Disable In-App Suggestion Pop-Ups?

[apfitzg2]

I just got a very weird random, ad-like pop-up for a murder story podcast in my iOS Spotify app (latest version 8.4.77) that I had to dismiss before being able to control my music. I pay for a premium susbscription. Am I able to disable this? Besides being picky about what I listen to (so none of this applies to me, especially because I don't follow those kind of podcasts at all), I am a tad irritated that I pay for Spotify only to see promotional pop-ups like this that I have to dismiss before being able to control my music.

It's a minor inconvenience to most, I'm sure, but the fact that it blocks you from doing anything until you click to "learn more" or dismiss it is annoying, especially when I pay for this. I believe they used to have these kind of promotional things for podcasts in the home section of the older version of Spotify, so now it's just a nuisance to have it pop up right in the middle of the app like it's trying to force you to pay attention to it when all I want to do is control music.

Thank you for any help.

------------

Plan

Premium

Country

 US

Device

iPhone Xs

Operating System

iOS 12.0.1

[Loxer]

Hi there!

This sounds like a good idea. I’d suggest starting a new thread in the Community Ideas Exchange.

This’ll allow users, Stars, and Moderators to vote and comment on it.

[Ceebs]

Modal popups are AWFUL especially when you're driving and just want to quickly start some music before the light turns green. I pay for premium too and I'm one of the customers who's at risk of moving elsewhere - suggestions where I don't want them is one of the reasons.

Love the daily mixes and the idea of suggestions in general, but they need to be seperate from my stuff and not get in the way, especially when I'm driving!

[osornios · Accepted solution]

Hey @apfitzg2 

A similar idea has also been suggested here:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Remove-Pop-Up-Suggestions/idi-p/5571419

Please vote for it, and add a comment there, so it may be considered. 🙂

[sovtek1]

I agree with your sentiments completely. We pay for the product, why are we being advertised to unwillingly? Also as another person mentioned, it's just another barrier between the user and their task when they are driving.

[martine-angel]

The idea thread to remove this terrible pop-up was closed in 2020 due to not having enough votes.

This only started affecting me now, after a phone reinstall. Thus, it is inferrable that we didn't get enough votes, because it is getting turned up gradually Or it is possibly shuffled across users so that only a fraction bear the burden of this terrible UX at any given time. Why did the pop-up start to show only now for me, Spotify?

It is a terrible UX. Premium users shouldn't have to randomly shut down a pop-up in order to use the app that accesses the content they pay a subscription for. This shouldn't be an idea, it should be a plain UX decision.

Why are you doing this to us, Spotify?

Why are you putting this through a process, even though it is clearly an advertisement that blocks any other user action, and is displayed randomly to users who pay a premium not to receive advertisements?

[stevenlybeck]

This is crazy, I get one to two modal pop ups every time I open Spotify and they also appear randomly when I’m navigating around. Not interested! Who thought it’s a good idea to repeatedly and forcefully interrupt what I’m trying to do in the app to try and convince me to listen to some podcast? I pay for this sh*!, wth!

 Please let us disable these annoying modals!

[whytry313]

These ads are the best way to lose premium users. Idk who suggested that feature but that person must not be using Spotify.

A "Spotify promoted" section on the main screen could easily fix this though, and we would actually enjoy discovering what Spotify has to promote, I'd guess this would be less front-end work than having a popup since the templates are already there

[apfitzg2]

It looks like you might be able to turn it off now?! Since I’ve turned it off I haven’t gotten any pop ups as of late. If you go to Settings>Notifications in the Spotify app there’s options to turn off push notifications for show and podcast recommendations. 

[whytry313]

Push notifications and in app popups are two different things, I just checked, I currently have all notifications, both push and e-mail disabled and still have them. i did a soft reset and hard reset of the app (logout / uninstall + clear cache), still have them - see closed request to remove that feature, there's screenshots

[apfitzg2]

Ah **bleep**. Thanks for the info!

[tooMANYcaptcha]

Yeah this is unacceptable. I'm rapidly losing patience with stuff like this, I'm so tired of pop ups and being forced to spend my time on garbage that has nothing to do with me. I don't know why I'm paying for this service anymore and I will probably stop in the near future unless things improve in a big way. Circling the drain. 

[Pedrote]

Also, that 'Dismiss' thing you can barely see instead of the standard cross icon at the expected location (or even click outside to dismiss) looks quite like a dark pattern to me.

Too bad the link to the item in the community suggestions area gives me an error message about unauthorized access.

[newnative]

I'm getting these pop-ups on a daily basis now, and I'm tired of them. It's always some random podcast that I couldn't care less about.

I would appreciate if there was a way to turn these pop-ups off.

[Unknownreasn]

Agreed. This is beyond annoying. I use Spotify to get to my music fast. Please don’t put an arbitrary barrier in the way

[tayland]

I'm probably going to close my Spotify account over this. The music recommendations lately are garbage anyways.

[apfitzg2]

Now I’m getting pop-ups for music that I’m not even interested in. wth??