I Quit Spotify

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Growing frustration with Spotify’s constant UI changes, aggressive algorithmic recommendations, and feature bloat is pushing many long-time users to cancel subscriptions. Commenters weigh alternatives such as Apple Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, Bandcamp, Pandora, internet radio, and self‑hosted solutions, often citing better control over libraries, discovery, and sound quality. Underlying the product complaints are deeper concerns about artist compensation, the economics of music streaming, and inadequate parental controls for families.

Main Sources of Frustration with Spotify

  • Frequent UI changes break established workflows; users report more friction to play their own music and fewer obvious paths to their library.
  • Features regress or break: local file playback, offline/airplane mode, queueing behavior, and laggy “add to queue” are recurring complaints.
  • “Smart shuffle” is widely disliked, both for behavior and for being hard to avoid.
  • Increasing clutter from podcasts, audiobooks, and videos, which many music-focused users neither want nor can hide.

Algorithms, Discovery, and Album vs. Playlist Culture

  • Some feel locked into repetitive, low-effort “algorithmic slop” (e.g., generic lo‑fi), suspecting Spotify favors cheap-to-license or promotional content.
  • Others praise Spotify’s recommendations, especially for certain genres, and use stations and mixes heavily.
  • Strong debate over albums:
    • One camp treats music as individual tracks in big playlists and finds album-centric UIs burdensome.
    • Another defends albums as the primary art form and views track-only listening as shallow, sometimes in overtly elitist terms.
  • Desired but missing feature: shuffle by album (play whole albums in random order, preserving track sequence within each).

Artist Compensation and Business Model

  • Some users quit or avoid Spotify on ethical grounds, citing much lower payouts per stream than Apple Music or Tidal.
  • Discussion of “Discovery Mode” as a modern form of payola: artists accept lower royalties for boosted exposure in algorithmic playlists.
  • Others focus more on UX than ethics, but acknowledge Spotify is squeezed between customers resisting higher prices and labels demanding royalties.

Alternatives and Self-Hosting

  • Major service alternatives mentioned: Apple Music (better library focus, lossless, parental controls), YouTube Music (mediocre but stable; good for uploads and rare tracks), Tidal (sound quality, artist pay), Deezer (stable, less clutter), Pandora (strong radio-style discovery).
  • Non-streaming approaches: Bandcamp and other download stores; carefully curated local libraries from CDs, Bandcamp, and rips.
  • Self-hosted or niche tools: Navidrome, Airsonic/Subsonic forks, mpd, Foobar2000, Roon, Winamp-style players, album-centric apps on iOS.
  • Several note that migration tools (e.g., web apps to sync playlists between services) make leaving Spotify easier.

Parental Controls and Content Safety

  • Multiple reports that Spotify’s family/child controls are inadequate: unfilterable video podcasts, TikTok-style compilations, and explicit “ASMR”/porn-like content bypassing “explicit” flags.
  • These issues led some families to cancel Spotify and switch to Apple Music, which they report as safer for children.

Broader Product & Industry Critiques

  • Complaints of “too many PMs and marketers” chasing engagement metrics, portfolio pieces, and lateral changes rather than stability or long-requested basics (e.g., lossless, better controls).
  • Some still find Spotify’s mobile/web app and discovery superior to competitors, highlighting that dissatisfaction is significant but not universal.