Why I'm quitting Spotify Premium

NeilB · 2013-02-10

Virgin Media's original Spotify deal was a no-brainer: free Premium access for six months (or for some of us a full year) and almost unlimited access to the world's CD collection. Once my original free year expired I signed up for the ongoing Premium service at £9.99 a month, mainly so that I could continue to access it on my phone and iPad.
But now I've cancelled. Here's why.

There is STILL a problem with streaming Spotify over VM broadband during the evenings and over weekends, with the service quitting after a short period. It's too unreliable at home to listen to.
The sound quality, even at the Extreme setting, isn't a patch on iTunes or a 256k AAC rip from a CD.
The iPhone App is, after the last update, even worse. There's a problem with nested folders that means any music you've neatly filed away by artist is either deleted or tucked away in a random folder within folder within folder bug - I lost over 30 playlists when this bug was introduced.
The iPhone App still doesn't have any cache clearing capability, which means the more you use Spotify, the more it fills up your device. The only way to release that space is to delete the App and start again. Not the worst workaround, but annoying.
£9.99 in the UK but only $9.99 in the US. Yes, I know we have to pay VAT on downloads, but that doesn't strike me as particularly fair to UK customers.
Albums come and go at random. Several of my playlists now have tracks that are no longer playable. Grrrrrr.
I've got over 80gb of my favourite music in my iMatched-iTunes. And anything new I'm interested in I can give a listen to in the free Spotify.
Some times more means less. I prefer small bookshops' selections to the infinite shelves of Amazon. I prefer discovering new music from 6Music to hunting through the dross on Spotify. It was great to re-aquaint myself with some albums I don't own any more, but it also made me realise why I didn't buy them when I moved to digital.

So farewell for now, Premium Spotify. Maybe you will return at some point to my Direct Debits, but somehow I doubt it. Music's too important to me to be left to poorly written software and a service that's unreliable when I use it most. If I didn't have 30+ years of back catalogue already available to me digitally I would maybe reconsider, but I do. Time for some Beatles, methinks...

Liam · 2013-02-10

@NeilB wrote:

Virgin Media's original Spotify deal was a no-brainer: free Premium access for six months (or for some of us a full year) and almost unlimited access to the world's CD collection. Once my original free year expired I signed up for the ongoing Premium service at £9.99 a month, mainly so that I could continue to access it on my phone and iPad.
But now I've cancelled. Here's why.

There is STILL a problem with streaming Spotify over VM broadband during the evenings and over weekends, with the service quitting after a short period. It's too unreliable at home to listen to. It is probably your internet. I have no issues.

The sound quality, even at the Extreme setting, isn't a patch on iTunes or a 256k AAC rip from a CD. Sorry about that, but I think the sound quality is brilliant.

The iPhone App is, after the last update, even worse. There's a problem with nested folders that means any music you've neatly filed away by artist is either deleted or tucked away in a random folder within folder within folder bug - I lost over 30 playlists when this bug was introduced. Get an Android.

The iPhone App still doesn't have any cache clearing capability, which means the more you use Spotify, the more it fills up your device. The only way to release that space is to delete the App and start again. Not the worst workaround, but annoying. Get an Android.

£9.99 in the UK but only $9.99 in the US. Yes, I know we have to pay VAT on downloads, but that doesn't strike me as particularly fair to UK customers. Yes, that is rather unfair...

Albums come and go at random. Several of my playlists now have tracks that are no longer playable. Grrrrrr.

I've got over 80gb of my favourite music in my iMatched-iTunes. And anything new I'm interested in I can give a listen to in the free Spotify.

Some times more means less. I prefer small bookshops' selections to the infinite shelves of Amazon. I prefer discovering new music from 6Music to hunting through the dross on Spotify. It was great to re-aquaint myself with some albums I don't own any more, but it also made me realise why I didn't buy them when I moved to digital. Blame the record labels not Spotify.

So farewell for now, Premium Spotify. Maybe you will return at some point to my Direct Debits, but somehow I doubt it. Music's too important to me to be left to poorly written software and a service that's unreliable when I use it most. If I didn't have 30+ years of back catalogue already available to me digitally I would maybe reconsider, but I do. Time for some Beatles, methinks...

NeilB · 2013-02-10

"It is probably your internet. I have no issues."

It's a known problem on Virgin Media in the UK. I have 100mb broadband but there's been a problem with Spotify streaming for over a year and they've still not fixed it. Other services aren't problematic. Just Spotify. And I'm not the only sufferer http://vmhd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/spotify-problem-fixed.html

"Get Android" Not a desirable option for me as I'm an Apple fan and have no problems with iTunes, iPhones, iPads etc. I also don't see this as an Apple problem - Sonos users are similarly compaining about the Spotify service hiccups. Spotify software is poorly written and each update seems to make it even less reliable than the last. The nested folder issue makes it unusable for me.

With the sound quality: it depends on what you listen to I guess, but I've found classical recordings and artists like Coldplay sound distinctly 132k or worse to my ears. Having said that, the Dark Knight movie soundtracks were excellent. But it's not consistent, especially with the less popular music.

Liam · 2013-02-10

@NeilB wrote:

"It is probably your internet. I have no issues."

It's a known problem on Virgin Media in the UK. I have 100mb broadband but there's been a problem with Spotify streaming for over a year and they've still not fixed it. Other services aren't problematic. Just Spotify. And I'm not the only sufferer http://vmhd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/spotify-problem-fixed.html

"Get Android" Not a desirable option for me as I'm an Apple fan and have no problems with iTunes, iPhones, iPads etc. I also don't see this as an Apple problem - Sonos users are similarly compaining about the Spotify service hiccups. Spotify software is poorly written and each update seems to make it even less reliable than the last. The nested folder issue makes it unusable for me.

With the sound quality: it depends on what you listen to I guess, but I've found classical recordings and artists like Coldplay sound distinctly 132k or worse to my ears. Having said that, the Dark Knight movie soundtracks were excellent. But it's not consistent, especially with the less popular music.

The thing is, Android has a way to clear the cached of apps, without the app having to implement it. If it is with Virgin, then maybe it is an issue Virgin need to fix?

NeilB · 2013-02-10

You're right: it is an issue Virgin Media need to fix. The odd thing is they promote Spotify extensively and you can get three months free Premium Spotify if you sign up to their broadband - you'd think they'd bother fixing it, but it's still as unreliable as it was a year ago.

I don't have any other iOS Apps that don't clear the cache correctly, it's just Spotify.

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