[Social] Bring back Inbox/Messaging with Notifications

[tesshenkel]

The Inbox/Messaging feature did not get a real shot at even being a feature because Spotify took away notifications for new messages. Give Inbox/Messaging some development so users can continue to privately share songs.

[matthewminica]

Looking forward to this ridiculous nonsense about removing the Spotify Inbox being no more than just a blip in the past.

[user-removed]

Yes! I loved being able to share songs with my friends and also interact about songs/playlists in the messaging area. Bring back my inbox and notifications please!

[morganburkhardt]

I have been a user since Spotify was a beta group in the US. Brought in through an acquaintance of one of Spotify's primary investors, D.A. Wallach. I will be reconsidering my premium membership and be moving to Apple's service or something else if the messaging and inbox feature aren't brought back. This was a differentiator for Spotify and now it's gone. Don't try to blend yourselves in with the other services, accentaute what makes you unique and expand on it. Otherwise, you are going to **bleep** off your core. People that have been here since go, like myself. Fix it or find out!

[maxpil]

I JUST WANT TO SHARE SONGS TO MY FRIENDS. 
What make me switch from Deezer was my friends telling me: Join us on spotify! We will share you our most rescent discovery.

Please, just add a sharing systeme to Spotify, This is very important for us, being able to share music to our friends.
Deezer are doing it in a great way, with notifications. This could be interresting too

[rachel4him]

Hoping Spotify listens to the complaints and brings back the in-app messaging system. It's such a pain to not have this feature anymore and while I use Spotify daily, not having this feature has made the experience so much less enjoyable even already. 

[chickdan]

Used to use this feature to share music between friends on a near daily basis until they ripped out the notifications last year (because we no longer knew when songs were being passed around). Now sharing is completely gone. You know when I first joined Spotify about 4 years ago, the advertising they used to differentiate themselves from their competitors was that Spotify was also a social platform. Now pretty much all of those social features have been removed. What is there to keep me with Spotify when Apple music is more integrated with the ecosystem? Heck Spotify can't even dedicate a single dev for a few weeks to make an Apple Watch app. Spotify is sporting fewer features than it used to while its competitors keep growing, I'm questioning how much longer until Spotify is just another "remember back in the day" story.

Update: Spotify stated that they removed the feature due to lack of user engagement and costs. A friend pointed out that there was little to no user engagement because Spotify dropped support for notifications. Maybe if a proper system was built (it did exist at one point, not sure why it was removed) people would use it? As for cost, Firebase is hella cheap when the only information being stored/transferred is tiny little strings that are less than 50 characters each.

[SarahCanDo]

I would love it if it came back. I don't want to have to email myself a link to a song from my work computer and THEN text it to my brother. I'd rather just send it to him via spotify and get back to work. Thanks!

[kanwill_]

Hi Spotify, would really appreciate if you listened to your users and brought back all the features you removed at the displeasure of you users AN CUSTOMERS. Please bring back messaging and notifications please. Whats the point of following when youre not notified of any new releases or playlist updates???

Whoever is in charge needs to seriously pay attention to what your users want or we will be forced to go else where.

Man I hate you guys.

[awakeninstar]

Couldn't agree more - Inbox/Messaging with notifications MUST be reinstated. This was the feature that made Spotify feel personal and created a sense of connection between friends (far more so than the limited, non-interactive Facebook sidebar: what's the point of that if you can't message friends about what they're listening to?!)...

In my Inbox, I have five years worth of music and precious messages exchanged with friends and family that will now be lost - and Spotify didn't even give us any warning! I want to be able to look back, all in one convenient place, and see exactly who sent particular tracks to me and when (and vice versa), plus what we wrote at the time about why they were worth sharing. The Inbox/Messages feature allowed you to share music and memories in a private, intimate and direct way, rather than having to broadcast it all over social media. Most of the time, you just want to share a song or playlist with one other person who you know will also be moved by it.

This removal of the Inbox/Messaging feature is a very thinly veiled move by Spotify to force users to share tracks in a highly public way (ie. Facebook / Twitter / Tumblr) and therefore lead more people to the app. Greedy, unfair and not taking into account the wishes of users who have been loyal customers since Spotify first launched. Sadly, as someone who has always loved Spotify Premium and uses it for all my music listening, I am shocked and disappointed.

Improve the Inbox/Messaging and notifications to make them more user-friendly (e.g. a more prominent Inbox tab and audible notifications on the desktop app, and text notifications on mobiles to ensure users see messages that have been sent to them). Please do not remove a feature that has so much potential.

[fecoporto]

Now I just realised they simply took off the possibility to send a song to someone. You can't send a inbox song to anyone. Why?