About one year ago, I decided to commit to Spotify. I silently chose to leave behind my decade’s worth of MP3s and go all in on streaming. Lugging around my 90GB of music and manually copying MP3s from one device to another had grown tiresome. It’s been a year now, and not a terrible year either. In many ways, it was a fantastic year (the world didn’t even end). But after 400 odd days of streaming an unlimited number of full albums without buying them, creating countless playlists, sending dozens of songs, and playing that music on any device I pleased (for the $10 a month premium fee), I’ve decided I need to quit.
I know what you’re thinking: You’re probably shaking your computer monitor (or iPad) violently asking why I’d possibly want to give up a service that lets you stream as much Lady Gaga, Nickelback, and Smash Mouth as you want?! I mean how can you turn down the ability to listen to Bananarama’s full catalog? These are good questions. Especially considering that I’m listening to The Mowgli’s on Spotify as I type this! But I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite. It won’t be easy and I don’t know where to go – all I know is that I need to get out.
It’s an illusion, Michael
Though its convenience is unmatched, Spotify is designed around an illusion. It’s a lie. Not a public lie, but a lie that we’re all buying into nonetheless. Spotify gives you the illusion that you have a music collection. It lets you import all of your local songs on your computer (in my case, 10,000 or so) as well as all of your iTunes and Windows playlists. Once you’ve let it suck in all of your data, it lets you create your own playlists, which are basically just lists of song names, or data. It gives you authorship over those playlists, control over those playlists, and provides you free access to nearly all of the music you might desire. Not to download, like an MP3 file, but to stream whenever and wherever you want. It sounds great, right?
Unfortunately, though you may think you’re getting a free deal as you spend hours building playlists from scratch and Starring songs in your Spotify collection (to save them for later), all you’re really building is a prison. Once you’re in Spotify, you’re trapped. And as I’ve learned in the last year, disobeying the warden can have dire consequences.
A couple months back, I was listening to some downloaded (Spotify calls it “Available offline”) tracks on the subway when I got a peculiar error. Somehow, with no connection and in the depths of the earth beneath NYC, Spotify on my iPhone decided that I had synced my playlists to more than “three devices” and completely purged all 4GB of music I had synced. All of it. Gone. Just gone. Deleted. To say I was shocked and upset would be an understatement. Some users have complained that this is a bug, but it isn’t going away. It’s something Spotify will do if you sync “your” playlists to more than three devices. Happen to own a computer, phone, and tablet? You’ve hit the limit. Don’t download the Spotify app on another device or you’re in for a world of annoyance and a day or two of resyncing.
It’s not just multiple devices that will cause your entire downloaded collection to be erased from a device. If you accidentally leave a device’s Spotify app in Offline mode (or don’t turn your Wi-Fi on) for 20 days, everything on the device will be deleted. This user lost 20GB of music. It’s happened to me, and even our Editor-in-Chief at DT. Not cool.
Those are not the only setbacks I’ve incurred. After spending a good long while creating an offline playlist on an iPad a few weeks ago, I connected the tablet back up to Wi-Fi to discover my playlist erased and overwritten with a very old, primitive version of … itself. Then there’s the time Spotify erased all of my Starred tracks, deleting the playlist of songs I told it that I liked and wanted to remember.
Bugs are bugs and I’m sure there are sound technical reasons why these and other issues have occurred. The problem is that these limitations only serve to highlight the real problem with Spotify: It makes you feel like you’re in control and still have a music collection when the reality is that you own and control absolutely nothing. Everything can be, and often is, taken away at a moment’s notice because you’ve broken some rule that you didn’t know existed. When you use Spotify, you’re operating entirely in its walls. Everything works by Spotify’s rules. You can’t even share tracks you own (your MP3s) with a friend if they aren’t approved and part of Spotify’s library. So, in that way, it controls the music that you actually do own as well.
Give us everything, leave with nothing
Spotify demands that you create and build playlists, and encourages you to spend hours doing so, and to share your creations with others. I’ve made dozens of playlists that I’ve shared with different people. With one click of a mouse, Spotify will import and suck in all of your iTunes/Windows playlists and make copies of all of your local music that it can. It literally scans and copies every piece of music you own and every ordered collection of song titles (a playlist) you’ve created in iTunes or Windows. Since Spotify is so friendly with the world in what it imports, you’d think it would allow you to export a list of song names too. Wrong. It does not allow you to remove any of the data you put into it. Want to leave Spotify? You’ll be leaving empty-handed. There’s no playlist export function.
