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> More than 10 years ago we founded Spotify to give consumers something they couldn’t get And now they're planning to take away something consumers have. I hav

> More than 10 years ago we founded Spotify to give consumers something they couldn’t get And now they're planning to take away something consumers have. I have little doubt that they'll succeed in turning what is currently an open ecosystem where users have choice into a closed system of fiefdoms like video streaming is increasingly becoming. Spotify is a bad podcast app. In no particular order: * There seems to be an inconsistent restriction in the number of episodes you can see. Daily podcasts suffer particularly from this. * I need three gestures just to get to podcasts on their app, and then more to start digging into genres. * Available podcasts seem to be curated - the selection is very small. * There are no ratings * There is no way to see what's trending, or it is non-obvious * Downloading is locked behind a paywall, which is a big deal for a medium where individual episodes can be several hundred megabytes * Subscribing is an afterthought. Three interactions to see what's new in a podcast I'm subscribed to. In summation: terrible discoverability, slim selection, cumbersome ui, and basic features missing or locked behind a paywall. I, for one, do not welcome our new overlords.

radicalbyte 8y ago
> Spotify is a bad podcast app. Over the last 18 months it has become a bad music app too. Two years ago it only took one or two clicks to load your music and your downloaded music remained.. downloaded. Nowadays you have to fight through several screens of "promotional feeds" to get to your playlists which will then be half empty because the downloaded songs have been removed. They're clearly being driven as a new music marketing service by their record company overlords.
- wilkystyle 8y ago
  The latest UI update on iOS moved the "Repeat" button to behind another menu, necessitating an additional tap. As someone who frequently toggles repeat, I now have an additional screen to tap through.
  - kentosi 8y ago
    Thank you. I just noticed this too. I wonder what the UX reasoning for this was? I just assumed that they had some metric indicating that not many people used it...
- djfergus 8y ago
  Agreed, regardless of your own playlist and album library you are pushed regional generic lists. Also Spotify will start pushing its podcasts more in app since as per the article there are better profits available - so expect it be slower and require more clicks to open the app and just play your music avoiding promotions for exclusive podcast content.

radicalbyte 8y ago

> Spotify is a bad podcast app. Over the last 18 months it has become a bad music app too. Two years ago it only took one or two clicks to load your music and your downloaded music remained.. downloaded. Nowadays you have to fight through several screens of "promotional feeds" to get to your playlists which will then be half empty because the downloaded songs have been removed. They're clearly being driven as a new music marketing service by their record company overlords.

wilkystyle 8y ago
The latest UI update on iOS moved the "Repeat" button to behind another menu, necessitating an additional tap. As someone who frequently toggles repeat, I now have an additional screen to tap through.
- kentosi 8y ago
  Thank you. I just noticed this too. I wonder what the UX reasoning for this was? I just assumed that they had some metric indicating that not many people used it...
djfergus 8y ago
Agreed, regardless of your own playlist and album library you are pushed regional generic lists. Also Spotify will start pushing its podcasts more in app since as per the article there are better profits available - so expect it be slower and require more clicks to open the app and just play your music avoiding promotions for exclusive podcast content.