Dear Spotify: A Thoughtful Critique

[kingtuttoo]

To whom it may concern (and if you're a Spotify fan, it concerns us all): 

For starters, both iPhone and iPad versions seem rock-solid: no complaints.

The desktop (Mac) version, however, seems to have been designed with lopsided priorities in place. When the nifty bells & whistles you create interfere with my ability to LISTEN TO MUSIC, then they are wrong. For my part, I do not delve into any off-shoot "apps" or services. I like Spotify pure and simple. I could also care less what others are listening to, and I could especially care less about what people are listening to RIGHT THIS MOMENT. The "social networking" portion of Spotify should not hog the bandwidth, make music selection slow, choke out the "Announcement" feed, or do anything else to mess with my listening experience. Even if I turn the silly "Friends Feed" off, I know that info is still being pumped to my computer, and problems persist with this newest version (does anyone do Beta testing any more?). 

Secondly, judging by the lack of Official Spotify help on here, you need better, stronger, omnipresent customer service. I realize Spotify caters to dozens of languages, which might pose logistics issues, but for what the company makes, serving customers should be your one and ultimate priority (and isn't half of young Europe unemployed right now? Huge multilingusitic labor pool). Granted, probably 80% of the posts on these feeds are rambling Luddites with poor langauge and typing skills, so having a better system in place for problems & support would be ideal (i.e. filters, drop-down menus, spell-correct, etc.). 

Finally, as a suggestion, having a search field within playlists would be dreamy. The Spotify-created lists basically suck, and some of us have orchestrated complex playlists several-thousand songs deep. Having a quick way to locate a song, or to eliminate duplications within a list, would accentuate the Spotify experience incredibly. 

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you weigh this info with an open mind: actions over words, always. 

Sincerely,

me*

[MattSuda]

The ability to search inside playlists can be done by the following:

Windows: CTRL + F

Mac: CMD + F

However this was removed frome the recent update. It will be coming back soon.

Spotify does provide support:

https://www.spotify.com/about-us/contact/contact-spotify-support/

You can also tweet to @SpotifyCares on Twitter for help.

[kingtuttoo]

Thanks, Matt. I don't tweet, but the CMD+F quickie is awesome. I noticed the duplicate-catcher over the weekend too; must be a new addition. When I went to put a song into a massive list, it popped up a window saying something along the lines of: "This song already exists in this list. Do you want to add it again?" 

Very nice. 

Sincerely,

King T

[kingtuttoo]

A Thoughtful Critique redux:

1) Huge Positive: the shuffle feature (addressed in another posting long ago) seems to be phenomenally better now. Kudos.

2) Huge Negative: the iPhone app STILL eats up memory over time, sometimes with rapacious greed. I have no other app on my phone that swells with memory-hogging. None. Why is this still happening?

3) Huge Ambiguity: for whatever reasons, the Spotify Gods have stopped sending me notifications on my craptop Spotify "app." It used to happen with regularity (the in-box icon having a number by it); now it doesn't happen at all, and what's more, I don't seem to get email notifications anymore when bands I follow have new (or "new") material available. This seems terribly commonsensical. If 10,734 people follow band X, then 10,734 email addresses should receive a new music notification. **bleep**?

4) And this is simply a philosophical point about streaming music services in general: get rid of the freeloaders. It is not helping bands at all. Give folks a 30-90 day free run clogged with ads. After that, if they don't want to pay a lousy $10 (or more) a month for this vast library of music, they can go back to listening to garbage FM radio clogged with ads. Help bolster music making, and give monetary reward to the rights-holders, by forcing people to pay up.

Thanks again for an 8 out of 10 music service that is my primary source for listening. I would go insane without it.

Sincerely,

me*