Google Play Music allows you to download complete MP3s of your entire music collection. Amazon MP3 allows you to download songs as often as you’d like. Now I don’t expect to be able to remove actual playable songs from Spotify – because it’s not a service that lets you purchase music. But what it does have an ethical obligation to do is let you export and remove the playlists (ordered lists of song names) in usable formats, including your list of Starred songs. Google allows you to export the data you put into it, and other companies like Facebook have reluctantly included the feature as well. With a service like Spotify, this kind of functionality is absolutely essential if it hopes to remain a major player. Imagine how much of a hassle buying a new phone would be if you couldn’t transfer your phone numbers and contacts from one phone to the other? For people like me, our playlists and music libraries are just as important. When we try out new music services, we want to bring our progress with us.
The reason companies don’t let you export is usually because they’re afraid of losing users. Having an open data import and export feature doesn’t let services like Spotify rely on trapping us instead of competing on their own merits. If Spotify began opening up export functionality, other services would begin to do the same and we’d all be a lot happier and sleep with a little more peace of mind.
Will you use Spotify forever?
If not being able to get your data back from Spotify doesn’t sound like a problem, I have a few questions for you:
- How many music services have you used in the last 10-15 years?
- Can you see yourself using Spotify for the rest of your natural life?
- Are you okay forgetting about every piece of music you’re listening to?
Maybe some of you just don’t care about your music collection. If so, Spotify is perfect. Hell, Pandora is better. If all music is just an endless radio station to you, then nothing I’m saying will matter to you. But if you form a connection to the music you listen to, then services like Spotify are an amazing development, but a troublesome reality.
Spotify could go out of business at any moment. Apple might buy it tomorrow just to shut it down like it did with Lala a few years ago. We have no idea, yet millions of us are investing tons of time creating playlist art projects that mean a lot to us, but are forever stuck within Spotify’s green and black walls.
I knew getting into Spotify that I wouldn’t technically own the free music I streamed, but I created these playlists and Starred these tracks. Spotify owns the actual music I’m streaming, but why does it get to own the lists of songs I create too?
I don’t want to quit Spotify. It’s probably the best music service I’ve ever used. But I value the things I create. The longer I am in Spotify’s ecosystem, the greater my loss will be when it inevitably changes, falls apart, or I decide to leave. Outside of the U.S., Spotify used to sell actual music tracks. Now it doesn’t even do that. Right now, Spotify is a cage, and it’s not a particularly attractive one, either. If I have to live like the Gorillaz at the zoo, at least paint my walls like the jungle.
If most of our music services are indeed headed in the direction of Spotify, the music industry may have bigger problems ahead of it. Single companies like Spotify come and go, it’s inevitable. Our entire music history shouldn’t come and go with them.
Great article. I however do not use Spotify as my end-all, be-all of music consumption. I use it more for discovery of what my friends and other people i’m connected to are listening to, or for when I’m in the mood of listening to that one album that I don’t have or would bother to buy.
Yeah. I’m going to have to go back to using Spotify as a one-off music testing service, but if that’s all I can use it for, its hardly worth the $10 subscription fee.
True
I use a different streaming service (slacker) to compliment my collection, which I still build and stream through Amazon (Sorry Google – your 20k limit is way too low for me). I like the $10 a month option to be able to listen without thinking about selection and hear new music or a certain type of music without having to create playlists. When I want, my music is still all on Amazon, best of both worlds.
Slacker is great and getting better. Spotify is popular but I soured on it quickly due to these and other serious drawbacks. That said Jeff, I am just picturing you in ratty clothes on a spaceship with Morpheus clutching a Nickleback 12 inch and laughing about how we all cant see the matrix, “It’s all a lie!”
Follow the white rabbit, Sean. He’ll be singing like Chad Kroeger.
I’ve tried them all, I didn’t like Spotify or Rdio interface. I am a fan of MOG, but I don’t need to pay for two. I find Pandora doesn’t have depth for discovery, they just have the hits playing.
