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Revert the terrible new user interface on Desktops ASAP

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Revert the terrible new user interface on Desktops ASAP

Dear fellow Spotify users,

 

I am absolutely livid about the new user interface that Spotify has recently implemented. Not only does it look visually unappealing, but it also lacks crucial features that we have all come to rely on, such as personalized recommendations.

It's a disgrace that Spotify has chosen to prioritize "aesthetics" over functionality. The new interface is cluttered and confusing, making it harder for users to navigate and find the music they want to listen to. It's as if Spotify didn't bother to test their new interface with actual users before releasing it to the public.

But what really grinds my gears is the absence of personalized recommendations. How am I supposed to discover new artists and songs if Spotify doesn't recommend them to me based on my listening history? This was one of the features that made Spotify stand out from the competition, and now it's gone.

I don't know about you, but I rely on Spotify to get me through my day. Whether I'm at work, at the gym, or just relaxing at home, music is a crucial part of my life. And now Spotify has made it harder for me to enjoy my music with this terrible new interface.

I urge all of you to join me in expressing our dissatisfaction with this new update. We need to let Spotify know that we won't stand for a user interface that is both ugly and lacking in features. We deserve better, and we need to demand it.

54 Replies

I 100% agree with you!  I absolutely HATE it.  Whoever thought this chance was a good idea needs to be fired!  I listen to Spotify EVERY DAY and pay for it at that - this new chance has made me despise opening the app and has turned my music experience from one of joy to one of frustration and rage.  The side what ever the fudge it is supposed to be is so terrible.  WHY CHANGE A GOOD THING?!  There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with the old interface.  It is seriously so terrible.  I am really considering finding another place to get my music, I can't stand the new look that much.  You can say I am over reacting all you want but it truly is so bad.  I am REALLY considering stopping my sub over this.  SPOTIFY FIX THIS NOW.

I am also considering cancelling my subscription, but then need another service. Spotify has been the best I have tried and therefore stayed almost since the beginning.  Now this changes everything. 

I am right there with you!  I am giving it a week and if it is till the same I am canceling my sub and trying youtube music.  I listen to Spotify every single day, I have over 30 playlists that are all on average 5 hours long!  Like wth!  I am literally heart broken!  Music is such a huge part of my life and Spotify was like a godsend and now it's like trying to walk through Walmart during Black Friday!

There's an archive of older versions, this is the latest standalone desktop one I could find from last year: https://spotify.en.uptodown.com/windows/download/64696798

I too am livid over this disgrace.

It’s terrible how ugly and cruel the world can be to us.

It is our birthright as customers to demand we get what we want all the time, and I hate that companies don’t just get this.
If I don’t learn that Spotify has fired whoever contributed to my dissatisfaction, I will forever despise humanity.

My rage knows no bounds.
I dare someone to claim they have ever been as heartbroken as I am right now. 
My opinions are a godsend to the world.
Also, Walmart is aggravating on Black Friday and someone needs to fix that too!

I originally thought it is a bug. The change is terrible - I want to be able to see my library again on the main page - not as a small sidebar. Now most of the screen is used for displaying things I dont care about. 

Why the heck are podcasts shown in the already TINY library sidebar on the left? Make playlists the default. I do NOT want podcasts in my interface and I want to turn off podcasts.

I totally agree. Before that, I spent like 3 weeks in cleaning up my playlist, folders, and library. All of a sudden, when seeing that blue dot for upgrade, so I did. And what came back was totally appalling. I can't revert back to the old list I used to use and be used to. Now, Spotify makes me think I want to see the actual album cover for each songs, and "recently played". I can't remember any time in my music listening history I want to SEE the COVERS of each song I've recently listened to. On top of that there are numerous other thing that makes me furious. I now I can't curse here, but for ffs.Why doesn't Spotify include options to have it OUR way, that it used to.

Now it seems like I have three weeks to re-organize (I just want list of songs, albums artist, like the old fashioned list goddammit!!!!) I have absolutely no use for looking at the pics. No, not ever, and never had. This should be an option. There is no one-size-fits-all mr Spotiy. On top of this, earlier when I just clicked on a folder or playilist AT THE TOP and ON ITS TITLE it started to play correctly from the beginning. Now it stops after ONE song and then turns silent. I have - in vain -searched for this setting but there is no additional settings for this. I have to manually click on the next song. I can't even choose the next arrow.

And you should make it much easier to revert back to older version. We who pay premium subscription must have these options, I can very well understand that a free version, you have to take what you get, but not for any paid things. Serious question: What have you guys been smokin at Spotify software delopment?.

