Changes to Web API

[Loneliest_Cabin]

Folks, some news on changes to the web API has been posted on the Spotify For Developers blog.

We want to reiterate the main message from the blog that we're committed to providing a safe and secure environment for all Spotify stakeholders. As such we have recently made some important changes related to access to some of our endpoints and functionality. You can read the details on the blog: https://developer.spotify.com/blog/2024-11-27-changes-to-the-web-api

We are here to listen to any feedback you may have. 

[snclrp]

I get it! In the age of AI, data is more precious than ever... 
Though, I would pretty much have appreciated the fact that you guys created other mechanisms to access to this API Endpoints instead of blocking them, 

I was using this endpoints for Reaserching purposes on the Music scene in Colombia, just provide some fun Data for the industry, We've made a beutiful study about the SonicFingerprint of Colombian and Bogotá audience based on this API endpoints and was about to lock a project to produce a live update of this analysis for the general public for the Cultural Ministry of Colombia. This basically ruined (or at least affected greatly) a contract for my Data Analysis business...

So yeah! Thank you 😄

[djmtype]

It's amazing, if I embed my playlist as a crappy iframe, all the preview urls are still intact. But, if I fetch for the preview urls via REST API, they're all null. I didn't think I needed to get my "apps" approved because they were for personal use, so I've left them developer mode for years.
There was single post mentioning the death of several endpoints when it was already too late; with no grace period to even prepare us.
So, why would anyone ever trust, and build an app around Spotify, knowing more draconian measures may be taken without warning?

Is it better for Spotify to pinch pennies, or lose dollars from long-term paid subscribers? 

[alex220499]

Before being a developper I was a premium client. Before I was a huge fan of your work but nowadays your service is less and less useful, your algo keep pushing the same songs and I can't make my spotify playlist on my own little app. Thanks for helping me changing my streaming app 🙏

[stanleygvi]

Is there any way developers can appeal to use a certain endpoint? I was only using one endpoint for an application that I was developing. It just used this endpoint to get vital information for my application and now it's broken. I have spent 2 years building this application and now all of that hard work is gone. I was not using any of the data to train any AI model or ML model, so I don't see what the harm would be using that endpoint. I don't know how to submit an extension for my application as it doesn't work now so I can't provide any media or links for the Spotify team to test it out. Please let me know if there is any way I can move forward.

[Dipper]

The only feedback I’m seeing here is that you’ve ruined hundreds of peoples’ hard work with no notice and no way to resolve

[spotydeveloper]

Unbelieveable. I was working on an app that used these endpoint heavily and didnt see they shut it off. Ive been debugging for a couple weeks now without knowing what the issue was. I'm glad Im not the only one here but its so frustrating. Spotify is probaly going to release a DJ recommendations style feature soon which seems like what many of the developers here have been working on. Any plans to allow access to similar API endpoints in the future Spotify? There are a lot of developers here dissapointed, all of these projects would only drive more spotify engagement....

[PaxGriefs]

This is a horrifically bad update.
Acting like they are happy with the developers and then ruining 100's of peoples months of work without any warning or alternative.
yall only removed things dont act like yall are happy with the developers and then ruin their stuff.
Change this back for god sake my entire project is ruined!

[zeddi_13789]

Thanks Spotify!

Of course it makes sense that they don't want to give out this data to commercial projects for free, but all those hobby projects that people did for themselves or small communities that are not only fun to work on but can be quite educational, are just gone now!

Even though, they probably don't care about this small developer community, but this is how you make people turn away from your product.

[bvermeulen]

Well at least I solved the 30 second preview issue. Get the embed url of a track and then extract the preview url:

track_data = spotify.track(track_id, market="US")
track_id = track_data.get("id")
embed_url = ''.join(['https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/', track_id])
result = requests.session().get(embed_url)
content = str(result.content)
m = re.search(r'\"audioPreview\":{\"url\":\"(.*?)\"}', content)
try:
    preview_url = m.group(1)

except IndexError:
    preview_url = None

Let's see how long that will last!

