I had to test because I didn't recollect ever experiencing such issues with Spotify. And no, the problems you described are not there. On my Windows 11 laptop

I had to test because I didn't recollect ever experiencing such issues with Spotify. And no, the problems you described are not there. On my Windows 11 laptop it takes about 2sec to start and basically any song starts in less than a second. Maybe it's Apple making Spotify crappy on Mac to promote iTunes?