Does anyone else feel like Spotify is actively trying to annoy free users into buying Premium?

SettingSun77 said:

I've had Spotify Premium for years. It's unusable without Premium, but I don't mind paying for it because I use it a lot and I like the playlists they generate for my interests. All my personal playlists are on there and I'd have to quit my job to move to another streamer with the time it would take to find all my stuff on there.

Regarding YouTube, I just have a couple of ad blockers on it. Otherwise it's unwatchable. I ain't getting premium on there as well.

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makingbank said:

Just use brave on mobile and its ad free and just like premium. Saves a fortune

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SMM Junction said:

still on spotify but only cause i split a family plan with like 4 other people, comes out to almost nothing per month. that part nobody talks about... if you actually pay full price for premium yeah its a ripoff.

tried youtube music for a bit when i had premium for the video side and honestly the recommendations were rough compared to what spotify feeds me. like it kept pushing stuff i already played to death instead of finding new things. maybe its better now idk.

the playlist lock in is real though. thats the only thing keeping me there tbh, not the app itself

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SettingSun77 said:

I've had Spotify Premium for years. It's unusable without Premium, but I don't mind paying for it because I use it a lot and I like the playlists they generate for my interests. All my personal playlists are on there and I'd have to quit my job to move to another streamer with the time it would take to find all my stuff on there.

Regarding YouTube, I just have a couple of ad blockers on it. Otherwise it's unwatchable. I ain't getting premium on there as well.

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mayhemood said:

I think that's exactly why Spotify keeps so many people around. Once you've spent years building playlists and training the algorithm to understand your taste it becomes really hard to switch. The service itself might not be perfect but the personalized recommendations and music history create a pretty strong moat that competitors still struggle to match.

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UL Agency said:

That Spotify ad loop is literal psychological warfare designed to break your spirit, turning a simple music search into a hostage situation. Switching to YT Premium is honestly the smartest math right now because bundling ad-free video essays with your music player just kills two birds with one stone. Plus, YT Music lets you pull unreleased live sets, random bootlegs, and niche covers directly into your playlists since it taps into the main video database. The only reason people still white-knuckle their Spotify accounts is pure Wrapped FOMO and wanting to see what their friends are listening to on desktop. But if you're already spending hours watching stuff on YouTube anyway, wiping out video ads while fixing your music issue is a massive daily quality-of-life upgrade. It really feels like traditional music apps have evolved backward into subscription advertisement platforms that happen to play songs on the side. You definitely made the right call jumping ship before they cap your skips even further.

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NexionSEO said:

You open the app to listen to one song.

Ad.

Skip.

Wrong song.

Ad.

Try another playlist.

Ad.

Finally get the song you wanted...

...and now you've run out of skips.

At this point it feels less like a music app and more like a subscription advertisement with occasional music in between.

Honestly, that's a big reason why I switched to YouTube Premium. I get ad-free videos, background play, and YouTube Music all bundled together, so it ended up feeling like the better deal for me.

Anyone else make the switch, or are you still sticking with Spotify?

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sarahkofficial said:

you need to subscribe to enjoy it

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