Spotify, get your shit together. You’ve wasted a fortune in podcasting and now you’ve destroyed your app UX. Nobody wants this crap. Everybody just wants better music discovery and instant access to their favorites.
Every time I use it now, my inner voice is saying “get the fuck out of my way” to the UX itself.
What are they optimizing for?
Raise the prices if they need to, but don't try and have a subscription + "whatever ad bucks we can make" model.
Get to hang out with a friend who’s a former Spotify employee tomorrow so this will be a likely topic of discussion
Discovery via their radio used to be great. Whenever I tried it more recently it was kind of awful. I've switched off of Spotify many times over the past few years, only to regrettably come back and be disappointed again.
I wish Apple would just make a proper cross platform Apple Music client, then I could switch in peace. All the other alternatives lack some of the more obscure artists I listen to regularly. And while I try to purchase as much as I can, not everything is available digitally and I don't really want to import CDs from the other side of the world.
Even YouTube?
Jesus Christ Spotify. Is there anybody working there who actually likes music anymore? No I don’t want to listen to the fucking Gillian Flynn novel.
Wonder why they seemed to have never prodded me about this? Rather that than (as already mentioned) prodding me about new releases from literally-who artists (to me). ;)
I agree in general about their UX, though; it's part of the general enshittification, these companies always trying to squeeze us for more attention. The constant change has its own friction. And tt feels especially egregious on something as personal as our music.
Probably engagement. The more clicks, the better.
I've switched to Tidal. It pushes some ads too, but not nearly as badly. The discovery algorithm is slightly worse but pretty close. Most importantly it doesn't keep playing the same 3 songs (at least it's more like 30).
The one thing I want Spotify to do well is algorithmic discovery. The Discover Weekly playlist is the only thing that keeps me on the service, and yet they make it more and more difficult to find. The position on the home screen is entirely random and unpredictable. The only reliable way to find it is by using the search feature.
Then I finally found something and saw that not only was it not included in my subscription, but the cost was higher than buying the hardcover on Amazon.
It amazed me with the fact that even after creating a radio from a single song, I got exactly what I wanted to hear (including new songs).
It's a shame that it's not available in Europe.
however i've found that the mixes introduce me to recommendations that I like at roughly the same rate as Discover Weekly.
What are you listening to for such good recommendations? Is the the automatic "Mix" playlists it creates?
Because on YT video it's like:
You picked Rammstein? Sure, here is your next video with classical music, because you were listening to it last week.
I wish I'd taken a screenshot or done a video tour of my setup before it shut down. The Cluetrain Manifesto/Intertwingularity days were so full of open endless possibility & fun. Spotify did so so so well, had such an interesting capable Javascript extension system built in to the app... then we're one of the first people to pack up & leave the party. I was shocked.
I started using Spotify after Google killed Google Music. I find it totally egregious. My playlists feel hidden from me. Search is infuriating. The path to a full album is many clicks away. Even finding albums vs singles vs EPs is tough. In fact the app seems to discourage full-album listening. The recommendations for me have so far been totally completely underwhelming. And I'm constantly having Joe Rogan shoved in my face, not to mention a whole host of other stuff I have zero interest in.
We all get used to different paradigms, but Spotify feels like a particularly bad (and constantly shifting) case. If it was all I knew, I might think differently.
I used to be loyal to Spotify because it was decent and they were in the music business specifically. Now I'm on YouTube Music and going to cancel Spotify paid.
They'd love it if you listened to podcasts. If you have to listen to music they want to convince you to listen to something unpopular they can license for cheap. That's why the push Discover stuff so hard.
It's anecdotes, sure, but I do not experience these issues with the App or the Website.
You can Up/Down Vote on your "Radio" stations - but not your custom playlists (which makes sense).
Pandora offers custom playlists, offline listing, unlimited skips of radio, no ads on radio, "hit" playlits (curated by Pandora and other users) and more. It's radio/discovery algorithm is what kept me with Pandora, but all these features make it on-par with Spotify.
Personally I think Spotify is great and it works really well for me, the only thing I really don't like is the podcast push. While it's not as bad as it used to be, I wish I could toggle it off or banish it to some separate part of the app.