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Comment by marginalia_nu | Hacker News Reader

I quit Spotify a few years ago as well.

They kept changing stuff, breaking my work flow, with every change it felt like there was more friction to listen to the music and podcasts I wanted, and less friction to listen to algorithmically selected slop I didn't want to listen to. Eventually I just said fuck it. I don't need this source of stress and frustration in my life. I've never looked back.

I'm on youtube music now. In many ways it's a worse product, but it at least stays the same and doesn't keep trying to make me change my listening behavior.

I suspect Spotify's problem is that they have (or had) too many developers, so you get this pressure to look busy "improving" the product, with endless lateral change as a result instead.

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I've been using Spotify for about 7 years. And honest question, what did they change so much that disrupts you from listening?

I swear I am not trying to be clever and throwing you a gotcha. I just never had any issues, and it may be down to how I use the service. Genuinely curious to how other people use it.

In my case, I only ever use Spotify on Android (or android auto if I am driving). I mostly listen to playlists I crafted myself. Sometimes I listen to one podcast or another when working out, but that's rare (I mostly listen to music).

What I am trying to say is that I barely interact with the UI at all - as it should be, I just want to listen to stuff. What is so bad about it?

Not Op but for me it was frustrating in the past 12 months:

- when they use to break local files playback (where you have your own mp3) every few months

- when "add to queue" function started lagging

- when "add to queue" stopped working for a day or two hntil it was fixed

- there was a week when I couldn't listen downloaded playlists in airplane mode. For some reason.

- constant changes in desktop app context menu by moving items "add to playlist" and "add to queue" around

- "smart shuffle" I don't use it but now I need to click shuffle twice. And it's lagging

- ios app is progressively getting slower and slower

- I use it for music so I don't need audiobooks and podcasts. I can't hide them and they take so much space

Airplane mode being broken on two flights was the final straw for me. YouTube music's offline is also sorta wonky but at least it mostly works

If their problem was 'too many developers', I reckon they'd be building totally useless yet amazingly engineered SDKs and data/analytics tools or apps to improve the quality and satisfaction of your music consumption. Instead, they focus on all the things that just reek of an overabundance of marketers and Product People™.

It could be either, but yea, I have seen this mostly at companies with too many product owners and designers who are trying to build their portfolio, and they are enabled by too many developers who just say "yes" to everything they are asked to write.

But, the industry does also have a "Developers Gotta Develop" problem. The way I've seen it explained is: "Programmers are like beavers. Leave a beaver alone to decide what to do and they'll just keep building dams, regardless of the fact that their home is done." I don't know if that's really true about beavers, but it's true about software organizations. The whole software development team will just continue changing the software even long past the point where they're done.

Yes, this is all over the place sadly. It’s so bad that I barely learn an interface since things are moving around constantly in all apps and websites, so I end up figuring things out every time I need them. I don’t even expect a workflow anymore. I just expect to search through shitty counterintuitive interfaces until I sometimes find what I’m looking for.

Same. I especially disliked how they queued songs. They only allowed songs to be queued next, not at the tail of the list. Building an ad-hoc playlist was challenging.

I moved to Apple Music in 2018 and regret nothing.

When I left Spotify I remember it being difficult at first, I went around to various competitors who were all objectively worse. I've been using YT music for a few years now too and while it is not as good by a long shot, it's good enough and I feel more in control of my musical journey. You're right that they don't change much, it almost feels like a forgotten product, which probably doesn't bode well for its future with Google being Google.

unlike other platforms that are basically free throw ins by the mega corps. Spotify is its own thing and there is no money in music streaming. at least so far and its due to the monopolistic practices of music licensing.

spotify has to try and distinguish or expand as seen with the heavy podcast investments and they desperately need hit features if they want to compete with the companies and stay profitable. for reference i believe this year will be the first profitable one

Sounds as much a problem of too many Product Managers all trying to make a mark so they can progress their career. Hence features keep getting added or re-designed.

Engineers don't decide how things are moved or changed, that's product and maybe ux.

Deezer has been quite stable imo and I find it not clutered

No linux client and support in my country. They have better streaming quality than Spotify.

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