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Door staff@engadget.com (Kris Holt) - 22 Oct 2026
The company has tried to prevent people from using screenshots as a workaround for QR code scans if family plan members aren't living close to each other. Reddit users claimed that Spotify refreshes the codes every few seconds, but suggested they were able to use video calls on additional devices to scan them remotely.
While some users are unsurprisingly not too happy about the QR code policy, it's really just Spotify enforcing existing rules, as Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström said on an earnings call on Thursday.
"This is not as much a crackdown as it is actually a routine improvement of our verification methods for our Family Plan. Family Plan has existed for a long while. It has been around for, I think it is now close to 12, 13 years in Spotify history, and it makes up a pretty significant proportion of our subscriber base," Norström said, as to 9to5Google noted. "As such, it is important for us to just make sure over time that we improve the verification methods that we have. There are certainly ways, over time, to find holes around it. As that happens, we figure out how to improve it over time. This is not something that has an end date. This is not an implementation that is going to complete. This is just ongoing routine."
While some users are unsurprisingly not too happy about the QR code policy, it's really just Spotify enforcing existing rules, as Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström said on an earnings call on Thursday.
"This is not as much a crackdown as it is actually a routine improvement of our verification methods for our Family Plan. Family Plan has existed for a long while. It has been around for, I think it is now close to 12, 13 years in Spotify history, and it makes up a pretty significant proportion of our subscriber base," Norström said, as to 9to5Google noted. "As such, it is important for us to just make sure over time that we improve the verification methods that we have. There are certainly ways, over time, to find holes around it. As that happens, we figure out how to improve it over time. This is not something that has an end date. This is not an implementation that is going to complete. This is just ongoing routine."