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Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

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Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#81
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand the hate for Spotify. Been a paid member for a decade and Apple Music still sucks for me (particularly when internet is bad)

Spotify sucks for artists because music isn't actually worth much and they don't like hearing that. A certain group of people, including some politicians, have concluded that it must mean that spotify is taking advantage of musicians despite spotify only reaching profitability in 2024.

Why take it on Spotify? YouTube Music pays even less and I've never heard anyone complain about that.

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#82
post #62
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand the hate for Spotify. Been a paid member for a decade and Apple Music still sucks for me (particularly when internet is bad)

Well, for one thing there's that whole pushing their own AI generated slop music into electronica playlists so that actual artists get fewer plays.

That I'm starting to feel the pain myself, but the Spotify hate is way older than this phenomenon.

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#83
post #28
post #19

This is just the latest in a series of vibe-coding caused bugs, Spotify famously claimed their best devs were no longer writing any of their own code: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/12/spotify-says-its-best-deve... I don't understand enterprises who take this stance, there is tons of room between "don't utilize AI for coding" and "exclusively utilize AI for coding."

Spotify has always been garbage software long before LLMs. PM/devs like to justify their constant a/b testing to gamify metrics to curry raises/promotions but for end users all we're dealt with is a constantly broken/changing UI. My biggest peeve with Spotify UI is how hard it is to add something to your current playing queue, an action I would assume is quite common but you have to scroll down to hit several control…

I recall it being crap back in 2009 when the mobile software was highly flakey: it would sync over 1Gb of my playlists but was really unreliable so every few days it would get corrupted and require to resync the data in its entirety. At the time this quickly added up to more than my broadband plan would allow and I was stuck without the music and without normal speed internet (it would revert to some super slow level) I complained and they didn't seem to care as it stayed unstable and they kept advising to try again when my data cap was removed, it would fail again and then I cancelled my subscription.

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#84
post #28
post #19

This is just the latest in a series of vibe-coding caused bugs, Spotify famously claimed their best devs were no longer writing any of their own code: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/12/spotify-says-its-best-deve... I don't understand enterprises who take this stance, there is tons of room between "don't utilize AI for coding" and "exclusively utilize AI for coding."

Spotify has always been garbage software long before LLMs. PM/devs like to justify their constant a/b testing to gamify metrics to curry raises/promotions but for end users all we're dealt with is a constantly broken/changing UI. My biggest peeve with Spotify UI is how hard it is to add something to your current playing queue, an action I would assume is quite common but you have to scroll down to hit several control…

I disagree, Spotify has been very stable and performant for the last decade I’ve been using it. That speaks to decent software development. UI/product shifts are sometimes eh, but the core library has everything you expect from it. Music discovery tools are decent. I’ve tried Apple Music & YouTube Music on and off over the years and they aren’t better.

Adding a song to the queue on my phone is two taps away (3 dots > add to queue) or just swipe right on the list item. On desktop it’s one of the top options when you right click. It’s really not that bad.

The chief complaint is that the home page changes frequently and is hard to navigate, which is fair, and also pretty typical for tech companies. But all I really need is library & search, which are front & center without that.

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#86
post #19

This is just the latest in a series of vibe-coding caused bugs, Spotify famously claimed their best devs were no longer writing any of their own code: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/12/spotify-says-its-best-deve... I don't understand enterprises who take this stance, there is tons of room between "don't utilize AI for coding" and "exclusively utilize AI for coding."

[deleted]

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#87
post #28
post #19

This is just the latest in a series of vibe-coding caused bugs, Spotify famously claimed their best devs were no longer writing any of their own code: https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/12/spotify-says-its-best-deve... I don't understand enterprises who take this stance, there is tons of room between "don't utilize AI for coding" and "exclusively utilize AI for coding."

Spotify has always been garbage software long before LLMs. PM/devs like to justify their constant a/b testing to gamify metrics to curry raises/promotions but for end users all we're dealt with is a constantly broken/changing UI. My biggest peeve with Spotify UI is how hard it is to add something to your current playing queue, an action I would assume is quite common but you have to scroll down to hit several control…

The techcrunch article is my favorite piece on Spotify, and proves that LLMs will not save you from your own stupidity.

For years now the Spotify release team has been rotating their package signing key on every release. [0] This completely defeats the point of package signing, which is to assure you that the next release is coming from the same people as the last one. In Spotify's case this is impossible to ascertain, as one cannot easily distinguish a legit new signing key from Spotify, from a supply chain attack.

With all this extra "intelligence" and productivity you would think such long-standing trivialities and security flaws would have been addressed by now. Not so if the humans driving those agents don't understand basic concepts or recognize a problem even exists.

Instead, merely, "fuck the Linux users."

I cancelled my Spotify long ago when music started disappearing from my library. Pirated music does not disappear.

[0] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/spotify#comment-1048914

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#88

For anyone looking for a spotify alternative, please join me in making a better, self-hosted spotify! 1.) Buy music when you can, and when you can't, pirate! 2.) Run Gonic(1)! (or whatever you want, I'm not in charge of what you do at the end of the day, but Gonic is a.) very light, and b.) a subsonic(2) server, so it's compatible with anything that supports that family of services) 2a.) How you run it is up to prefe…

Is there a reason to use Gonic instead of Navidrome? I've been using the latter for hosting my music collection for over a year now and really like it. Good riddance Spotify. [1]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more choices. But it seems like you have opinions on this topic and I'd like to hear them.

[1] See my blog post from a while back: https://lukecyca.com/2025/listen-to-music-like-its-2005.html

Re: Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers

#89
post #55
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Spotify sucks but Electron is a desktop framework, not what their iPhone app is built with, and you can queue by swiping right on their official app.

Wow, this only works for songs (and it's left) but not podcast episodes (my main use case). I had no idea you could do this! If I have to blame someone, I blame snapchat for making "unknown UX controls as something for users to discover" as the main pusher of the UI trend. Rather than sending me marketing materials, I wish companies would send power users tips/tricks. Would definitely read those emails.

I don't use Spotify for anything other than music so wasn't aware of this limitation, but on Android it is definitely swiping right.

That rubbish that it's different per platform.

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