Yes, but those downloads from the past doesn't change the GUI. At all. I have a Mac , and in the beginning of March was latest former update. I could see the lists. I have no use of seeing or sorting by covers. Names, artists, songs are good with me. I have no use for seeing that it is added by me, I know that. No one else can add to my list.

It seems the old version still usts cached information. I donwloaded one from the beginning of the year too, to no help.

I cancelled my subscription of 9 years because of this new desktop UI. The library is horrible.

I also strongly dislike this new desktop interface, I find it cluttered, and hard to navigate through my extensive library as I need to constantly expand/reduce the sidebar and toggle back and forth between list and thumbnail listing.  Also the default layout allows me to see maybe 3 or 4 playlists on that cluttered left sidebar, making it difficult to navigate while playing something.  Bring back the previous user interface.  If I want to browse through my large library, I don't want half of my screen to be occupied by that right side "home page", I want my whole screen to be nothing but my library content, so it makes browsing faster.

 

If your engineers are looking for something to keep themselves occupied, how about better library management, allowing to classify artists or albums by tags/categories.  Or bringing the HiFi audio quality that was hinted at years ago, and is still sorely MIA when most of your competitors have moved forward with it.

 

This new interface is so unusable to me that I am strongly considering switching to the competition after close to 9 years of Spotify Premium.

Agreed! This is intolerable. I have been paying for premium since the end of 2017 and this is atrocious. It's incredibly distracting and frankly overwhelming. I cannot find anything I am looking for and HATE that you cannot get rid of the home screen panel. Nobody likes this new UI you've forced on us, Spotify.

As a personal note, I am autistic and use music as a daily coping mechanism. I primarily use the desktop client and to open the app to this sudden change of sensory overwhelm and a bunch of bullcrap I don't want to see was going to push me into a meltdown. There needs to be a way to revert the UI for everyone, but especially for people like me that cannot tolerate sudden updates to a UI that has worked perfectly fine for years.

My question is what is the purpose of this? How is this supposed to be "more usable" than the previous UI? Is the overstimulating nature of this application going to get us to use it more? I argue no. We all want a simple library to manage our playlists. I am strongly considering cancelling premium after over five years of paying.

I don't know who needs to hear this:
WE ARE NOT GUINEA *** PIGS

DO NOT A/B TEST your *** *** *** UI ON US

WE NEED A STABLE AND USABLE HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERFACE

I DONT GIVE A *** *** ABOUT PODCASTS
DONT **** KEEP CHANGING THE UI EVERY COUPLE OF DAYS

DONT ***** RUN YOUR UI TESTS ON US

GIVE US A **** OPTION TO OPT OUT OF **** **** UI UPDATES

letters-numbers-dash,

 

Nice angle. This’ll be effective man good work.

Seconded, thirded, and so on. This is - ONCE AGAIN - terrible UI design for the desktop app. Whoever is doing the UI and whoever is approving it shouldn't be.

 

I neither want nor need my entire library crammed into a tiny sidebar. It makes sorting things difficult, especially since I have to scroll through the filters to see them all now.

This redesign has a terribly bad UX and UI. This is so much NOT userfriendly makes my head hurts. I have a couple hundreds playlists, neatly organized in folders. And now everything is just stacked on top of each other, maximized needlessly with these useless, chaotic thumbnails, making me scroll through stuff endlessly. Wthout that simple and clear tree view like before I can't access any playlist as easy as before. I'm wasting 10 times more to find anything in this mess.

I can't believe how Spotify has ruined this experience for me. But i'm really hoping the changes could be reverted if enough people would complain.

 
 

 

 

I've been running an old UI for a long time because the newer ones are so stripped-down, worthless, & unreasonably difficult to use/access basic quality of life features compared to OLDER versions?! It keeps getting worse on my phone where I'm not able to manually force Spotify to use an old UI, & now it's going to happen on my desktop because they're allegedly sunsetting all of the old ones & I won't be able to log in. They need to stop messing around with stuff that's not broken. If they're going to leave the aesthetics to anyone, it should be the user, not the seemingly incompetent development team. Why are they constantly spending development money to produce updates nobody wants & most people hate? This has been going on for years now. I've already downgraded my sub, and this will likely be the cancellation if it's as bad as I fear. Spotify should take note of how many others in this thread feel the same way.

 

 

Absolutely agree. And the first half of your experience is mine as well. Also used a pre-2021 desktop version beause the filter-based library was the first wrong step. And now it got totally diminished.

For everyone else that's just finally done with this nonsense, but doesn't want to have to remake their playlists:
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/streaming-media/how-to-move-spotify-playlists-...

The fact that Consumer Reports is aware of how bad/unpopular this new forced UI change is that they've made an article about how you can switch should tell Spotify something, but it probably won't...

 

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