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. 

[Abhinav_JayP]

>> "I was mid-coding when...." 

I had the exact same experience! I spent a bit of time checking under the hood too, wondering if the Python client library (spotipy) had any issues. Totally caught off guard with this deprecation.

[0waify]

This change obstructs developers from... developing. Three cheers for Spotify for Developers Spotify for Stakeholders.

[MartinAlejandre]

Same thing as everyone else basically. I started alpha-testing my app literally today, after three long months, and fighting my way through so many bugs. It was being such a great day. Finally I had something to show some friends. Of course, my friends found some bugs, and I was just squashing them when suddenly I get this new error and the app stops working.

Honestly it is so discouraging. How come we didn't have a notice on this change, I assume Spotify has known this was going to happen for some time? I don't think it is normal for an API to have such major changes from one day to another, without any migration possibilities, without giving the developers time to adapt (which is not even possible in this case because you just completely removed endpoints).

This just makes developers unlikely to use Spotify API ever. I don't think I will continue work on my app. Even if Spotify re-enabled to get track tempo's, how can I trust in this API.

PD: you could have provided at least a error message, all I got was `{ error: { status: 403 } }`. It took me some time just to figure out what was going on, in fact, I stumbled upon this post because I was looking for information on this rare `403` error. Note very developer friendly overall.

[FadedPoem]

I use Spotify just because it's open and has infinite possibilities thanks to those hard-working developers. Your main URL even includes the word "open." Why are you ruining all the trust and efforts of developers?

[ItsLes]

Hi Spotify,

The API is being used in my FYP which has been in the works for almost 6 months, and is in the testing stages. Suddenly, everything doesnt work... absolutely nothing... no warning at all. What am I supposed to do now? Redo 6 months of developing and reporting in just 3 weeks? What am I going to submit in my FYP?

Can you delay the changes till the start of next year, please? or atleast give me a ID and Secret that works temporarily, please.

[jake373]

Follow-up to this Spotify blog post: Introducing some changes to our Web API

To the Spotify engineers behind this decision,

It seems you have removed access to these APIs very suddenly to avoid others scraping data from you or making use of the fruits of your AI models. As much as it hurts to see the lack of empathy you've shown to small-scale developers by discontinuing these APIs with absolutely no notice ahead-of-time (especially the day before a major holiday in the United States), I'm not naive enough to expect you to completely reverse this decision.

However, for the APIs that aren't related to your recommendation models, but are incredibly useful for building creative integrations like music visualizers, please consider reviving them in some way. In particular, the Audio Features API enables many small, creative, non-competitive integrations with Spotify that help bring vibrancy to the music listening community and encourage that community to continue to use Spotify to enjoy their music. It also makes it easy for young, inspired developers to start using the Spotify API to pursue creative ideas around enhancing music playback, leading to continued use of the API and growth of the individual programmers using it, and providing an opportunity for creative people who may not have as much of a programming background to build something unique and grow.

I understand that "Spotify the corporation" is not very incentivized to care about the small developer community. However, I'm hoping to appeal to the engineers and product managers behind the scenes here. You might remember your own days of experimenting with programming, coming up with creative ideas and building them. Many people have put a lot of passion into developing using the now-discontinued APIs, and now have lost that with no notice and no answers. Please have some empathy for us on the other side.

Thanks for reading this,

Jake

[jake373]

I wrote some comments on this matter in a new forum post, focused more specifically on the Audio Features API, the creative endeavors enabled by that API, and the hurt smaller developers who have been blindsided by the decision to remove it with no notice.

Edit: it looks like they merged that post into this thread (above), rather than leaving it as its own separate thread.

[malcontent_mp3]

I'm just a user who likes to make playlists for their friends using Web API calls. These changes make it impossible to continue doing so and it makes me pretty sad.

I feel as though quietly making a blog post about this saying while removing some of the main functionalities of the Web API is downplaying these drastic changes. This /might/ be more safe and secure for your 'stakeholders', and may not affect more established users (yet-- this was out of the blue, we never know what's next). However, this has the potential to really damage the applications of users and developers who do not have the resources to get the necessary approvals, have smaller teams or businesses.

I can complain all I want with no real harm done because I was just testing things and having some fun, but as I read through the forum I'm seeing multiple people reference months of work and thousands of lines of code, and destroyed programs and projects.

