Spotify started with streaming music, but in recent years, they’ve expanded their offerings to include podcasts and audiobooks. Now, they’re considering adding a new category to the platform: educational videos. As The Verge notes, on March 25, Spotify launched an experiment that’ll make video lessons from BC Maestro, Skillshare, Thinkific, and PlayVirtuoso available via Spotify’s mobile and desktop apps. Currently, the experiment is only available for UK users.
Spotify’s Mohit Jitani told the publication, “One of the most interesting things and trends that we started noticing was more and more people were starting to come to Spotify with some intent of learning. And we thought, ‘How can we take this core insight and build something on top of it?’”
Right now, there are video courses available in four categories: make music, get creative, learn business, and healthy living. Courses are being offered through a freemium model, in which Spotify subscribers can access at least two video lessons per course for free before paying for the rest of them.
Jitani also told TechCrunch that pricing is among the factors being tested with this experiment, saying, “With this launch, we’re trying to understand the demand first. Then we optimize how we can make it more compelling and exciting.” Jitani also said, “We’ll learn a lot about what people are actually interested in [and] we will start getting a lot of segments around that. And then we’ll go and find […] the best content.”
Important to note is that since this is an experiment, it is not guaranteed that the feature will stick around or become more widely available in the future.