How can I stop getting in-app recommendations?

[johnwastle]

I've attached an example of some Direct marketing sent my way.

How can I stop it?

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

IPhone 12

Operating System

iOS 17.1

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

Just a follow-up here 🙂

Regarding the in-app messages with a 'Sponsored Recommendation' tag:

You’ll see them for artists you follow or listen to a lot and they will only appear when you first navigate to Home. They won’t interrupt your music listening experience. 

Opting out of them is possible for Premium subscribers. To do so -  tap on What's this? the next time you receive a notification. From there you can stop them from showing for the artist you've received the notification from, or stop them showing altogether. 
 
Regarding the in-app concert recommendations:

It is not possible to turn off in-app concert recommendations (or any other in-app messages in general), unlike email and push notifications which are sent outside of the app and can be turned off. We're making improvements on this matter.

Hope this clears things up!

[Eddy_bola]

Ah, so as expected premium isn't ad free anymore. But this doesn't explain why I got an on/off switch in one case to turn off these 'recommendations'. Of course it didn't do anything but still.

[Fransois]

"Regarding the in-app concert recommendations: ...It is not possible to turn off in-app concert recommendations"

This is not recommandations ! this is ads ! Spotify want us to buy concert ticket from them.
And this is not acceptable as premium buyers. This is NOT the ads free experience Spotify sold to us.

[jackd]

“It is not possible to turn off in-app concert recommendations”

Frankly that's awful, I've been a premium user for over 10 years and love Spotify this is the first time I’ve found a feature annoying enough to post about it, it is advertising no matter how you frame it, also I’ve so far only been given repeated notifications about concerts that are fully sold out. So even if I did like the feature it’s useless, I got the same bring me the horizon concert for a month after it sold out, Olivia Rodrigo’s concerts sold out day one and I get daily reminders from Spotify now that I’m not going!

”They won’t interrupt your music listening experience”

Disagree, it interrupts navigation, a vital part of the music experience in an app, I’ve often gone to click on of the quick links on the home page on opening the app and end up clicking the (sold out) concert link instead, as it tends to load and pop in a moment after the home page content, not a good user experience when you’re on the go a lot especially !

[gB3organ]

I'm very, very disappointed with Spotify.

Spotify does not put these popups as an act of benevolence to connect people with music or support fledgling artists, these are paid for by the record companies and generate revenue for Spotify, which is also called advertising. 

As a result, Spotify are frankly being deceptive with their end users because they are promising an ad-free experience, but the narrative I'm hearing here is that Premium only removes some of the advertising and is attempting to frame the ads that premium users get as something other than advertising. I would bet money that Spotify execs will continue to brainstorm ways to generate more revenue from advertising to paid subscribers, so this will be the sign of things to come. 

@vasil please just come out and say that advertising is now part of Premium?

For everyone else on the thread, please post about this on social media.

[bricostello]

@Vasil, no matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney.

[Tomatoer]

„It is not possible to turn off in-app concert recommendations (or any other in-app messages in general), unlike email and push notifications which are sent outside of the app and can be turned off.”

Spotify, after 8 years of premium, it’s time to say goodbye 👋

hello there YouTube Premium! Same price? cool..and wow, now videos have no ads?! Love it! 🥳

[Eddy_bola]

Exactly. Protest with your wallet!

[zipperjones]

@Vasil This is most definitely NOT the accepted answer. In-app concert recommendations are advertisements. Period. I pay for the ad-free Premium membership, and calling them "notifications" doesn't change the fact that Spotify is trying to monetize me more than they already are. This is unacceptable, it is not an answer, and it is most definitely NOT a solution.

[NotJohnBoy]

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately like others I don’t really find these answers acceptable. As I have posted before, I have sponsored recommendations turned off in setting but still get them. And the in-app concert recs are ads to me. I am also going to look into switching services after 10+ years with Spotify 😞 it’s too bad because I really used to Stan this service

[disc_count]

@Vasil evil response

[shrty]

Embarrassing answer... Spotify pisses on decade long customers ('08 for me). 

I've already cancelled my Spotify "Premium" and brought back my old music collection (pre-spotify).

Plexamp ftw

[rmb62470]

@shrty Exactly.

His first answer was "You can disable the notifications by doing XYZ."

Then a few weeks later, he chimes in with "About the notifications, it turns out you can't disable them. Hope this helps!"

He is totally tone-deaf to our concerns.

[bricostello]

This morning, for the first time, I got the "Allow/Ask App Not To Track" choice about Spotify peeking at all my other apps for "more personalized recommendations," so this sh!te obviously ain't going away anytime soon.

Everything is ad space.  They will always find a way to market things to you.  

We lost the battle we didn't even know we were fighting a long time ago.

[rmb62470]

Take screenshots of this thread and keep any email notifications of it, because it's just a matter of time before spotify makes it disappear.

I've already gotten email notifications about posts that are gone from the thread by the time I click on them.

Could the posters have just decided to remove them? Yes, it's possible. But with spotify's inaction and vasil's non-answers, I feel justified in assuming the worst.

[soboyle]

I don't want to be told about live events ever at any time so we need a way to turn them off.

[soboyle]

You smell of licked boots

[aalleexx75400]

This is such an annoying update. there’s other services to tell me about live events nearby, spotify is for streaming music! i pay for an ad free service. make a separate service for music discovery if you must or at least let us turn it off when we don’t cafe 

[Lacattano]

Keep getting the sponsored song recommendations, it tells me "you will not see these again" then continues to send them. switching service till it's fixed.

[proformative]

I have opted out, but I still see Joe Rogan podcast recommended every time I open Spotify. Is it possible to block content that I find objectionable?

Is there an alternative UI/App I can use that plays Spotify content but manages it better so I can find what I want without being hassled by promotions, podcasts and audiobooks?