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.

[NauseaNervus]

Good bye Spotify, i have paid for your service for 7 years - no more beta testing from me - you don't seem to do user study and you don't listen to you PAYING customers. Get your product management and development s h i t together!

[bitelaum]

You guys have the gift of making me rethink my subscription every new version.
Linux support at least was improving, but this?
This is the worst idea  ever..

[johnnyhour]

"this change will allow us to shift our focus to email and push notifications"

Shifting your focus? are you kidding? I can imagine the meeting where someone floated that statement.....

Revenue in excess of 1bn, over 1500 employees and you need to shift your focus?

What possible excuse could you have for not being able to keep this feature enabled until you get a suitable/acceptable replacement working other than greed.  If it needs more resource - then make the investment with the profits you have creamed from this industy.

I am happy paying 9.99 a month for good service, but that is contigent on you maintaining the level of service that you sold me in the first place and you investing that revenue wisely.  

Are we to recieve a discount on plans now that features are being removed?

How about being honest with your customers for a start?  Yes, the people that keep you in business.

You are hardly three guys in a shed, whacking out some "cheeky little app"

You claim that "we are listening" and "@spotfycares" - really?  how about demonstrating that by answering some of the questions in this thread?

We patiently await your response............

[matloo68]

Dear Spotify Developers,

How in heaven sake can you take such a big stupid decision? You're saying that your aim is to simplify the notification feature, and then you're messing it up for us who prefer to use the best platform you can offer (?) If your web feature was even close as good as the desktop option, it would have been easier to understand 😞

So now I have to check my emails to get my notifications, which is a feature I with full consciousness have turned off, because it's worthless to navigate outside Spotify to reach those.

I hope sincerely that you change your mind ASAP, because this will definitly change mine, and many others opinion about your services, and probably will start looking for other better services...

Regards,

Mats

[Viperkido]

Great. Now instead of seeing notifications about new music directly and conveniently in the app/client, I can simply get spam sent to my email.

This is an absolutely serious question: Does anyone on the Spotify developer's team actually use Spotify? How do you guys justify putting out a worse product every year? With the exception of the ability to save music, every single update has made it more difficult for people to use your service. 

[1164181599]

since you removed this feature i had to create my own way of knowing what's new, and it's actually a painful job. the thing is, i have this one folder of playlists that are updated regularly with new music, i sort it to see the most recent ones on top but then i need to recognise the artists that i like. but i need to check it regularly because i can get lost easily since you removed also the playlist notifications of what's new. the bell worked amazingly, but if you don't want that, what do you want then? don't say email and push notifications, think about desktop users! notifications inside the app! no one wants to check out the email (we check it for other things, we receive enough emails of other stuff already thank you) and no one wants to check the phone to see JUST ONE and the most recent one notification, that actually is old news (sometimes a new release announce is like almost 2 days of delay). add the history tab completely empty and the recently played artists stuck on the 28th or 29th of april and you got yourselves in a huge problem spotify! plus the issue of not being able to see who is following our playlists, like, that's how you want to connect people through music and with the artists, labels, and everything music related that have spotify accounts? i was happy that i was going to finish uni, getting a job and finally upgrading to premium, but now... i really don't know!

[zeroxxx]

Another reason not to pay for Premium/Subs of Spotify.

[infectedketchup]

Awesome - remove the one feature that kept me informed of **bleep**. Way to go spotify

[1164181599]

the solution i got for now is just checking this website album of the year, recognise the artists i like/follow and search it on spotify to listen to it. but yeah... it's not the same thing ain't it? this is really sad...

[12130343752]

Sounds your all doing backwards

[j1mtones]

I am ALL for product advancements along how artist notifications are being handled but don't you think this is a little abrupt? I understand you guys are seeing a huge surge in mobile consumption, but that doesn't mean you need to remove your desktop notification 'stopgap'. In-app desktop has worked splendidly since you've launched and I see no reason to completely remove it until you've pushed out v2 (if that's even happening).

Forcing users, especially people who log 7+ hours a day (me), to rely on !?EMAIL?! and MOBILE NOTIFICATIONS seems ridiculous. I'm subscribed to over 900 artists and receive over 10 notifications a day. Mobile notifications are drowned out by other apps (we receive them at midnight) and aren't supported inside your native app. Also, forcing your userbase to utilize email to follow new releases feels like a UX disaster. Why are you forcing me to hop between email to Spotify 10+ times just to hear today's releases?

I think you can understand where I'm coming from. I've been a paying user for over 4 years and am deeply in love with your music selection and new releases. I feel like this severly cripples how I use your product. Please, I would love to hear what you guys have in mind regarding notifications v2.

Thanks,

Tim

[Lumiq]

What a load of crap! Who's opinion are you basing your decisions on?

Not the users, that's for sure!

Being a long time Spotify user and a music lover, I think this is one of the most important features!

[Largon]

Absolutly stupid and unclear decicion to remove the notification bell in the dektop application.

For my use case it´s a downgrade because the desktop application was the only place where i could use these notifications very easy to check for new releases and add new songs to playlists.

I´dont need push notificatios on my mobile device. I order my music in the desktop application and listen at home via Sonos. Also i don´t need to know what my friends are up to or want mails about new songs in my mailbox. All this changes has nothing to do do with the comfortable function of the notification bell in the old desktop app.

For me it´s a absolutly incomprehensible solution to delete such important features !

The only workaround i have for the current situation is to rollback to Spotify 0.9.15.27 and avoid auto-updates. Also i will evaluate other music streaming providers for better solutions of music news in desktop or web applications for PC.

[1164181599]

@Largon, how can you go back to older versions?

[ttboi]

I don't understand this decision at all. I have been a paying user for over 4 years and the notification icon is one of the key features I use daily. 

As of now I don't see any reason to use the "follow" feature since I refuse to let Spotify blow up my email inbox with tens of notification emails daily.

[Tossamaen]

This was a very dumb decision in my opinion, the bell notification icon was very helpful...

[djgbarradas]

What the hell! Why would I want to know about new songs from the artists I follow on my email? This while there is an entire page on the app dedicated to push me music I don't really care about?
Can you for once try to go back to making an app that serves the musical taste of those who use it?

[richardm]

How do Spotify's competitors handle this function?  Do they have a notification system similar to the one that we're missing?

[Killmarth]

Hello,

My feedback is simple, this is a VERY BIG mistake.  The notification bell was the easiest way to keep the users informed about their favourité releases!  How do we do now?  For a lot of people, it was the only place they could see the new music from bands or playlists they follow.  The bell is gone now and also the fact that Spotify was also the best way to connect music people.  IT IS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT!

We share a lot of messages about that but the Spotify team doesn't care about that.

Do you know that we all pay for the service we deserve???

As clients we don't have to wait!

All the best from a very deceived customer!

[bernath]

Bring back the notification icon! Email notifications are annoying because they will only open in the web player, and the mobile notifcations are useless.