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Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

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Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#91

Post by yieldcrv »

h4ch1 wrote: post #60
yieldcrv wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is it with all these companies using the same UX patterns EVERYWHERE. any guesses?

please illuminate me, my conspiracy theories will get me flagged to oblivion.

the question was intended to spark introspection

the simple answer is that people copy. there are too many infinite permutations to incentivize reinventing the wheel.

a newer example being how ChatGPT simply showed people what product market fit is, various people and organizations had similar AI products and just didn't know that's what would hit. Google was sitting on one for years earlier its engineers were too busy getting finessed by it. Suddenly Google sees "oh, thats what we can do with it" and now Bard is out.

Its the same with UX patterns.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#92

Post by digging »

solarkraft wrote: post #82
transcriptase wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their UX is infuriating compared to a few years ago. Why does it take multiple clicks to get to search? Why are my playlists etc not front and centre? Pop-ups about new albums from artists that they know I’ve never listened to and never would? 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?

> What are they optimizing for? 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).

I left Spotify for their policies (pro-Rogan, shit pay to artists), and landed on Tidal. it's not perfect, but it absolutely fits the niche that Spotify did and feels way less stupid.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#93

Post by digging »

dieselgate wrote: post #83
ipaddr wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your wallet.

Guess for a lot of us spotify users that'd mean stop paying for their service? am pretty close to doing so after almost a decade of paying for spotify.

yes. there are good alternatives. switching can be easy or painful depending on if you're willing to use opaque 3rd-party services to transfer your playlists (also, when I exported manually, some songs just disappeared from my "Liked"). but I highly recommend taking the plunge.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#94

Post by Varqu »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #29
encoderer wrote: post #23

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.

They've been actively destroying their UX for years now. I am so tired of them forcing their Podcasts and audio books and whatever else on me. 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 r…

To be honest, I find their music recommendation algo still way behind what Pandora (the music streaming, not the jewelry brand) cracked years ago.

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.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#95

Post by Varqu »

kccoder wrote: post #73
encoderer wrote: post #23

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.

I recently subscribed to YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music, and for the first time in my life a system is recommending music that I actually like on a regular basis. I've discovered entirely new artists and even genres. Can't recommend it enough.

Is it better than the standard YouTube algo?

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.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#96

Post by Varqu »

javanissen wrote: post #12

They ruined it! Pre-acquisition Heardle played the song from the beginning immediately after you finished guessing. Post-acquisition, you had to open the song in Spotify which introduced a lag of several seconds. The immediate visceral reward of playing the game disappeared.

I will never understand why most of Big Tech acquisitions end up with a shutdown. (same for Google, FB, etc, apart from a few outliers)

Like: They could just buy a controlling stake, let it run by the original team and just add some cross promo to their main product.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#97

Post by daniel_reetz »

broast wrote: post #39
encoderer wrote: post #23

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.

The app ux is buggy and I'm one to complain on spotifys forums about it, but I do wonder about the sentiments in this thread, as I still find having access to spotifys library or capabilities with podcasts, music, playlists, making playlists, downloads, etc, to be a delight and I have not found myself seeking other applications to replace it as it gets so much daily use from me. Am I in the dark about something?

It genuinely sounds like you may have absorbed and accepted the quirks of their interface.

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.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#98

Post by 90-00-09 »

digging wrote: post #92
solarkraft wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are they optimizing for? 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).

I left Spotify for their policies (pro-Rogan, shit pay to artists), and landed on Tidal. it's not perfect, but it absolutely fits the niche that Spotify did and feels way less stupid.

Is Tidal still prioritizing US hiphop? I really liked it (about 5 years ago) but left because they pushed e.g. Beyonce to me on every visit on every possible surface despite me having a completely different taste in music.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#99

Post by 90-00-09 »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #29
encoderer wrote: post #23

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.

They've been actively destroying their UX for years now. I am so tired of them forcing their Podcasts and audio books and whatever else on me. 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 r…

I left Spotify after over a decade of daily usage several months ago. For all the reasons you have listed.

Re: Spotify abandons Heardle less than a year after buying it

#100

Post by 90-00-09 »

broast wrote: post #39
encoderer wrote: post #23

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.

The app ux is buggy and I'm one to complain on spotifys forums about it, but I do wonder about the sentiments in this thread, as I still find having access to spotifys library or capabilities with podcasts, music, playlists, making playlists, downloads, etc, to be a delight and I have not found myself seeking other applications to replace it as it gets so much daily use from me. Am I in the dark about something?

I switched to Apple Music after using Spotify daily for over a decade. Music has a buggy UI as well but at least no podcasts and no books. Their discovery algorithm works better for me than Spotify (and Spotify was so good in the beginning! such a shame).
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