New Yorker Writer Decries the ‘Enshittification of Spotify’ — But It’s Been a Years Long Process

Photo Credit: Spotify

New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka finally got around to updating his Macbook and learning what the rest of us have known since the TikTokification of Spotify began—the new app design sucks on both desktop and mobile.In Spotify’s rush to become the be-all end-all source of audio entertainment, it has lost sight of why many people liked the service in the first place. It serves as a place to catalog music into playlists to be enjoyed and shared, but since 2022 that enjoyment has gone down hill precipitously. Part of the reason why many people are unhappy with the new design is two-fold, it mimics TikTok too much, or older features (like hearting) were removed.

Spotify consolidated the action of hearting into the ‘+’ button, which can be used to add songs to Liked Songs or directly to a playlist. “Apologies for any confusion,” Spotify’s community team told those who were complaining about the consolidation. “Since we had a Plus button and a Heart button, it hasn’t always been clear how they’re different. After speaking with listeners, we found that Spotify is easier to use if we upgraded the Heart or Like button into a Plus.”

But searching ‘why did Spotify remove the heart’ seems to yield more complaints than removing the heart solved. “Liked Songs is like my email inbox,” one user writes in a post on reddit complaining about the removal of hearts. “If I want to listen to Steve Winwood songs from the 80s, I can search/filter inside Liked Songs and play them. I don’t need a custom playlist. And I’m not 17 and making this generation’s version of a cassette mixtape to share with the pretty young girl in 8th period World Literature.”

Kyle Chayka’s piece brings up a relevant problem that has led me to shy away from Spotify—it’s almost impossible to find what you want. The uppermost menu now offers ‘Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks’ with the music tab filled with playlists you’ve created or that Spotify has generated. Want to find a full album and listen to it? It’s near impossible and Chayka highlights an important point—Spotify’s new design is such that it wants you to “listen to what [Spotify] suggests, not choose music” on your own. Yep—that sounds about right.The TikTokification of Spotify is such that Spotify wants to suggest music it thinks you’ll like, rather than showcasing your oft-listened favorites. Users can now open up the Spotify app and scroll through an endless reel of condensed tracks and audio, with song previews featuring hashtags to allow users to jump between feeds in different genres.

“This is all part of our ongoing effort to enable listeners to discover fresh finds, while also allowing them to quickly sample content they can enjoy later,” Spotify said about the update in February 2024. While Spotify is definitely growing, there is a smaller subset of tech curmudgeons (me included!) who can’t stand the new design and have cancelled their Spotify subscription and moved to greener pastures. The focus on visuals and vertical scrolling is not for me—when I open my music app I want my exercise playlist front and center. On Spotify, I get podcast episodes, algorithmically generated playlists, and a multi-tap hunt for something I’ve created.

No thanks. Much like Kyle, I cancelled my Spotify subscription and tried out both Deezer and Tidal as Spotify alternatives, eventually sticking with Tidal. Part of that was that Tidal promised to pay artists more than any other streaming services for a brief period of time, shifting up to 10% of the HiFi subscription to your most-listened artist. Caravan Palace may not have earned beaucoup bucks from me while the Direct Artists Payouts program was active, but Tidal’s interface feels less like surfing Netflix looking for something to watch than Spotify’s current amalgamation of offerings.