Removal of desktop notifications

[Rorey]

On May 15th, we will be turning off the in-app notifications "bell" on desktop. We are continuously working to improve and simplify our notifications features, and this change will allow us to shift our focus to email and push notifications. We are also working on completely new ways of keeping you up-to-date with new album releases, helping you discover new music, and know what your friends are up to.

To make sure you have your email and push notifications set up the way you'd like, check out the steps here.

Please share any feedback you have here in the Community. We're listening, and will pass it all on to the team.

[BigChicken]

What a joke...

Honestly I'm sure this a marketing thing.  They need email activity to sell user ID informaiton.  If they do this for a couple months get multiple people to sign back up to email, then they can pull some metrics on open rates and all that jazz.

Nevertheless I'm just more upset about the fact that they're lying about it.  There isn't a single person that thinks this is a good idea, and you don't have to be a dev to know that.  They're doing this with alteriour motives and boldly lying to their community about it.

[krifu]

Ok. So the bell and notifications are still there. They're not permanently gone. Its clearly just disabled from view.

How bout just re-enabling the feature Spotify?

How about answering officially to this utterly nonsensical withdrawal of great user experience??

[nthnhlms]

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@Nandikesha wrote:

I've been a paid subscriber since 2012 and converted more than a dozen friends to Spotify Premium. I follow thousands of artists and use Spotify for hours every day, primarly on the desktop client. 

This "simplification" is NOT an "improvement". It is not a simplification on the user end to be forced to toggle back and forth between email and the client when a convenient menu listing all notifications is possible. It's not an improvement to actively obstruct users from discovering new music. This change completely undermines the first thing Spotify says about itself in its About Us: "With Spotify, it’s easy to find the right music for every moment – on your phone, your computer, your tablet and more." 

New music by artists I love is the right music for me, and now it's significantly harder to find it. 

If Spotify refuses to listen to its users, as seems likely given every other feature-removing "improvement" they've rolled out, the only positive next step I can dream of is a total re-working of the Browse-->New Music section to visually represent ALL new releases by EVERY artist we follow. That's an idea I could get behind.

As it is now, I see three options: Spotify Companion App, install old desktop client version, or utilize a site like albumoftheyear.org to do manually what the Notifications Bell did for me automatically. 

Are you listening yet, Spotify? 

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+kudos, I have followed you as you have a similar taste in music (and an even more outrageous amount of follows than I do! it's no wonder you are mad after following 4500 artists!)

Although, I would like to add two more options that I believe are more practical than your suggestions.

1. Admit that it was the wrong call, reverse the "simplification", and work to improve on any faults that may have existed with the notification system (in my experience, delayed notifications, as well as completely missing notifications).

2. Make the notification bell an optional preference (this seems really obvious) - image related

[KainiIndustries]

why?! just removing features is terrible. i still miss the "apps" section with stuff like pitchfork and stuff.

now you are removing notifications? how am i supposed to keep track of new releases i care about? my phone is not the only place where is use spotify.

this really worsens the product. why do i pay for a service that repeatedly makes things worse for me with no way to opt out?

[bitelaum]

Exactly, they say us to join the discussion in a link that doesn't work, and here in this topic, not a single post from a Spotify employee trying to justify this stupid change.

I would try to swallow this change if they at least have given me a REASON of why it's better this way, why is it necessary to disable the bell.

[ylledjur]

This kind of ignorance towards your user base is insane. I have been using Spotify since the closed beta and today I started investigating which one of your competitors I should move to. The removal of this function is one reason; one of many strange changes to your features since the original release. The biggest reason to start considering other services is however your way of handling criticism and failing to listen to your users.

At least answer one question: In what way is it simpler for me to look at notifications (and notification history) in my email or on my phone when I'm using the desktop app to play music?

[rednblu]

Can Spotify provide us with an "uncensored" discussion environment where we can help each other?

I notice that sometime after May 26, 2016 1:27:07 ET, "The Spotify censor" deleted the most useful posts for making my Spotify player work-- "The Spotify censor" has moved the most useful user hints to https://community.spotify.com/t5/Removed-posts/ .

I don't even object.

We are not a "political movement", so there is no need for "whatever you may call it in your language".

We just want to listen to the music in Spotify's musical archives-- So we users just need to help each other get to listen to the music in Spotify's musical archives.

What do you say? We need an "uncensored" [ocensurerad, sensuroimattomia, sem censura, unzensiert, sin censura, zentsurarik, uncensored] discussion environment where we can help each other get to listen to the music in Spotify's musical archives.

Is that "sensible"?

