Fix It

[enorth77]

I am getting frustrated with the fact that for a week now, Spotify has been unable to resolve an obviously internal issue that is making it impossible for me to change the credit card I use to pay for my subscription. The card I originally registered with needs to be changed (had to cancel the card due to it being compromised), and the ‘Change Method of Payment’ template is simply not accepting my new card. I’m not getting an error, I’m not getting a ‘Card Declined’ notice, all I’m getting is the spinning wheel of doom when I click continue after entering my card information.  I’ve contacted you about this about a dozen times at this point, having tried every ridiculous suggestion you’ve made in attempt to resolve the issue; e.g “try it from from your mobile device” , “try it in an incognito window”, “try it standing on one foot with your left arm straight up in the air”.  Come on!  I’m trying to PAY you people for your service - entering my payment information should be the easiest and fastest transaction I make on your site!   

I’m not a huge enthusiast for streaming music. I’ve been a CD and vinyl collector of the artists I love for years and years and years. Buying physical albums of the artists I’ve discovered or had recommended to me - sometimes in multiple formats if I really got excited about them - has always been the right and proper way to give reverence to the music I love and the artists that create it. Services like Spotify, to me, just seemed tepid, and in my opinion only served to encourage this current generation to cherish music about as much as they do wallpaper: it’s a nice background and really ties the mood together, but ultimately is disposable and replaceable.  That’s not what I think of music, and I secretly berate myself for even subscribing to Spotify in the first place; because it seemed like a betrayal of my values.

All that aside, I DID sign up, and I DID enjoy the convenience of the service - not to mention the smorgasbord of music selections it offered me. I liked that not only did nearly every song, artist or album I was curious about at any given moment I found available to enjoy for a reasonable monthly fee, I also appreciated the interactive playlists that plugged in other artists I might also enjoy, but might not have considered or even been aware of.

All said, it’s impersonal customer service, disinterest in maintaining your consumer base and pure **bleep**ty longterm hope of retention that you would make it this difficult and frustrating for even an 'on the fence' consumer like myself to continue using your service. I have more patience than the teen to twenty-somethings that make up your ‘core market’, so I wonder how much effort they would put into keeping their Spotify subscription if they were in my position right now?  Probably little to none. There’s a hundred other services out there as good as Spotify - and they’d jump to any one of those with little more than a shrug, I’m sure of it.

Fix this issue, and fix it immediately, or I’m back to vinyl and CDs and my iTunes library archives.  Trust me, I’ll feel better about myself anyway… until I decide to deviate to another streaming service that isn’t yours, that is.