You lost me at Nickelback….but seriously, why are you creating this dichotomy of music you own and music you stream? Most music collections span gigabyte after gigabyte of data. Can you transport ALL of your music to Spotify? No, but you can sample and experience a lot of music that you can either A. Keep on there or B. Download an MP3 of, or even option C. Do both. Sounds like you are placing yourself in a cage,not Spotify.
Sure. I am buildin my own cage. I think i said exactly that. And that’s why I have to quit using it to make mixes and manage things. Spotify will give you a copy of almost every song in your collection though. So it does attempt to be the place you manage your music life.
Do not be beholden to them Jeff! :D
But you’re clearly placing the blame on Spotify, not yourself, “Once you’re in Spotify, you’re trapped. And as I’ve learned in the last year, disobeying the warden can have dire consequences.” I think Amir’s point is that you choose how to use the tool, Spotify is blameless.
I actually agree with you that one should not rely on Spotify for all their music needs, but the premise of the article is a bit naive – you really expected Spotify to replace your hard-earned music collection? Where you really surprised that Spotify limits the amount of devices you use, or deletes music after 20 days of offline mode? It isn’t your music after all.
However, there’s no need to delete your account. Spotify is a companion to your own music collection. The fact that it doesn’t have the entirety of the worlds music within it’s borders should have been reason enough for you not to rely on it exclusively from day one, let alone a year.
Why isn’t Rhapsody learning from this? Their customers already pay $10 a month and their big claim to fame is how you can download and stream from all your devices. Why not go a step further and give some sort of way to convert your playlists something accessible via stream? I like the idea of paying $10 a month if I still get a physical file that at least works offline with a DRM license.
Plus another example why caution should be aired for services that lack export capabilities
I am so glad you are not my roommate. Control freaks make the worst roommates.
It’s not about total control, or the opposite of it, but healthy control of your stuff. You’re confusing healthy control with total control. You wouldn’t want to have this guy as a roommate? I can pretty much imagine what your room looks like now, and we wouldn’t want you as a roommate, either. You got control issues my friend.
I don’t like what spotify does for the artists. The royalty payments are absurdly small. Spotify is pretty much a fully customizable radio and I use it as such. It is not my music collection. Compared to lugging around LPs it is prertty dang convenient, but I don’t consider it “my stuff.” However, I can’t quit Facebook because the accounts are linked.
By the way, “We wouldnt want you as a roommate” bothers me. You sound like an eighth grade girl being mean to an unpopular classmate, especially becuase you fiollow up with a couple of personal insults. It’s the internet, after all, but the we is a bit much.
Well to each his own, I love Spotify and only use it on computers (one at a time) to discover new music and listen to new albums before I purchase them. I started off with the $10.00 a month service and found quickly that I didn’t need to download their music on any of my devices nor did I need their services on my phones and tablets. So I changed to the $4.99 a month plan and I am quite happy with it. My computers are more than enough for the purposes I use it for.
I believe in owning my music and feel much like you Jeffrey in feeling the connection. I also like to support my artist… Heck with most artist I have purchased their albums on LP, 8-Track, cassette, cd and now even some on mp3′s; so they have really been supported by me. That is really my real complaint the constant need to update ones collection to the latest greatest format! Of course now it is buying them on Blue Ray. I have about 50,000 CD’s burned to 320kbs mp3′s and I add playlist from them to my iPhone and iPads and downgrade them to 128kbs so it is easy to get about 10,000 songs in 34GB of space and that is more than three weeks of constant listening… You can store your backups of your music on multiple computers, portable hard drives, in the clouds so it is not hard to add the music to other devices. I use local backups of iPhone and Ipads; just last night I purchased a new Mini iPad and simply did a restoration of another iPad I owned to set it up and bam, all my favorite music was ready when I woke up this morning on the new Mini iPad. Can’t get much easier…
The beauty in Spotify is quickly being able to listen to the latest album and seeing if you want to buy it, finding new artist, listening to new artist you discover elsewhere, I really like the apps like Billboard, Rolling Stone, Last FM, Musixmatch and Moodagent and I like seeing what my friends are listening to and sharing my favorites with them as well as on facebook…
I have many playlist and hundreds more to create but they are simply artist playlist and I constantly update them with new releases. I leave all my mixed playlist to Windows Media Player and iTunes where I do own the list. Not hard at all to recreate artist playlist anywhere but the mixed ones are… The value of the artist playlist is again discovering new albums and songs that I might have missed in the stores and other sources and I do discover awesome new tunes all the time this way. A good example is; I love Alabama Shakes and they were nominated for the Grammys this year and I wanted to check out their competition so when I purchased the 2013 Grammy CD from Sam’s Club I immediately created play list for all the artist on there I didn’t know and have checked out their music and again discovered some neat new material; but nothing that I think beats Brittany Howard singing Hold On and I Found You…
So I sort of agree with some other posts on this thread, that you are creating your own problem by not using Spotify in a more positive way rather than following their lead and finding yourself in a cage…
I find myself mostly streaming from my main work or home computer through out the day and night when I am home or at work listening to new artist and albums rather than playing my owned content. Both computers are linked to awesome stereo systems and sound great.
