Spotify: Music and Podcasts: What Users Actually Complain About
Overview
The primary pain points center around excessive advertisements, app performance issues, and problems with playlist functionality. Users also express significant frustration with subscription billing concerns and technical connectivity issues. The interface changes and podcast-specific problems further contribute to user dissatisfaction.
Top complaints
1. Excessive Advertisements
cluster 1/8Users are frustrated with the high frequency and volume of ads disrupting their listening experience.
“too much ads.. bro just listen songs from YouTube I would suggest”
“Unbearable amount of ads. 2 ads in one go is okay but then it's sometimes 3 or 4”
“What's the point of adding thumbs down on ads if you're still going to shove the ads I disliked”
2. Premium Service Limitations
cluster 2/8Free users face restrictions while premium users encounter unexpected limitations and ads.
“unnecessary they will force u to buy premium”
“You can only pick 6 songs a day”
“you mostly need a premium for like.."everything"”
3. App Performance Issues
cluster 3/8The application suffers from crashes, bugs, and unexpected behavior that disrupt user experience.
“last updated bricked the app. It just opens to a black screen and never loads.”
“the new widget is way too big and bulky & there's no way to adjust its transparency”
“Spotify have removed a widget that worked for me... well done Spotify!”
4. Subscription and Pricing Concerns
cluster 4/8Users report billing problems and dissatisfaction with the value proposition of premium subscriptions.
“You deducted 169 twice this october! annoying!!!!”
“You guys should refund me back my money i have been debited all this while for premium account”
“you mostly need a premium for like.."everything"”
5. Playlist and Playback Problems
cluster 5/8Issues with shuffle functionality, playlist management, and playback behavior significantly impact music enjoyment.
“I wish it had a true shuffle , the order of the shuffle is the same everytime”
“Won't play JUST what's in your playlist. Will always add other songs.”
“Shuffle keeps turning off even after uninstalling and installing again”
6. Connectivity and Technical Glitches
cluster 6/8Users experience problems with Bluetooth connections, offline playback, and other technical connectivity issues.
“when I start my car and the app connects to Bluetooth, the music also plays from my phone as well”
“What is the point of having downloaded music if you need to have data to "go offline"”
“I have my songs downloaded, and they still won't play if I don't have Internet connection”
7. Podcast Functionality Issues
cluster 7/8Specific problems with podcast playback, ordering, and recommendations detract from the listening experience.
“after every ad it skips to 10-30s into the song for no reason”
“defaults to the very first episode, no matter how many episodes I've listened to”
“PLEASE, stop recommending dozens of podcast episodes on the All page”
8. User Interface and Experience Concerns
cluster 8/8Users express dissatisfaction with UI changes, widget functionality, and forced features.
“the new widget is way too big and bulky & there's no way to adjust its transparency”
“Spotify have removed a widget that worked for me... well done Spotify!”
“really hate that we are shoehorned into having the banner on the lockscreen”
More Music pain reports
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This page is rendered from the App Pain API — the same clusters, evidence quotes, and severity scores are available as JSON (or via MCP for AI agents) for any app on both stores.
Read the API docs Get a free API key — 20 analyses to startBuilt from public app-store reviews · not affiliated with Apple or Google · clusters are LLM-generated from real user quotes.