Why i left

Question

Sorry guys, I hate to leave but after getting irritated again by spotify's design i bit the bullet and last night moved my subscription to Rdio.  My frustration is on the general experience i get using the spotify service, I appreciate this maybe different to the rest of you so please dont take this as an attack, its merely my personal experience and some of these may not mean anything to you.  My requirement is simple, I want to be able to kick back with songs i like and get a continous flow of tracks i like or are near to what i like, and find new music. Whilst listening, if im not busy working (as i am now of course) I want to maybe check latest releases and store interesting albums, play them now or queue for later, I would then decide if i like the track or few tracks to 'save' the album, but i may only like several songs on the album that much to say they are favourites. I want to be able to playback the whole album another time, and sometimes only play the album with just favourites included. At the same time i want to be recommended tracks, albums or artists based on my listening and favourites. Rdio meets these requirements and does it with good design.  So some of the things that frustrated me are: - the save songs/albums is terrible, i have posted about it several times and noone can really tell me why albums cant be saved seperate - downloaded items arent easy to find or reset (in Rdio there is a 'downloaded' section)- removal of starred tracks (favourites work well in Rdio, you can favourite tracks, albums, artists) (personal radio stations in Rdio work brilliantly) - when i want to queue up albums or tracks there are too many extra steps, one of my posts was introduce a 'play later' button (Rdio queues work so much better)- discover is not based on my actual favourites, merely a random collection, of which there is no way to easily preview the album or track (theres trending songs, new albums, recommendations etc all seperate in Rdio, i found i was listening to music for 2 hours last night finding new music) - to go offline you have to click a tiny button go to settings and then click a switch to offline, as downloaded tracks are good for driving (not using dataplan) the use of tiny buttons is daft in my opinion. (a swipe and tap is all thats needed in Rdio)- cast not supported, on tivo or chromecast (rdio works well on chromecast)- you cant dislike/like songs to enhance recommendations (you can in Rdio)- when a playlist ends music stops (in Rdio theres a function that plays another load of songs based on the last music listened to) - constant updates with nothing really changing- slow load times of lists or screens- unable to hide albums or playlists that you dont want to share- failure to recognise trends from the community or communicate decisions made with some level of empathy Generally i know the above arent big things, and some would argue they arent really important but for me these are only words, the fact is using Spotify frustrated me, and it shouldnt have. it seems to be geared toward a single user and not me, not the way i want to listen to my music. So moving away from it seemed the best thing in search of a better experience.  I do not regret it, Rdio is brilliant. simple yet intuitive. Fun to use. Ok, I needed support from their tech desk with an android issue but tbf got a personal 'empathic' response within an hour, noone from spotify ever really seems to care, undeniabily the way the starring was ripped out was a good example of this.  I seriously couldnt be happier cancelling my spotify subscription and moving to Rdio. I know its the best move for me to enjoy streaming music collections again. Good luck to all you waiting for basic things to get better, but tell you the truth your better to leave and try another service,(rdio has built in chromecast support btw)  FYI - for those interested I used re/spin to port all my spotify playlists and apart from a few hours of setting up favourites and a few niggles, the app is now upto date, working well and has me remembering the good old days when spotiy was designed with the users goals in mind. See you on the other side ladies and gents and best luck. 

Answer 1

Came here to post just this, looks like I've got beat to it. I've been with Spotify for a while now, and it looks like the efficient and minimalist coding it all began with (by the same guy who did the super thin and fast utorrent client?) has gone well out of the window, and the program is sluggish, unintuitive and VERY irritating to use. Organising albums is still the biggest chore in the world, but at least it used to be a smooth and quick enough program for it not to be so taxing. Filters and search, local tracks are now completely separate to your library (or at least mine don't show any more) and STILL no equaliser. Most of this (and more) applies to the mobile app. I genuinely hope something else comes along as a good alternative and addresses all these issues - goodbye for now spotify!