot play individual songs or create their own playlists, but only play playlists based on a genre or an artist. Starting playlists is only possible via Alexa, the digital assistant of the online store. Customers can only play the music on devices that have Alexa support, although the assistant’s app can also run on regular smartphones, for example.

The service is only for customers who do not have Prime or Music Unlimited. That’s a minority of Amazon’s US customers, because a majority of Amazon’s US customers have Prime. Amazon is taking the step to compete with Spotify, which has had a free version of its service for years. It was rumored earlier that Amazon would come with a free version of its music service.

Amazon Echo