The idea behind Active Media is that you'll only listen to or watch the ads you're actually interested in, Spotify told Ad Age. That way, the service should learn more about your preferences and deliver fewer ads you don't care about. Advertisers don't pay for ads that you skip.

Active Media could lead to Spotify earning more money per ad that people actually listen to, so the move may benefit everyone. However, along with limited on-demand mobile listening, it may give you a little less incentive to upgrade to Premium -- ad-free playback is a key selling point for many subscribers.

In its latest earnings report, Spotify said it had 101 million users on the free tier. Ads brought in around $144 million in Q2, or just under 10 percent of total revenue for the period.