Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Spivak 1497 days ago
I really don’t get the hostility thing. I’ve been paying Spotify for like a decade — I give them money and then I play music with extremely broad device support, a massive library, and seamless offline with no upcharges.

Spotify has got to be one of the least shady services I use.
3 comments
claytonjy 1497 days ago
> seamless offline

I've experienced a massive downgrade of the offline experience in the Android client over the last couple years. It used to behave offline-first, so if I drove out of cell service and played a saved album, it would look locally first. Now I have to force it to offline mode explicitly, which is a pain when on a long rural road trip. If I don't, it'll spin endlessly trying to load album art and tracks I already have saved.

link
krono 1497 days ago
They use some of the darkest and most unobvious manipulative techniques to steer you towards some very nasty content - most of which comes in the form of their podcasts.

Edit: It doesn't seem to me like the content itself is of any particular interest to them beyond the engagement its resulting in. It's that same hateful and harmful content you see on all these platforms where money has become more important than humanity.

link
ModernMech 1497 days ago
Yeah I notice they push the Joe Rogan Experience on me pretty hard even though I’ve clicked the button to stop showing me that rec. Can’t really blame them for trying after spending all that money on him though.
link
prohobo 1497 days ago
They're quite mean to free users; ie. they can't listen to Spotify in other countries, and they have a song skip limit. But that's at least understandable from a freemium perspective.

The most hostile thing they do to paying users, IMO, is not implementing basic features that people have been crying about for years. One example: you can't just select a bunch of songs and put them into a playlist.

link
Spivak 1497 days ago
Wait I do that all the time, I multi-select and drag songs into the playlist I want to add them to. It’s great for combining multiple public playlists with a similar vibe.
link
prohobo 1496 days ago
What? What the hell I've been trying to do this for years. This is on the desktop app?

Just checked, they finally added it...

link