So Spotify recently changed from a green heart and a block song button to and + and a - for liking and disliking. What is your opinion?
My personal preference would be to bring back the green heart and make a deep red broken heart.
And I know spotify is proprietary yada yada I don’t care for music streaming. So pls don’t let it be a part of the discussion.
To reference this is an old screenshot I found on the internet.
I dislike all the algorithms being pushed on Spotify. I just want to listen to albums and that’s it.
The radio function is nice in theory, but it tries too hard to guess what I want to listen to to the point where it felt like any radio I played ended up being variations of the same thing. It is just not a good way to discover new music in my experience.
These days I have cancelled my subscription in favour of actual radio. Fip.fr is brilliant.
I would really appreciate a configurable Radio playlist. Just a slider from “very similar” to “here be dragons” would do.
Actually, I noticed exactly what you’re describing too. There are like 3-4 clusters of artists that Spotify thinks I love, and that’s it. Unless I’m actively searching for something else.
This was old Slacker Radio. You could create a station with any number of artists and then tweak it to discover new artists or just listen to ones you know.
YouTube Music has this feature currently.
It’s alright, but I’ve left YT Music because of all the bullcrap algorithmic stuff they’re doing too.
Eh, kind of. It’s not nearly as customizable as Slacker was. With Slacker I could say I want mostly artists I have selected, but play some new artists, and play the deep cuts instead of the popular songs. You could ban artists from a station or add ones you liked to build it out. And, I think this is most important, all your likes/dislikes/whatever only applied to the current station. I’m tired of YouTube Music playing death metal when I play Blind Guardian radio just because I also listen to death metal.
It kind of lives on in Liveone, who bought Slacker, but their whole app is a mess and they have a very limited library compared to the other streaming services.
Yeah, when I tried YT music a couple of times (unpaid) I actually did discover some new stuff, partly perhaps because they have no idea what I usually listen to. Then again I have come to dislike Google enough that I’m not going to pay for their services no matter how good some of them might be. Once YouTube stops working with adblock I’m out of there too.
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This is why I switch to Tidal + Plex. It allows you to just maintain a library and listen to albums while keeping the algorithm recommendations out of the way.
Good to know, thanks! I tried it out back when it was known as Wimp, but jumped off the wagon during all the controversies. I’d really rather not use anything owned by Jack Dorsey, but I might be a bit too principled for my own good haha
I know what you mean with the radio function I would also love if it would give me something similar to the song i was listening to not the stuff I usually listen to
My app only has the plus currently. I think it’s a dumb change. The type of change you make because you need to change something. Nobody that is competent enough to use a smart phone app would see any benefit from it being changed to a plus and as others have pointed out… it’s a music app, plus and minus are usually associated with volume.
I see the plus, but where is the minus button you mentioned?
Sorry it was a bad screenshot I changed it to a better one
For context the old one was that one
Ouu, fairphone earbuds? Slayy
I didn’t know Spotify changed this. I opened up the app, and sure enough it popped up with “the heart is now a plus.”
Yeah, I don’t like it. Just a random plus sign on the “now playing” screen isn’t obvious what it does. Yes, the app told me, but that only appears once.
I wonder if we can complain and get them to change it back.
Also it now takes multiple taps to remove something from my liked songs.
That kinda looks like volume control lmao.
Heart or even thumb icons for likes and dislikes are acceptable. This looks stupid like if it belongs to c/assholedesign
I was thinging adding and removing from playlist or something. The old icons are so much more clear, why would you change that 🤦♀️
YT Music does it best:
yea I also used yt music for over 2 years but it doesn’t work on a de-googled phone. So I switch to spotify because they doesn’t require google play services. One of the things I miss are the in the client integrated music videos on my secondary display
Have you tried MicroG?
If I install something and it just plain doesn’t work without google play services - it gets immediately uninstalled and I find an alternative.
Wouldn’t install on my grapheneos phone
I completely hate the new “+” symbol, the heart was so easy to understand
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Don’t use Spotify and it took me a while to even find the mentioned buttons in the screenshot. Looks like either volume controls or add/remove from playlist. Better would be thumbs up/down.
Press it once to add to Liked. Press it again to add to another playlist. Not great, not terrible.
I see the plus in a circle symbol. What are you adding the track to? Some sort of list?
I don’t see a minus in that screenshot.
Fairphone 🤝
I’m just annoyed that it replaces the repeat and shuffle buttons, but only sometimes.
TBH I didnt though about it but yea it’s now gone
Seems to be only if you’re on a recommendation based playlist like discover weekly or release radar
Funny enough, people had the same reaction when Spotify changed the plus button to a heart a few years ago
It was once already a plus?
Yes, 6 or 7 years ago, when they introduced podcasts. People on reddit were saying that the heart was bad, too childish, too instagram-like, so it’s kinda silly to see the same demographic defend the heart now. I guess people realky hate change
My app doesn’t have this , but it also doesn’t have a like button anymore. The only button is a checkmark to add the song to a playlist. Please spotify, change it back!!! The only reason I pay for spotify is for conveniance. If spotify stops being 14 bucks more conveniant than piracy I will happily switch.
It turns into a checkmark as soon as you have the song in your playlists. For new songs, its just a plus button (at least for me)
My experience has been that the “-” was exactly the same as a skip. Spotify still plays those songs and even if I’ve gone to the artist or group and selected “don’t play this artist” they’ll still come up. So this redesign seems more honest, in that you don’t like the song but they’ll still play it.