[bitelaum]

It makes total sense, and that's exactly what should happen.
If you need help with Spotify, their main page sends you here for several kinds of help.
It means even less Spotify employees trying to troubleshoot their user's problems.
And in return, they post here they are removing feature A or B and never come back to check how their users are reacting to its removal.

This is probably the worst PR I have ever seen...

[user-removed]

Let's say I have 3 notifications from spotify on my iPhone. 

Nice 3 messages on my lockscreen (as I have set it)

If I click on one of them spotify opens with the one I clicked. very simple and no problem so far.

but now the other 2 spotify notifications are gone. I cant see them anymore on my lockscreen.

ok this might be a ios thing. but still I can't see any notfications in the app.

the bell icon is not the same as it is on desktop or web.  it is strangly an icon for activities and messages.

Since there is no way to get desktop notifications. The web player is (for now) the only solution.

So please, untill you guys bring the notification back please do not remove the on on the web player.

[GerBata]

They are eliminating post, where we found solutions or patches to fix the mistakes
Who gives the order to remove content from the forums?

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Removed-posts/Re-Removal-of-desktop-notifications/m-p/1349185#M1577...

All this is crazy

[kub9001]

---

@tarikkavaz wrote:

Let's say I have 3 notifications from spotify on my iPhone. 

Nice 3 messages on my lockscreen (as I have set it)

If I click on one of them spotify opens with the one I clicked. very simple and no problem so far.

but now the other 2 spotify notifications are gone. I cant see them anymore on my lockscreen.

ok this might be a ios thing. but still I can't see any notfications in the app.

the bell icon is not the same as it is on desktop or web.  it is strangly an icon for activities and messages.

Since there is no way to get desktop notifications. The web player is (for now) the only solution.

So please, untill you guys bring the notification back please do not remove the on on the web player.

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well, even in the Desktop App (Windows in my cae), if you click in one of N new notice, Spotify marks them all as read.
Fair enough, uh?  -NO   🙂

[Clawz]

Really? Disabling this and "working on completely new ways of keeping you up-to-date", which means that you do not have these "ways" ready?

It is as if a car manufacturer removed steering wheels from cars and asked to use it as you were until they come up with a better solution. Do you see similarities?

[budaallmusic]

Really anoying. As a heavy user really don't understand this change. 

[lewiselement]

Honestly such an absolutely mind-boggling development process, who the hell is in run of your team?

[cali-tpk]

hello !

i hope they will change taht ! because it was better before ! 

(sorry for my english) 

[weenswong]

I have done as per your instructions in order to enable notifications by email and yet still no notifications. How many people have complained regards the withdrawl of this invaluable service. Just bring it back and admit defeat because I for one pay for the premium service and notifications were one of the selling points. Now that it has gone I will be looking at other options. Other members should also do the same. Remember 1 major rule of business - The customer is alway right!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Azutael]

And so the trend of removing useful features was kept alive and well. 

I do not want more e-mails, i'm sure most people get more than enough e-mails as it is, useful and not so useful ones.
Push notifications is even less wanted, as i imagine people only want the most useful apps and whatnot to give you push-warnings. 

Really though, one must wonder what's going through the developers heads. 

I sincerely doubt i will stick with spotify if this change goes through. It is unacceptable to me, that I can no longer keep up to date on artists I follow, in a quick and easy way through the spotify client itself.

Stop removing features, and stop excusing yourselves whenever you do. Each time there's an uproar, and you insist that you are listening to feedback. Yet you still go through with these dumb changes that are unwanted.

For weeks now, I have not had the notification bell. And as a result I have barely used spotify. With it being removed in its entirety I will probably use another service.

[kostaswsr]

Why are customers even wasting their breath and energy trying to voice any opinion or offer suggestions to this company? Its beyond clear by now that they don't care about you or your suggestions.

[mrMortan]

But why.

Why if you want to awoid spamming your user do you chose to implement a model where you, well spam your users email inbox. When the notification service was in the app itself no one where being spammed. Now I have to take time deleting emails and direct focus outside of the Spotify app when I want to stay updated about playlists inside my app. Dear Spotify, im sorry to say, but thats just plain old dumb.

to put it in plain danish "det er en ommer" 🙂

[kostaswsr]

To add, its very easy to get notifications back just to spite of Spotify.

If you're using OSX, download version 1.0.26.132. Open up a terminal command and enter 'sudo nano /etc/hosts/'. Enter the following:

127.0.0.1    upgrade.spotify.com

Save this and then clear your DNS cache. Notifications are back and Spotify will no longer auto update.