Another note; I don’t send or allow any connection of my content or playlist with Spotify, no need to for me.
Again, this is just my humble opinion.
This does work great for me.
Happy Listening ☮
Perhaps rather than cancel your account it would be better to downgrade it and use it in a more beneficial way!
So if purging your music is not a bug, then why does Spotify do it if you use it on more than 3 devices? Is there something in their about us page that addresses this?
I am not a huge Spotify user and need to cancel my account. I would still much rather own my music outright than lease it. I am also ok spending 30 minutes every now and again uploading music to iTunes, creating playlist and transferring everything to my player.
I still also find music discovery is a big pain in the butt with Spotify, and their radio feature sucks compared to Pandora.
Thats why I use RageTracks.com for all my Music. Free and always streaming, the best electronic dance music.
I started using Spotify about a year ago on my phone hoping it’d be my one option for music. That lasted for about a week when I realized it didn’t have a lot of music I listened to available (specifically Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall). However, I still pay for it and enjoy it because it’s a useful complimentary service. I feel like for the amount of music I do listen to, $10 is a steal for a guarantee I won’t get a letter from the RIAA.
so the authors beef is over a bug/glitch (that will most likely be fixed)? wah-wah..
need a favorite artists section
NEED to be able to MOVE play order of songs on my STARRED playlist. I am able to do so on all my other playlists.
Troll… Spotify shows what other people are listening to so I can broaden my horizons. They could cancel tomorrow and I’m still left with a much wider musical vocabulary from just a few months of tasting other people’s music. $10/month, I felt after only one month that I had receive a year’s worth of satisfaction and education. It’s all-in-one offline, streaming, radio, sharing… You’re just mad you didn’t come up with the idea first. Sure, there’s no Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Tool, or Led Zeppelin, but I’m okay with that. Metallica jumped on board recently, that’s encouraging. I can listen to all that on my CDs and iTunes, or illegally download them, whatever. You’re a friggin moron with nothing better to write about. Get out of bed earlier and find a real story to write about next time you find yourself procrastinating to your journalist deadlines… Troll…
and if you have to resync your devices, oh well. It’s like you stopped believing in god because of one chapter in the book. Read the user agreement if you’re going to be a stickler. Ignorance is no excuse, in real life too.
That’s a little harsh, man. I am complaining about a feature I’d like to see in Spotify. Yes, streaming is wonderful and opens up new avenues, but it’s also opening up some issues that should be discussed.
Fantastic article to read, I’m currently on 30 days premium trial and I have research into how to import music from sportily without any answer to this question. this begged the question that what exactly will my 10 dollar a month will achieve nothing but streaming without advert? rubbish, there is a lot of free online radio stations to stream from on kind of music of my choice.
I will like a service that will enable me to download my music for collection and take away with anywhere anytime. if this is not the case then it’s of no use just like you mentioned its just an illusion that you own these tracks, album etc. i have collection on my ipod and i don’t want them to erase this, so i decided not to sync my iPod.
Sportify should look review thier business model, for example i use safaribooksonline to do a lot of reading, but i also get monthly tokens for download, this would enable me to have electronic copy of the book of my choice to keep, this make me still stick to safaribooksonline else i could have take off long time ago.
i hope they could listen before they go bust or a better innovation come into play.
