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. 

[callmefreak]

just another greedy company giving no care about its users all they care is collecting money, spotify is so much user unfriendly platform it could have great features inside given the software possibilities nowdays yet it feels like old mid 2000s app.. just a shame!

[matthewncover]

very cool, would love to hear how you're doing that... I needed the audio-analysis endpoint for my project and have been looking for workarounds. I might be willing to contribute to your project to add other features like sections, beat timestamps etc. if you're interested find me at my username at outlook dot com. so sad they took these away from us.

[Komponist_MapleAstra]

This is shameful that not much of a notice was issued prior to the deprecation. I really needed the audio features and audio analysis, keen to understand what the replacement/resolutions might be. 

[desantir]

Can spotify provided a less BS-laced answer to why the echo nest APIs are being hidden? At least they can show they have an ounce of respect for the development community. I knew when they purchased this tech it was not going to end well.

[JohnnyD4]

Its really fascinating how creative Spotify is to find new ways to encourage users to not use their platform. I considered returning to premium exaclty because of the audio features. Now that they are gone I will just extend Deezer instead.

[gpit2286]

Deezer does allow searching by BPM if anyone wants to move there. https://developers.deezer.com/api/search

[dmode1]

I was looking to start 2025 with my first personal API use case. I had planned for a while to split my congregation of 1000 liked songs into separate playlists, containing tracks in certain BPM ranges. This way, I could have my favourite upbeat/chill/high-energy tracks sorted out. 

I'm so disappointed to find out that I'm 1 month too late, and that the sudden trend in model training seems to have scared spotify into blocking harmless use cases like my own from functioning. I'm trying to leverage development practically for my own enjoyment and my first attempt was shut down because of this...

[Weedog]

Please give us a way to get the BPM from an existing or new endpoint.

I get that some content may be used to train AI, but BPM is available in the public domain already.

Keeping all my data requests in 1 place would be ideal (and save me from reworking my app to use a new endpoint, where today I use the spotify id as my key)

[dannebrog13]

Take your spammy BS elsewhere

[Bogdan9]

I was working on a library around this API. However at every step it's become more and more clear you don't care about any users whatsoever. So many quality-of-life features missing and more keep getting removed. Really terrible company with terrible decision making. I will not be using this API or supporting any kind of app around this API anymore. Way to go Spotify.

[tobi_williams]

My app has been throwing 403 errors for some days until I went through the API docs to see that some endpoints are deprecated. This is so sad. So many hours of work gone! 

[MrMorpheus]

This is insane. I have an app that is backing up songs of my Discover Weekly playlist as well as a few other dynamic ones to static playlists so that I can listen to them going forward. Noticed today that my playlists haven't been synching for a month and after looking into it realised that all endpoints are throwing a 404 "Resource not found" (not the most helpful message really).

I have to say I'm completely at a loss as to why would Spotify constantly look for ways to inconvenience and alienate their users. For years you have been changing your UI, making it worse, removing features that everyone loves and now you're also restricting access to the API that so many people use. What is the issue? Don't you have enough money to serve all those requests? You don't want people to even be able to access any data? What does "committed to providing a safe and secure environment" even mean? It's nothing but the typical corporate BS.

How was me reading my own playlists unsafe? What have you achieved now that you've ruined my application and subsequently my experience with you yet again? Best part is there is no way to even get that functionality back unless you were lucky enough to have your application published and not in development mode before you posted the announcement without any prior warning.

I think my patience is running low with you and seeing the constant subscription price increases without getting anything new (in contrary - constantly taking stuff away) I'm this close to just cancelling my subscription after many years of being with you. This move was sneaky and really scummy from you. Madness...

[evnbrkr]

I also had plans on writing a script to move songs from Discover Weekly / Release Radar into a static playlist to sort through later, I guess Spotify hates people making features that they don't have since they're too busy removing them and need to meet some form of annoy customers quota; the number of reasons to stay on Spotify are dwindling to say the least.

[1234079492]

I had a noncompetitive use case I just started building an app for, nothing crazy just filtering tracks into a playlist based on metadata. Found out about the deprecated features while looking into building a Spotify MCP service. This is a bummer. It's too bad you couldn't figure out a way to do it without killing so many personal projects. If people are violating terms of service, why not just shut those down?

[kingosticks4]

Have you read Spotify's developer terms? They are ridiculous and pretty much anything can be a considered a breach, a Spotify MCP server included. I don't know what the solution is but randomly trying to accurately enforce their overly broad terms isn't it.

[kingosticks4]

And I wasn't trying to be rude, sorry if it came off at all that way. Spotify need to sort themselves out. they've got themsleves into this stupid hole and now they're just digging off to the side.

[1234079492]

it's just messed up because that whole audio-features endpoint came out of the echo nest, which came out of MIT media lab in 2005, benefiting from public money, scraped data, and thousands of devs in its ecosystem. then 10 ten years after acquisition bam, everyone's locked out "for security reasons." jeez.

[soundstat]

Totally get your frustration. That’s actually why I decided to take matters into my own hands and build a project to make audio features accessible again via an open API. I’ve developed the analysis system from scratch and am gradually building a database. Planning to open access soon at https://soundstat.info . Hopefully, it can fill some of that gap left behind.

[DisappointedUser1]

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

Sure you guys are, we can totally see that. 

Sorry but someone needs to maybe stop the bleeding here? 

Personally canceled my Family Subscription, with the sole reason this change.

Told a few friends to jump ship as well, this is simply a joke. 

When you use your audience to train your algoritm, all good right? (Meaning me included)

Double morales is always good to have... 

[1234079492]

they could never publicly say they were doing this to limit competition as that would set the company up for antitrust enforcement in the US and EU.