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My main grief as as a very long Spotify customer, their app is still bad and doesn't progress. It has often problems when the [edit] phone is offline e.g. and i

My main grief as as a very long Spotify customer, their app is still bad and doesn't progress. It has often problems when the [edit] phone is offline e.g. and it doesn't work beyond songs - radio play, audiobooks especially in playlists are PITA.

LambdaComplex 2y ago
Spotify has about 10,000 employees. Their software engineers make 6 figures. Their only actual product is, as far as I know, a music player. Despite all this, I had an issue for a while where some of the play buttons didn't work. I would click the play button and nothing would happen. Other users posted about the same issue in the "Spotify Support/Complaint Megathread" on Reddit's r/spotify. I don't know how to adequately describe how ridiculous it is that they managed to break their music player's play button, of all things.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  It’s just absolutely dreadful. Using it on desktop is a laggy mess. I mean this quite literally what do the 10,000 people do?
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    Come up with features no one asked for to justify their salaries. Seems to be rather common in product-driven tech businesses.
    - Mistletoe 2y ago
      I can only imagine how many soul-searching meetings it took to decide to change the heart to the plus sign for liking songs.
  - fredrikholm 2y ago
    Jazz, apparently.
  - spuz 2y ago
    It wasn't always like this. When Spotify was launched the desktop app was one of the best pieces of software I'd ever used. It launched quickly and songs played without buffering which was unheard of at the time. It was the work of largely one developer, Ludvig Strigeus who was also the author of the original uTorrent client (which was also used to be fantastic). As a software developer I'm biased but I think this ultra smooth experience was a large contributor to Spotify's initial growth.
    - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
      It was also a native application on macOS (OS X at that time). But then it was replaced with this Electron abomination which would have a runaway process any other day and consume all battery and would require 2 years to implement sorting in playlists. I truly ask myself what their development team is doing.
  - doublerabbit 2y ago
    Spam me with pop ups tell me what I should be listening too.
- raincole 2y ago
  How many of the 10,000 are developers though? For a company like Spotify, I'd assume they have a huge legal/business team just to deal with record label.
- fsflover 2y ago
  > I don't know how to adequately describe how ridiculous it is that This is nothing else than enshittification: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484
Aachen 2y ago
(Note for nongermans: Handy means phone in German, I think specifically smartphone but not sure. Edit: the word was edited out) For me, I just use Spotify for music and that's what used to have real struggles with offlineness. Kept updating the app until a version worked properly and now I've stopped. I'm on 8.8.96 (installed December 16th 2023, going by apk file modified time) whereas 9.0.2 is the latest No problems with this version, so I like the app currently. Let's see how long the servers work with this version. The only downside I've experienced so far is that the yearly overview requires updating every year again
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  LOL sorry yes, too early + sick ;-) That aside, it feels to me the same, some versions work, some don't.
  - Aachen 2y ago
    Why not stick with the version that works? I don't think I've seen this approach before but I do it for any app that doesn't seem like a security problem when out of date
    - lukan 2y ago
      "that doesn't seem like a security problem when out of date" When spotify has access to your filesystem and the spotify app would get hacked and owned by another party due to an unfixed security hole, your filesystem still would get owned. (or are all android apps really sandboxed nowdays? I doubt it)
      - Aachen 2y ago
        They don't have filesystem access, see the permissions overview in the OS settings for the app But also how would the client be vulnerable in a way that leads to a compromise? Connecting to a domain that doesn't exist anymore? Even then it would need to download executable code, or exploit a bug that leads to it reading and uploading arbitrary files—if it had filesystem access in the first place. Working in the security industry, I never hear of people needing to update mobile apps for such a bug, it seems to be exceptionally rare. Most issues are server problems, direct object access (missing permission checks on invoice pdf downloads or so) or such I do update things like SSH (yes, on my phone) because that actually exposes a port on the network, or email/messaging clients where anyone can send arbitrary content (how many times have we heard of image parsing bugs being exploited through a messaging system like SMS or WhatsApp?); that's not really the case for Spotify. There's attack vectors like the URIs that the app can handle, but it's not wormable in the same way because it requires user interaction and so won't go viral. It would be a specific attack and there's easier ways to target me > (or are all android apps really sandboxed nowdays? I doubt it) You might want to read up on this. They've always been isolated.

