Dear Spotify,
I have been a paying family subscriber for 6 years or so. You have been a joy and a friend and a guide. You have expanded my listening library considerably and exposed me to new artists, genres, albums and songs that I simply would not have heard without you. I loved the absolute portability of music on demand. Thank you.
I was an early adopter, ripping CD's to mp3, simply for mass portability. I was an early adopter of the music genome (Pandora), to get off the radio and ditch commercials. Then I found you Spotify. Searchable, undemand music! Amazing! I really have found your algorithm pretty darn good (an the intro of DJ was great too) and have enjoyed most of the places it took me. Of course, the option to skip, favorite, or find a new playlist was exceedingly easy, allowing me to wander around a whole world worth of music. You became my friend and we were together daily (multiple times per day) for the last 6 years.
And then......... you did the TikTok home screen thing. It was terrible and I actually panicked a little bit. My best friend had just just turned into some deranged freak, trying to appeal to someone else. I immediately contacted your customer service, got through the bot and got to a real person. When they ready my question was about the (stupid) TikTok home feed, they closed the session immediately... I persisted and got a second rep. They were entirely unhelpful and told me that unless I had a customer service or billing issues, they were going to close the thread because there was nothing they could do. I said, I do have a customer service issue, please help me revert to a previous version of the app. Then they closed the thread without further response. I tried one more time (3rd time) and this rep was actually apologetic. But also confirmed there was nothing they could, I could not revert to the previous version of the app, referred me to the community forum, then they also closed the thread without any further interaction.
So, my first and only interaction with Spotify customer service was terribly unsatisfying.
I went to the community forum and found many like minded individuals. I know now over a few days, Spotify did revert the app back to the previous home screen, but here's the deal Spotify - You gave me two good reasons to look elsewhere:
1 - terrible UI that isn't designed or fit for purpose: listening to and finding music
2 - your customer service was unempathetic and offered zero solutions
Now, before you finally ended up switching away from that terrible TikTok product decision you made (yeah, that's right, don't call it a test, I have seen the video announcement with the amazingly fit Norwegian guy, (who has very muscular thighs btw) pandering to artists about how they will connect us to them with the new Home Feed), I did a bunch of research on the latest in music streaming (it's amazing out there my friends). I have to give credit to another Spotify user who mentioned that this approach somehow makes me, the paying customer "the product". This is wrong. I love the thinking about connecting artists closer to their listeners, but I am the customer. Period. If I won't use your app, there can be no connection at all.
You Spotify, made me do this. I was happy with you... Ignorantly unaware of how far your competition had come.
To all other Spotify "community" users, please know there are vastly superior services out there. Me, I found Tidal to be the right fit. The sound quality is so vastly superior to Spotify, that I can only say: "Thank you Spotify for screwing up, and leading me directly to your competitors". Tidal is an absolute joy. I have been re-listening to old favorites with a new clarity. The ability to discover new music is just as good, and the cost for quality is close enough, that I am happy to throw a few extra bucks a month at it.
I come from the software product industry and I am not going to try to school anyone how to manage their product. This was a miss from the top... again, queue the super fit Norwegian dude. Finding new ways to engage listeners, provide immersive experiences and connect artists to listeners are all super good things. But, when you render the app useless to a music listener, your product strategy is officially "a miss"... and sooooooo damn easy to avoid. Simply providing an additional feed that is separate and optional for a user would have been a super fine choice. Then me, the paying customer/music consumer can do my thing the way I need to, and still have the options to explore your new approaches.... without breaking the real functionality.
So here it ends my friend. Thank you for riding along with me and serving up so much amazing music. A giant library that allowed me to explore fresh and new, as well as listen to all my personal favorites in happy harmony.
Your product roll-out (not a test) and terrible customer service have opened my ears to all that I have been missing in sound quality and clarity.
Best regards,
6 year, loyal paying customer (that has moved on to Tidal)
Staff / Moderator/ 3 years ago in Social & Random