No one can deny the power of Spotify. It’s still the most popular music streaming service in the US. Note that it’s also one of the most popular music streaming services globally. Music lovers have found a way to listen to their favorite tracks post-physical media era. Credits to the Swedish music platform giant.
The music streaming service has gone through many improvements over the years, from its user interface overhauls to some recent ones. One example is ditching the shuffle button in exchange for the play button as the default play mode on an album, thanks to Adele. But with all these enhancements, people are still finding faults on the streaming platform.
All music streaming services aren’t perfect. But finding flaws from the biggest music streaming platform is important. Just like any other product you buy, you should demand quality. Here are some of the features most Spotify Premium subscribers want now.
Audio Quality Enhancements
Spotify’s playback bitrate currently maxes out to 320kbps. That’s the highest audio quality the music streaming platform can offer. It sounds okay for people who aren’t audiophiles. However, other music streaming services have already moved forward to this standard.
Take one of Spotify’s biggest rivals, Apple Music. The streaming platform from the tech giant now supports recordings mastered in Dolby Atmos. The implementation allows engineers to mix music, so the sound can come from all around and from above. You can even play songs in Spatial Audio, where it can track your head movements and create a 360º effect—not to mention, all these features were added to the platform with no additional cost for the subscribers. In fact, other music streaming services are already implementing high-fidelity playback.
On the other hand, Spotify has already promised its support for hi-fidelity playback last February. They said that it should be coming later this year. A lot of creative explainer videos were done about Spotify HiFi. The year 2021 is coming to an end, but support for high-fidelity playback is still a no-show.
Ability to Turn Off Podcast Recommendations
Podcasts have somehow replaced talk format radio. It looks like Spotify has seen potential with the format if they adopt it into the platform, thus the rise of podcasts on Spotify. The streaming service wanted to lead the audio streaming race; that’s why they added podcasts into the mix.
However, not everyone is into this format. Some wish for Spotify to put a button that they can toggle to turn off podcast suggestions. Most of these people are subscribed to the streaming service for music. They never really wanted to listen to podcasts in the first place.
Ads Removal
Yes, you heard it right. The ads on Spotify free-tier are incredibly unbearable. But it’s intentional to persuade listeners to pay for a subscription. However, many complaints have been brought up about Spotify ads on podcasts. People say that paying for a premium subscription is useless if Spotify lets podcast creators run ads within their shows. It only makes sense if Spotify’s free version ads made them pay for the subscription. This is why premium subscribers want to get rid of the ads on podcasts.
Better Shuffle Mode
A common complaint among Spotify Premium subscribers is its shuffle mode. There’s one problem that many users have brought up over the years. Shuffle mode isn’t random ;, and it kind of ruins their music discovery experience. Some people claim that Spotify would play the same 50 songs on shuffle mode out of a thousand songs in their playlist. Some say that there are chances that particular songs are getting more streams than others. If this is true, it’ll be unfair for some artists and others who work on a song. It’s because the platform also looks at the number of streams as a basis of revenue. This may be a problem with machine learning and algorithm. Unfortunately, people on forums are still talking about this long-time issue. Spotify is yet to work on correcting this technical problem.
Organized Music Discovery
People love discovering new music. Music streaming platforms made it easier for people to learn about new artists similar to what they usually listen to. But doing this all through an algorithm somehow causes a problem. There are times when people listen to random playlists for particular reasons. Some listen to sleep playlists to get a good night’s sleep, while others listen to guided meditation tracks for mindfulness.
The problem comes when the algorithm picks up these unintentional listening habits. This flaw can cause random ambient and instrumental artists to appear on subscribers’ music discovery playlists. What the subscribers want is a system for the algorithm to know when or when not to pick up a listening session. There should be an easier way for the system to stop specific playlists from being included in someone’s music taste profile.
Any music streaming service has flaws they need to work on. But patience is a virtue. Spotify has clearly listened to some requests from its subscribers and made changes over time. Pretty sure developers are working on some of these existing wishes to improve the service in the future.