Wait, free users of Spotify could not pick which track they listen to???
this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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Well, on PC or tablet you always could, but on mobile it was always album random shuffle... and if you created an album of less than N songs, in mobile they added related tracks in the reproduction (radio-spotify like) so it remained not possible to control what you listen...
EDIT: I updated the verb tenses to the fact that now you can in the mobile app chose the song to play
This is why I never even gave Spotify a chance. It didn’t make sense to me.
No, you could tap shuffle on an album-by-album basis, or on a Playlist with like 10+ tracks or something.
Spotify being nice? Absolutely not. There certainly is a hidden agenda behind this.
My theory is, since they’re releasing lossless audio for premium users, they had to make the free version more appealing to the casual user.
Probably ads. It’s always ads.
I don't mind ads, probably because I never see them. :)
is spotify being desperate, or there is an ulterior motive?
YouTube Music allows this, maybe they're losing ad money to them on the people that weren't going to get premium anyway.
You guys use spotify ?
It's probably the most popular music streaming service at the moment.
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cool, my "music" folder filled with mp3s could always do that
Is this the onion? They add the basic feature of a media player where you can listen the title you clicked and not random stuff? If I understood correctly, this is not a feature, it's just a restriction being removed
The mobile application has always had this restriction for free users (as far as I know), but the desktop application has not.
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I'm so confused. Couldn't you always pick what track you wanted to play?
Nope. At some point spotify forced FREE users to shuffle play playlists. You couldn't pick which specific song you'll hear first. And with ads, obviously.
Damn, when I joined way back when, you could pick the track you wanted you just couldn't skip and had to hear ads. Being able to pick a track is the whole reason I moved away from Pandora.
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I think it depends on whether you used the web interface or mobile app. Mobile app was more restrictive.
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Winamp with a cool custom skin and downloaded mp3s was better than Spotify imo.
I know it's cool to shit on spotify and streaming services on Lemmy, but personally I disagree. I loved Winamp and had tens of thousands of songs back in the day, downloaded on my zippy 56k dial up connection. But being able to search for and play virtually any song available instantly and share collaborative playlists, no matter where you are, is so much better.
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I love product updates as part of my technology feed....
I miss old technology feeds in the classic internet days. That actually posted and listed out cool stuff with technology
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Spotify is trash anyways.
Too late, already got sick of their shit and went back to downloading everything myself. I have to have two media player apps on my phone to account for podcasts and music but it's still better than using spotify. Probably a better way to do that too but haven't been bothered enough to look into it.
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Easier to let users play music for free when you don't pay the artists I guess
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wow the music app finally lets users select music! I'm sad that this is actually something to look forward to.
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