Good ideas. Not everything has to be DRMed and not every service needs to be a complete silo.
Do NOT authorize play from Indonesia
F Spotify. Thank the lord I never used it.
F spotify
They also give the artists like a billionth of a penny. Horrid company.
That’s why I use http://ragetracks.com
http://facebook.com/ragetracks
I have no complaints!! Thanks for creating such music streamer.. :D
They can do better- better business plan for monetization and better experience for consumers. I do believe they know this already though… innovative companies dont usually just stop innovating (unless they are bought out)
Nothing compares to vinyl, and digital versions of music may actually be damaging our ears and brains.
When they make a Spotify for Vinyl, let me know.
fix it to where i can stream my Local music from my PC to my frackin Phone for crying out loud.. Absolutely LOVED spotify before i took it out (at least for me) and now i can’t stream that crap?.. smh cmon Doucheify ..
The kind of music I listen to is not always available on spotify. I can’t get Pink Floyd or Tool. Those two things piss me off more than anything.
Another thing is the volume of the commercials is always higher than the music. When I’m listening at work, or while the baby is sleeping, the commercials always make my life hell.
There’s no way I’ll spend as much money as they want just to use their premium music player anyway. I have more music on my PC.
Spotify social? Are you kidding me? You’re going to spam my facebook feed with every damn song I listen to…and every damn song each of my friend’s listen to? Nooooo thanks.
I didn’t get into that, but yeah. It would be nicer if Spotify was more open to indie bands or tracks users upload. Gets into thorny territory with copyright. The big guys will all slowly sign on.
Premium subscriber for one year+. I chose it over Netflix. The selection is not bad, depending on what you listen to. I like a lot of post-rock and dark electronic stuff, so that can be hit or miss. I’ve listened to entire discographies of bands I’ve been hearing about forever, but hadn’t gotten into… I think it’s a great service. I can piss away $10 a month on tofurkey jerky and butt lube if I want to, but I choose to subscride to ad-free Spotify.
Eric Ove, Of course they have their ads cranked. They advertisers pay them to do that. Every heard of TV? Same deal ;)
And their notification algorithm (or whatever) for spamming up one’s feed really is not too busy. I might see one or two “John is listening to Public Enemy” type posts a day, and over 600 of my friends use Spotify. It’s tolerable.
I am completely satisfied. The old version sucked so much, but it’s 100x better now
@Eric: seriously? With a Spotify subscription, the bit rate is 320kbps. There is really no need for any higher than that unless you’re listening on an audiophile system in an acoustically perfect environment. In which case, you’d be better off with a CD or vinyl anyway.
I wish the Android mobile app would connect to Internet.
Song rights. Albums get cut in half overnight.
It does not let you listen to the song you want and I am unable to load the premium app. I have a radio and my songs I have downloaded. Good enough. Bad APP.
love it…all they need to add are: Beatles, Zeppelin, ac/dc…and a few others…otherwise love it
They have AC/DC…
Meh. I prefer MP3s.
This is such a nitpicky article; Spotify is byfar the best music platform I’ve used (that is comparable to itself). I have a laptop and an iPhone and it works flawlessly on both of them. I’m able to have all the music I want at the touch of my fingertips, with internet access, and most of the music I want without it.
Do you make playlists or try to keep a music collection or do you mostly just use it as a passing thing? Listen to the album or songs of the week, then forget about em?
Allow free streaming with ads to mobile devices.
If you get a new phone, just download the Spotify app and your playlists will still be there. They’re synced to your account, and will stay with you. Why would a service that lets you listen to songs that you don’t own let you export those playlists? I don’t see any reason to complain here.
Also, you lost your music? And so did another 2% of users? That’s a small bug (or inconvenience) that most people don’t deal with. I have a desktop and a phone. Not everyone owns tons of digital gadgets.
Lastly, the idea of not “owning” music and instead renting is something we all must face and think about before we subscribe. That’s a philosophically personal decision, not a company mistake. Want to buy music? Go to itunes, heck, go to your local CD store, god knows they need the money. I made the decision to rent music when Zune came out and I loved it. Now that Zune is the past, Spotify is now the future and I’m more than excited that they’ve finally arrived.
