Amazon Alexa now offers free music for Echo owners who do not need a reward.

Amazon has officially started offering free advertising-funded music Thursday to Echo loudspeaker owners, even though they do not subscribe to Prime, the shipping offer and the accelerated entertainment of Amazon.

Amazon already provides some 2 million songs for free, but without advertising to Echo owners, who also pay $ 119 a year to subscribe to Prime. Amazon Music Unlimited, a more complete and ad-free music offering, is available for $ 9.99 per month or $ 7.99 Prime Members. Amazon says it has access to about 50 million songs.

Amazon Echo speakers. (Photo: Amazon)

The new free service has limitations, more similar to the Pandora online radio station than Apple Music, as customers can not request a song on demand. Instead, the request will lead to a music station "based" on that song or a pre-existing Amazon playlist.

"Customers now have the opportunity to stream a station based on a song, an artist, an era and a genre and to hear some of Amazon's top global playlists, including Country Heat, Fuego Latino, Pop culture, etc., "Amazon said in a statement. .

On Spotify, you can request listening to specific songs, but you must first listen to an announcement. Pandora works differently, offering radio stations based on artists you love. You can request specific songs, which may or may not be played. All come with spoken ads.

YouTube plays video ads before playing many songs.

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