[spencerthayer]

As I said in my previous post, I’ll be canceling my account in two days unless your company stops prioritizing greed over functionality and reason.

• Spotify customer service? A joke. You’ve made it a company policy to abandon accountability to your paying users.
• Spotify's "premium" 320kbps sound quality is the bare minimum—literally the worst in the industry. A mockery of what users deserve for the price.
• The app is bloated, gimmicky, and clearly designed to funnel users into features they didn’t ask for—maximizing ad revenue instead of usability.
• Spotify Carplay is outright dangerous for drivers. Instead of fixing it, you sold us a “Carthing” cash grab—a device you bricked in December. Pure exploitation masked as innovation and "research."

What kept me here? Carthing and the API.

But since you’ve bricked one and now gutted the other, there’s nothing left but your insatiable greed. Why would anyone stay? Your business model exploits your users at every turn. I sincerely hope your company collapses under its greed. At this rate, that bankruptcy you’re speeding toward looks inevitable this decade—and well deserved.

[sabinazebra]

Well, like many others my app has crashed. Many hours spent. Fingers crossed for getting audio features back. 

[djmtype]

Sadly, Apple charges a $99 developers fee for this. Already looked into it.

[marcospousada]

me too.. i'm really **bleep** off

[NoReIGoIt]

Hi Spotify Team,

I have a few questions:

1. Will these changes also be applied to apps in extended quota mode in the future?

2. If so, will Spotify provide an announcement ahead of time to allow developers to adapt or find alternatives?

3. If the changes do apply to extended quota mode, is there any chance of exceptions for apps where the purpose and functionality are clearly explained?

I’d appreciate any clarification on this, as I’m concerned about how these changes might affect ongoing projects.

Thanks!

[Samppa3]

They won't answer as they don't care.

[EverEndeavour]

My app, which I've been using for years now, didn't use any of these end points which have been affected. And yet my app has been affected because it seems that, besides closing down these end points, it's also no longer possible to fetch the track listing for the "Made for" playlists like Daily Mix or Discover Weekly. This is how I fetched recommendations instead of using the Recommendations end point. I can understand shutting down certain end points, but an API should always at least allow you to automate the things you can freely do on the desktop or mobile app anyway. All I want to do is fetch some tracks from my own playlists, fetch some tracks from Discover Weekly, and also some tracks from followed artists, and create a combined playlist from these sources. It's essentially automating what I could do by hand in the app. To disallow this is the most outrageous aspect of these changes, in my mind.

[sidedwards]

This API update broke fetching Discovery Weekly playlists from the Web API.

I had scripts to pull tracks from my Discover Weekly, but the requests now return a 404. I have confirmed that this recent update broke that ability. Please fix this.

[bazingatorade]

So, after reading the whole thread, it looks like we have 2 possible candidates to replace Spotify Audio Features.
Both are paid options :
- https://cyanite.ai 
- https://songstats.com/for/developers

So far i've contacted both of them to know about pricing...currently waiting for them to reply.

Anybody had some experience with one of those ?
thanks

[pfeff]

I’m using Songstats at 0.02 EUR per unique request. I only needed the same
information that I was getting from Spotify.

It’s working well, didn’t require a lot of work to switch to using their
API. I’m still using the Spotify API to get songs from Playlists or ISRC.

The only downside to the Songstats implementation is that I have to request
individually and there’s a rate limit, so I have to throttle on my end.
With Spotify I was able to pass in multiple IDs or ISRCs in a single
request.

Songstats was the only service I found that would be able to replicate what
Spotify had, precisely because it’s using the Spotify data.

If you manage to get it for cheaper, please let me know.

Joe

[kingosticks4]

You'd think Spotify would be smart enough to spend efforts stamping out third parties who are just reselling their data. Instead of angering their actual users. Not the smartest management.