Yeah, I do review a lot of gadgets, but it only takes a few devices to encounter the bug. That won’t be uncommon. Everyone has a desktop computer and a phone already. Add a tablet, or get a new phone and you could encounter such a bug.
There is a difference between owning the music and being able to own the lists that you create and take them to other streaming services. In this new world, we don’t own the music but why should we have to start from complete scratch to rebuild the music lists we love whenever we switch?
Like I said before, getting a new phone isn’t a problem. Install the app on the new phone and redownload your playlists. Also, most people don’t have more than 3 devices. There’s a reason they set the default at 3.
What other service allows you to stream music and export playlists? And how would that even work? And would anyone know how to use it? And why would Spotify make it easier for people to stop using their service?
If you buy music from iTunes and put it in a playlist, how can you export that and use it somewhere else? You’ll always have to start over. But with Spotify, you can discover new music, find out who the Artist/Album/Track is (with a little help with Shazam btw) and there you go, you’ve got new music tastes.
Want to try a different service? Then write down your playlist, and buy the songs individually. Don’t want to spend $50 on your 50 song playlist? Stick with the streaming service.
Good point. When you’re in Spotify your stuck. I’m just started trying out Google play. The downfalls of Google play for me so far is no iPhone App and Airplay is not yet supported.
You’re right when you say a key for investing in these services is being able to port your playlist.
I’m a fan of Spotify but a few things annoy me in addition to the play list: it doesn’t support airplay, doesn’t let you clean up duplicate songs, playlist total times are gone (if your planning a party you need a calculator to figure the total time of the play list) and the user interface is too busy (if the users interface looked exactly like iTunes I’d be perfectly fine.
Im in the same boat as you, spotify is my go to for all the music I listen too. So much that I chose my phone carrier on the option of unlimited data so that I could listen to spotify all day at work. Unfortunately I havent found an alternative I am willing to put money into. I left grooveshark (paid service) for spotify but still waiting for something better to come along.
Yeah. Spotify is currently the best. I just wish it were more open.
I have an account that expired months ago but over 1,000 songs from spotify remain on my nonupdated non synced spotify app? is that normal?
You should use last.fm if you care about keeping track of your listening history.
UnlessI’m reading it wrong, a guy on last.fm reckons tomahawk will export starred tracks ??
http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+for+Spotify/forum/1249115/_/2027717/_/19055049
GranMaster Sky, I doubt they could legally make the software upload music from your home PC to listen to through their network. There are piracy laws that would probably take issue with it. The player is just a mobile deck that plays local music files, to… I just don’t think it makes much sense to assume they’d be available on a different device.
Yes, James Phillips. But I could also say that about almost anything. I could show you a smartphone and 20-year-ago you would shyte your pants, or an iPod, or a GameCube, or an HDTV, or high-speed Internet, or President Obama, or the International Space Station, or an electric car, or a hybrid car, or even Facebook. I could give you a serious bowel problem if I showed you everything you’d have been impressed with 20 years ago. Unfortunately, Spotify is out now and the date is 2-5-2013
I second remove the pay gate. What I really don’t get is how it’s freemium on PC but only a 48hr trial on Android (last I checked was months ago). That doesn’t make a lick of sense. It seriously doesn’t.
until they increase bitrate, I’ll still prefer flac, mp3, etc.
It sounds good at Extreme quality.
BLah blah blah what a whinefest. Despite these minor annoyances, I have an amazing experience with Spotify. For only $10/month. You miserable b’stards….just think back to how you’d react, 20 years ago, if told that you could have something like Spotify, even WITH the problems mentioned in this article. You would shyte your pants with excitement.
You touched on things that had always nagged me in the back of my mind, but never really laid out. Guess I’m sticking with the free version to save myself the heartbreak later…
They need to fix… everything. Heck, I can’t hardly ever even find half of the music I’m looking for. Is it really that difficult to license some funk? Really?
A lower price. or remove the pay-gate for using it on roku devices. that’s stupid. I can get mobile devices. they are mobile and plug into everything. But a roku? I don’t pack it everywhere.. Its less mobile than my laptop, in fact, yet that can stream free.