BAD: Giant Podcast Button on new Home Page

[ConArb42]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Samsung Galaxy Note 9

Operating System

Android Oreo, latest

My Question or Issue

The new changes force on us a GIGANTIC podcast button that is informationally intrusive to the experience of using the Android app. It serves as a tappable window with a beckoning to explore a featured podcast for whatever shady industry reason. It also wastes half of the space of the home screen forcing users to have to scroll down to recent listens, album picks, mixes and etc. while seeing and being forced to think about some existential thought quality of a given podcast.

That is BROKEN. Most people use playlist of music to support thoughts and moods and moments and occasions. Being forced to consider the message, title and imagery of a podcast every time opening the app takes a user out of ALL OF THOSE THINGS. This new "window button" for podcasts is literally an ad space, not a helpful button.

If you are going to force it as a terrible default layout thanks to a terrible design (or financial) decision, at least allow users to disable this gigantic intrusion in the app settings or, if you ever wanted to have an intuitive app that follows today's standards, allow a user to long-press it and then tap "remove this ugly incessant podcast-bait from my home screen" so users paying premium rates to discover and access MUSIC through your MUSIC APP can discover and access MUSIC.

p. s. I just went to go take a screenshot of the issue and it's literally gone all the sudden. It disappeared when I reopened the app. So I guess to add to the problem, this problem is situational? dynamic?? the average user has to mentally study and observe what causes such an ugly intrusion to happen and condition themselves to learn how to. avoid it? Who is getting paid big bucks to implement these changes? You're paying them way too much (or maybe way too little 😂)

Fix This! 

[Xenia]

Hello there @ConArb42,

Thanks for flagging this with us. 

Should the unwanted button return on your Home screen, it'd be great if you could send us a screenshot of it as well as the version of Spotify you’re running, so that we can look into it.

We'll be on the lookout for your reply. Give us a shout if you need help with anything else in the meantime.

Happy listening 🙂

[ConArb42]

Got it! It just appeared when I opened the app just now after seeing this response.

I'm running v 8.5.48.1049

[ConArb42]

also, while we're at it, why is the Settings Gear Icon not horizontally aligned with the "Good Afternoon" dynamic text? That would bring everything up a great handful of pixels on the home screen, again reducing the need of scrolling every single time one visits the home page.

[ConArb42]

anything? 

[Xenia]

Hello again @ConArb42,

Thanks for getting back to us and providing the additional information and screenshot.

This looks like a test we're currently running. We're sorry to hear you're unhappy with the recommendations you're getting. We'll make sure to pass your feedback to the right folks.

While there is no way to turn those off, you should only see a specific recommendation around 3 times before it's removed or replaced with another promotion.

As for your idea to align the Settings gear with the dynamic text to save space, I'd recommend bringing your suggestion to our Idea Exchange.

The Community team is actively bringing your feedback to the internal teams at Spotify - check how here. 

Hope this info is useful. Let us know if we can help with anything else.

[ConArb42]

This is not at all an acceptable answer in any way. I, as a paying customer for years, should be able to opt out of that huge button in terms of what it is in the UI layout of the home screen. I'm not asking for other recommendations to fill that space. Not at all. I am demanding the ability to remove that entire button, or at least rearrange it to a LOWER position on the home page. You should allow your paying customers to rearrange their home screens. None of these are "ideas" to "exchange" they are demands for improvement that are obvious.

You can tell the development team. I'm not wasting any more of my time without being paid for my work trying to improve an app that Spotify is paying employees good money to break and ruin for millions of paying customers like me. If I have to spend any more time on this issue telling your company how to fix it and why it needs to be fixed, I will contact support for a refund. Otherwise, you can send me 1099 independent contractor pay to continue to use my time and design expertise on improving issues that are seriously unintuitive and damaging to your the usability of your Premium customers.

Please don't send another fake reply that solves nothing. Forward these issues to where they will get implemented immediately or start sending money my way if this conversation continues. These are not ideas. It's not cute. This isn't fun for me. I'm not a volunteer worker. Fix the problem or return my money.