This is a calculated choice. Not just removing these functionalities, but failing to announce the changes.

[touchfuzzygetdizzy]

Same as many devs here, shut down mid-coding. I was really excited about the data visualization project I was working on using the audio features. Took awhile to figure out what was going on. Is there an appeals process for those of us that are mid-production?

[user-removed]

To Spotify,

I've spent two years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars developing an app that relied on this API.

I understand it's yours to revoke at will, and the need to protect your API from abuse, but I am not yet at a phase where I was ready to submit for extended access.

Will the full API be available for those who now apply for and receive extended access? 

In order to prepare our apps for submission, can you perhaps restore the API with a much more strict rate limit so that we can continue to develop our apps for this process? This both protects your system from abuse and allows developers to continue to build in your ecosystem.

[touchfuzzygetdizzy]

I agree, a really strict rate limit would make way more sense than "We love our dev community and think what you build is terrific. *pulls plug"

[touchfuzzygetdizzy]

Ditto. I was feeling so inspired by what the audio features was allowing me to explore and visualize, huge bummer for it to vanish without notice.

[ThisIsBRUTAL]

Apps that had extended mode API approved are allowed to keep using the deprecated endpoints per this blog post.

But we aren't. So what separates the "have's" from the "have not's" is mostly just timing. I think everyone in this thread would've applied for it themselves if there was any notice given for the change.

Also, is this really a security issue if those apps are allowed to keep using those deprecated endpoints?

My suggestion: please re-open the extended mode API applications for 1-2 months to give us a chance to apply, then close them off if Spotify prefers that long term. It's not ideal for future apps/developers but we've already invested the countless hours into our projects. We have skin in the game and we're being left in the lurch, but this would be a reasonable compromise.

[funemployed]

This is exactly what an API *should not* do. Deprecating popular and heavily used endpoints with ZERO notice. This move kills developer trust in your application, and discourages new innovation in 3rd party quirky apps. 

There go my last few months, where I sunk my free time into creating an application that provides users with fun data visualizations of their listening history. Now this project is dead in the water, if I don't want to create yet another rehash of any of the existing "Top Tracks in the last X Months" app.

Please, provide existing developers in beta mode access to the endpoints they were already using. 

[ae2eac2af156c736953c]

This sucks!

I was using the recommendations endpoint for personal use so I can build my own discovery playlists within Spotify. Now that not possible.

This move doesn't help the end users... It's a calculated move towards en-shittification of Spotify.

[jerblack]

Well that breaks my scenario. I'm using your API to automatically save new tracks from playlists I follow into my owned playlist which is pretty much all I listen to. This is just my app for me to automate my own listening, so it sucks as a paying customer for more than 10 years who mainly pays for the API access. The main thing that affects me is you saying I can't list or access the contents of playlists owned by Spotify like I can any other user, and then you lie in your API endpoints about the available playlists and just return nulls for every spotify owned playlist in the list. Kinda rude, TBH.  Either have the decency to clean your nulls from the API enpoint and update the total, or give me back access to the spotify playlists I follow. This sucks just as a user.

[trance_armstrong]

Months of work wasted. A strict rate limit would have been a better option. 

[SF7855]

I can't accept these changes at all. If this deprecation was scheduled, it should have been announced months ago. If it’s a sudden decision, it reflects a lack of planning, pushing the entire development environment toward obsolescence. I'm not sure about other countries, but in China, there's a whole community working on third-party apps around music platforms, and almost everyone knows that Spotify is 'well known for publishing featured API sets, providing great space for creativity.' Is this changing? Should it change?

Developer lives matter. For those who have spent months or even years developing apps using Spotify APIs, this would be a huge disappointment.

[AbhiVardhan]

I have spent last two months working for more than 2 hours everyday on a project that is mainly dependent on these endpoints. This is my first ever project and I loved working on it very much. I almost finished it and was about to deploy. But when I checked it last night, nothing seems to work. That's two months of hardwork wasted. Extremely disappointed and devastated. 

I sincerely request Spotify team to consider the requests from me and other fellow developers and bring back the endpoints.

Thank you!

[spo-api-devastated]

You just wasted 3 months of almost working 12 hours a day. I was only visualizing the data fingerprint of the user's top tracks and created a delightful experience that all went to ashes now : ( I don't know who would i be causing insecure environment by visualizing your data - essentially i'm marketing it for you, devastated : (