[Mobile] Preview albums for free users

[ollylee03]

Recently, Spotify took away the ability for free users to see what songs are in an album or by a particular artist.

Before, free users were able to select an album, press “preview” or “and more”, and see a list of all the songs in the album, each with a short audio demo. This made it much easier to discover new artists, and created a much more convenient user experience.

The only way to hear samples of songs now is to listen through Spotify-made playlists. Unfortunately lots of smaller artists don't feature on many of these playlists making it very difficult to sample/discover their music. 

Obviously, I understand that as a free user there are compromises that need to be made by users like listening to ads, only being able to shuffle and not being able to listen to specific songs, but removing the ability to see what songs I'm shuffling is silly; so silly in fact that many users thought it was a glitch in the app at first. 

It's clear that this is an attempt to force more free users into going premium but some users simply can't afford it, so this is an unnecessary punishment. Many users, including myself, will be looking for alternative music services if this change isn't reversed. 

[Cyanide_Sweetie]

Spotify is starting to go down the drain. The only thing they have on Pandora is the ability to make playlist in the free version, other than that Pandora rocks. You can get up to 4 hours (usually 1 hour) of uninterrupted listening. If you’re looking for a specific song you can listen in premium for 15-30 mins by watching an ad . Spotify offer non of this to free users. But they take away the only real useful option in the free version. I’m never paying for Spotify premium now. 

[Beefbourguignon]

Damage is done for me, I thought it was a glitch but turns out its shady move to manipulate us into subscribing to premium,  I actually can't believe they thought this was a good idea and people would accept it. I used to be premium and had considered renewing but **bleep** you spotify, I'll stream elsewhere from now on. 

[holly177]

spotify has always been my favourite app on my phone as i love music and make a new playlist of songs nearly every month. but spotify removing this feature has made it so difficult as i used to go on artists albums and add a few of the songs i liked by one search. now they’ve made it so difficult. now having to remember every song on an artists album and add it to a playlist individually that way. spotify was perfect as it is for free users. and now they are trying to push people to get premium. i definitely will not be supporting or recommending a music platform to my friends that manipulated their customers. i think it’s disgusting. the app is so much harder and difficult to use now and i can’t easily browse through music which defeats the purpose of the app.

[Youweiparra]

I just realised a very annoying issue with removing this feature. The old artist “and more” tab allowed Spotify Free users to see the top 20-30 songs of an artist, something spotify premium/computer doesn’t have.

[maximo101]

As someone who tried Spotify multi0le times, this is why I always left and just use YouTube or Vero for music.

If Spotify had a tier option like $1 a month I would consider it, but I'm not paying more than my Netflix and prime service together for Spotify which doesn't look like it supports its customers

[raindoggy]

agree with everything that's been said before. for me tho, there's been few, very few, almost NO probs with Spotify for years. the best. so you just know this is one of those features somebody finally realized was sorta hidden, but utterly useful, and so "the decision was made" to scam album-view out of the free version. this is not cool for quite a few reasons: first, of course it's painful to add songs to a playlist on mobile now; you have to know the name of the song and search. Then there was zero announcement about it, and also the sad "and more" link is still sitting there, so you wonder WTH and finger-mash it, thinking you're crazy. And lastly, it's just annoying enough that it might drive you to paid, but not annoying enough to make you uninstall and move on. well done 🤑 ... of course they're hoping no one will complain much, but how can you not? and i don't even care about the lil audio preview coming back, just seeing what's on an album! if i had to sum this one up, you know what it is, so UPVOTE THIS "IDEA" PLZ: 💩

[alaskaa]

I didn't know this community existed until I looked up why the "and more" button wasn't working. I have been using Spotify for over four years now, and I never had a problem with the app. Although I am not a person that makes a lot of playlists, something I often do is look through an artist's albums to see if I know/like any of their songs, as using the sample feature has been easier than looking for the song on Youtube or waiting for it to play on shuffle. It has been incredibly irritating to not be able to do this recently, and although I will deal with it if Spotify refuses to change it, I know many others will not. I'm not sure how much this comment or my vote counts, but I hope it at least helps make a difference.

[Ech0petal]

Ive been using this app from the beginning and was a premium user for years until they did something to **bleep** me off that got me to stop paying, and now here we are again with something else. I didnt even know this community board existed, and honestly its a bit too little too late and im pretty well done with manipulative and coercive strong arm tactics to squeeze money from ppl. If you cant sell your product to me, how is aggression gonna get me to buy? Wack af

[kcrome5429]

I just made this account on here just to complain about the missing feature. Let me just say, this has been absolutely the worst idea anyone had come up, grifting extra money during a pandemic where there's already enough people struggling as is, and pushing people for a premium account (they don't want or couldn't afford). What's the whole point of offering us to suffer through countless ads, which by the way doesn't matter if you click "No Thanks" because it'll play the same amount or quite possibly more ads in it's place, which is a completely different complaint on its own. I mean seriously, tell me if it works. Tell me that this pushed people to buy the premium account, I guess if it works it sets up a new precedent of replacing 'additions' or 'ideas'  to an app, it's easier and more cost effective to take away features instead. And if that's the direction you're going, I'll stick with Youtube. If there's no way I can see the songs in albums or playlists or sample how they sound, then how do I make playlists? How can I enjoy what I hardly had to begin with?  I can't. So then what's the point anymore? I guess there isn't one.

[_saniyah]

why would y’all do this? this goes to show how greedy companies can be for money. money is not everything. everyone does not have it right now to be buying some stupid subscription. spotify gotta relax n bring back our ability to preview music