Downloaded songs gone, playlists not marked for download:

I've read the Spotify Support response to this issue here:

https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/troubleshooting/listen-offline-troubleshooting/

> Downloads unexpectedly removed

To put it simply, their response to this issue is pathetic.

• They have no reason to limit the number of devices that can store offline content to 5.
• There is no reason a user should have to go online every 30 days. They could simply pass a very small packet of user data required to track song play counts in the background without requiring users to turn on streaming again. Same goes for the premium service check: they could easily ping the user account when the app is launched to check the user's subscription status.
• Reinstalling the app should not require removing downloaded songs. There are ways around this that they could support so that users wouldn't need to be inconvenienced if/when they need to reinstall the app.
• Updating the app shouldn't have anything to do with removing downloaded content either.
• This is so bad it's almost funny: "If your tracks won't stay downloaded to your device, we recommend reinstalling the app before downloading the tracks again." And just above this, "Reinstalling the app removes any downloads."

I'm writing this after about the 6th time I've had to download all of the songs/playlists I had marked for download again (to be honest, I've lost count of how many times I've had to do it, but it has been at least 6-7 times). But what's even more annoying is that they switch the "download" toggle off for all of my downloaded playlists. So not only do I need to go through every single playlist I want to download and flip the toggle again, but I need to wait for them all to download again, and waste even more of time and my data plan to do so. Again.

This is a horrible quality of service for any music service - especially one that is as big as Spotify, and especially for how long they've been around now.

Inconveniencing users and placing the onus on them to resolve problems/inadequacies with your app/service is not good customer support. At a bare minimum, they could at least do the following:

• Leave the "download" toggle set for playlists - even if the downloaded data is removed from a device - thus eliminating the need for the user to go through and set the toggle again for all of their playlists.
• Add a notification in the main UI of the app when it is launched showing how many days were remaining before needing to go online again.
• Post a notification when logging in on a device if doing so would cause downloaded songs to be removed from another device.
• Give users a better way to manage devices within the app so that downloaded data would never get removed from certain devices.

There should never be a case where downloaded songs are removed or can no longer be used by the app. I have had other music I've purchased and downloaded on my phone or desktop/laptop for several years that has never needed to be removed or downloaded again. There's no reason that downloaded content from Spotify should either.

The only reasons I can think of for why they do this are laziness/carelessness, exploitation of user data, and control. If they weren't so lazy/careless, they would write better code for their app and back end to improve not only its functionality, but its horribly-limited feature set. If they weren't trying to exploit user data, they wouldn't need to require users to manually choose to go online every 30 days to stream music instead of only listening to downloaded songs. If they weren't so bent on controlling and restricting their users in order to maintain ownership of them and their data, they would have a more open architecture that was compatible with 3rd party apps with a far-better UI, and actual music database management and organization capabilities.

As soon as I have the time to find a better music service that is less restrictive and more user-friendly, it'll be the end of my Spotify usage. And I get the feeling I won't be the only one who jumps ship for similar reasons.

The days of Spotify are numbered. Alienating users the way they do isn't tolerated for long before people give up and move onto something better.

Plan: Premium

Country: Sweden

Devices: PC, MacBook Pro, Google Pixel 2

Operating Systems:  Windows 10, macOS 10.12, Android 8.1