LambdaComplex 2y ago

Spotify has about 10,000 employees. Their software engineers make 6 figures. Their only actual product is, as far as I know, a music player. Despite all this, I had an issue for a while where some of the play buttons didn't work. I would click the play button and nothing would happen. Other users posted about the same issue in the "Spotify Support/Complaint Megathread" on Reddit's r/spotify. I don't know how to adequately describe how ridiculous it is that they managed to break their music player's play button, of all things.

Mistletoe 2y ago
It’s just absolutely dreadful. Using it on desktop is a laggy mess. I mean this quite literally what do the 10,000 people do?
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  Come up with features no one asked for to justify their salaries. Seems to be rather common in product-driven tech businesses.
  - Mistletoe 2y ago
    I can only imagine how many soul-searching meetings it took to decide to change the heart to the plus sign for liking songs.
- fredrikholm 2y ago
  Jazz, apparently.
- spuz 2y ago
  It wasn't always like this. When Spotify was launched the desktop app was one of the best pieces of software I'd ever used. It launched quickly and songs played without buffering which was unheard of at the time. It was the work of largely one developer, Ludvig Strigeus who was also the author of the original uTorrent client (which was also used to be fantastic). As a software developer I'm biased but I think this ultra smooth experience was a large contributor to Spotify's initial growth.
  - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
    It was also a native application on macOS (OS X at that time). But then it was replaced with this Electron abomination which would have a runaway process any other day and consume all battery and would require 2 years to implement sorting in playlists. I truly ask myself what their development team is doing.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  Spam me with pop ups tell me what I should be listening too.
raincole 2y ago
How many of the 10,000 are developers though? For a company like Spotify, I'd assume they have a huge legal/business team just to deal with record label.
fsflover 2y ago
> I don't know how to adequately describe how ridiculous it is that This is nothing else than enshittification: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484

Aachen 2y ago

(Note for nongermans: Handy means phone in German, I think specifically smartphone but not sure. Edit: the word was edited out) For me, I just use Spotify for music and that's what used to have real struggles with offlineness. Kept updating the app until a version worked properly and now I've stopped. I'm on 8.8.96 (installed December 16th 2023, going by apk file modified time) whereas 9.0.2 is the latest No problems with this version, so I like the app currently. Let's see how long the servers work with this version. The only downside I've experienced so far is that the yearly overview requires updating every year again

KingOfCoders 2y ago
LOL sorry yes, too early + sick ;-) That aside, it feels to me the same, some versions work, some don't.
- Aachen 2y ago
  Why not stick with the version that works? I don't think I've seen this approach before but I do it for any app that doesn't seem like a security problem when out of date
  - lukan 2y ago
    "that doesn't seem like a security problem when out of date" When spotify has access to your filesystem and the spotify app would get hacked and owned by another party due to an unfixed security hole, your filesystem still would get owned. (or are all android apps really sandboxed nowdays? I doubt it)
    - Aachen 2y ago
      They don't have filesystem access, see the permissions overview in the OS settings for the app But also how would the client be vulnerable in a way that leads to a compromise? Connecting to a domain that doesn't exist anymore? Even then it would need to download executable code, or exploit a bug that leads to it reading and uploading arbitrary files—if it had filesystem access in the first place. Working in the security industry, I never hear of people needing to update mobile apps for such a bug, it seems to be exceptionally rare. Most issues are server problems, direct object access (missing permission checks on invoice pdf downloads or so) or such I do update things like SSH (yes, on my phone) because that actually exposes a port on the network, or email/messaging clients where anyone can send arbitrary content (how many times have we heard of image parsing bugs being exploited through a messaging system like SMS or WhatsApp?); that's not really the case for Spotify. There's attack vectors like the URIs that the app can handle, but it's not wormable in the same way because it requires user interaction and so won't go viral. It would be a specific attack and there's easier ways to target me > (or are all android apps really sandboxed nowdays? I doubt it) You might want to read up on this. They've always been isolated.