May 12th 2023: forced to update?!

[aekiameh]

I still use the app from before the big April 2021 update, which I love and prefer over the new 'improved' app. (I've tried it several times, but it just doesn't work for me)

Just received an email informing me I won't be able to use this version after may 12th, and that by updating I'll get a more stable, bug free Spotify. 

The version i use is PERFECT for what I need. Fine if you no longer support it with updates, but FORCING someone to update??? Please don't tell me how I should listen to music on my desktop?! Absolutely no reason at all to just not allow me to log in anymore. Your new updates SUCK, took away so much stuff, make it look like a mobile app on a desktop etc...

I've been a paying customer for years, and absolutely hate how companies just don't care whatsoever about what their customers want. 

[meandmybigmouth]

Yeah, I have received this email too and am really not very happy. I am totally fine if the version I use (1.1.47.684) is no longer supported but actually switching it off and forcing me to update is a bit much. Well over 70% of my Spotify use is via the desktop app. I have organised my collection of music into individual playlists for each album, and these are sorted into alphabetical folders. I am old school and this is how I like to catalogue my collection. Updates since that version muck around with how things can be added to playlists and the search function is different. 

I totally get that much of modern digital life involves change, that things no longer stay the same, but to remove from paying subscribers the ability to use the platform legally and unobtrusively in their own way is somewhat different. The forcing of updates is surely only going to annoy users who don't want the updates. It may well lead to me going elsewhere for my music and they would lose a long-standing family subscription.

[tlh119]

I knew that day would come eventually but I still hate it. I use the new interface on another computer and it is so clunky. I understand that this probably makes development easier for them. Maybe there's a technical reason why they can't let us continue using the old interface. I wish they would just give users the option to not switch.

[meandmybigmouth]

I am trying out a free trial of Tidal to see how that goes 🙂

[electricwizard]

Garbage application from a garbage company.

[zaphorrigan]

Hate to see it, but it looks like after 6+ years I'm finally cancelling my Premium. 

Tired of Spotify shoving UI updates I don’t like down my throat. I listen exclusively to a music I'm manually choosing and my own playlists. I use and pay for Spotify as a tool to listen to the music I want to. I paid for a UI that works for me and doesn’t use a ton of resources unnecessarily. No Local Files button on the left, playlists having art, combining the artist/song title column, album art on tracks in playlists are all enough to make me cancel and look elsewhere. These are things I use daily and the redesign is so bad that I'd rather start over elsewhere. 

Why does Spotify NEVER think to make things like this optional? I could not give less of a care about seeing the album artwork in my playlists. It's making larger playlists excruciatingly tedious to navigate. If/When my current version stops working, and the new version doesn’t have an option for reverting some of these asinine changes, I will not be returning to my premium subscription.

EDIT:

I agree with the Mobile UI comparison from OP as well. I use the desktop app and I expect it to look like one. It's part of the reason I started premium in the first place.

[Hibiki_Ojizo]

FECKING FORCED UPDATE 

If I will be forced to the web player it will be like it, tho you should just burn to the ground as you are a fecking abomination anyways. Forced updates... Guess the Spotify CEO and management are raping all the ppl they know also as they seem this is a fit measure. Really lame, ppl should all leave tho guess that just won't happen as this fecking company has a monopoly on music stream. 

[Hibiki_Ojizo]

Oh also the feckers disabled the old app working today! That is the reason I found this post!

It just stopped playing music about an hour ago or so and started restarting itself all the time as it suddenly thinks it is offline. Really lame feckers should just burn in eternal flames so they can be freed from their greed

[feedthedog]

Same thing happened to me today.

It is infuriating that a company could come in and obliterate iTunes a decade ago, becoming the only socially relevant music platform of the streaming era, and then continuously downgrade it's own product in order to prioritize the lowest common denominator of their user base.

People who are serious about their own music collections and diehard music fans are being continuously **bleep** over by Spotify, every single app seems only interested in using artificial intelligence to recommend music. No offense, but people who open music apps and don't know what they want to listen to are the least serious or enthusiastic fans of music. People who actually know what they want to listen to and how they want to organize their music listening experience are just being left behind. And they've eviscerated their competition to the point where the only alternatives are copycat loser apps like Tidal that push even stronger to the "recommendations" side and have nothing meaningful to offer actual fans of music.

It is such a no-brainer idea for Spotify to just continue to support their legacy desktop experience and charge a bit more for it. Give me an equalizer and customizable columns, call it "Spotify Pro", and I would happily pay $15/mo for it. I've been suggesting this for years on this forum and upvoted every likeminded person I can find, and they just clearly don't care at all.

Stop exclusively serving casual music fans! Real music fans need an app that works for them! Music is the most important thing in my life and Spotify is ruining it.

[Hibiki_Ojizo]

Paying for what they took away? Ffs no way!