Please stop removing functionality from Spotify

[Scriven_j]

PLEASE STOP REMOVING FUNCTIONALITY!

Spotify have this annoying habit of removing functionality from new versions of the software and you only find out about it once you have upgraded.

Examples just in the last month are:-

Starred Playlists

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Bring-Back-Starred-Playlists-System/idi-p/729851

Add to playlists offline

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Bring-Back-quot-Add-to-Playlist-quot-in-Offline-Mode-f...

The Library

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Bring-back-the-library/idi-p/738823

Sorting in search results

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Bring-Back-Sorting-in-Search-Results/idi-p/757011

What's new

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Bring-quot-What-s-New-quot-back-Get-rid-of-quot-Discov...

The old GUI

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Black-background-and-white-text-physically-hurts-amp-...

Other examples of note are playlist total length times which took 10 months to get back after it was removed.

People hate change anyway and given that losing functionality is a bad thing, I would suggest that instead of just enforcing loss of functionality on us, you publicise what you are planning to remove and why and then let people vote on it, rather than forcing us to try and gather people that agree with us that stuff should be reimplemented.....

Yours in hope,

Jon Scriven (scriven_j)

[zenguu]

I fully agree on Jon's post. In every aspect.

Dear Spotify,

the thought of "let's add more things and remove old stuff" did not turn out great for Youtube, Facebook and various other companies.

Please stop removing basic functionality of the whole concept that made Spotify big as it is now.

No one has problems with adding stuff, but taking away... that is not okay. Not for loyal and paying customers.
(Youtube even removed the watch later button from video thumbnails, i still can't believe it.)

[ThomzenDE]

i totally agree with you guys.

[blazicekj]

I know this is going to be unpopular, but my 2 cents from software developer's standpoint:

I get where you guys are coming from, but stuff like this simply needs to happen. There's no innovation without sacrifice. Companies like Facebook, Spotify, Apple etc. keep on adding and removing features simply because they need to in order to improve. It's an evolutionary process. I know you liked some of the stuff that's now missing, but Spotify is apparently simply trying to focus the experience to the music itself, which many consider a good thing. Only time applied to these somewhat brutal changes (But still changes on non-essential features) can tell whether people really miss them or if they were just distractions for 90% and useful for 10%. More importantly, they cannot ask the users, as the users don't know. Statistics don't help in here, because the ones that would miss a feature are simply too vocal in comparison to the rest.

While you may think removing features is simply an unnecessary step back, it's actually a quite important process any developer has to think about on projects as large. A simple feature can take valuable development and maintenance time to keep it working between versions, its placement is also a question as if people find the UI cluttered, they will just move to a different service. If the company feels like a feature is not as popular as they intended it to be, they are pretty much forced to cut it off and keep going. People are inevitably going to be pissed as we can see time and time again on Facebook, but most will still keep using the service as they like the core functionality. The few that drop out are going to be replaced by others fast.

I don't doubt that you are frustrated, but change, both good and sometimes even bad is actually a good thing at this point. I miss some of the features myself, but I'm happy to see that Spotify doesn't seerm to be one of the companies who made profit and doesn't care about their product anymore. And at least for me personally, the plusses of the new design outweigh the minuses.

Also keep in mind that some of the features might make a comeback fairly soon. They might just be working on better integration with the overhauled UI, or polishing the UI itself before reintroducing the features back as they would slow down't the process considerably.

Cheers,
Jan.

[cavevs]

I wanna add my personal opinion about the new GUI: is sh***y...you should give the possibility to the user to keep the past ones. I know the goal is getting more users as possible and after that pushing them to pay in some way but I dont think it s the right way.

Regards

[CowboyBob]

blazicekj write: "I know this is going to be unpopular, but my 2 cents from software developer's standpoint:"

From another software developer's standpoint, I completely disagree. Having to remove features to accomodate new features is a sure sign of bad software design in the first place. Fix the design, then add new features. Unfortunately the bean counters and project managers don't usually want to fund a rewrite that doesn't improve on the existing features, they see it as a waste of money if no-one can visually see new stuff.

Bad software design and politics, that's what this smells of to me.

[Brian]

Spotify are quickly becoming the masters of fixing what's not broken.

A couple of other horrible updates (functional removals) forced these two "ideas" to be posted:

Sorting & Display options for playlists in (Public) Profile

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Sorting-amp-Display-options-for-playlists-in-Public-Pr...

Ability to view more than 50 playlists

http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/New-spotify-Ability-to-view-more-than-50-playlists/idi...

Please vote/give Kudos. Thanks!

[denverdrake]

I am a DJ and use Spotify on all my iOS devices, in my car, laptop, and PC at work to continuously improve my sets with new and or unheard music.  The starred function was incredibly useful for me and is a feature that I really miss and I have read on DJ blogs as well that it is missed by others.  Once or twice a week I would go through all the starred music in the playlist and buy stuff I liked enough for sets (like virtual crate digging) and it definately was something I relied on to be quick and simple.  I know the starred feature and playlist is not gone but it takes a lot more effort then simply pushing or clicking once.

Of all the things spotify has changed, added or deleted this is the first time I was compelled to join the comunity to post about something. I certainly didn't relaize how good I had it.

Please bring back the starred playlist and ability to QUICKLY add to it

[Link006]

Changes like these convince me that Spotify has no earthly idea what direction it is taking the project in.  

[vlimao]

The Activity Feed was also removed.

[epinephrine]

Instead of removing old functionality and forcing new, just make stuff optional. People love options.