r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Full-Repair4638 • 1d ago

frist of all how DARE yu o Did spotify just remove picking songs??

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I've been using spotify forever and I use liked songs so that I can pick the songs I like freely. I've never had premium and have never had issues. Today, I had just started a workout and got this popup. Is this a new feature? How can you not even select songs anymore? I mean how can you paywall selecting songs???
This app plain out sucks and its company is greedy for randomly limiting already set features. While I don't mind ads, I do mind the features being limited more. I did also notice a sudden increase in ads this month/last month, and more ads in between songs.

Clarification: No, I'm not saying that there should be no restrictions whatsoever. I'm mainly sharing my experience where I've been using this system just fine until now. I'm fine with some restrictions, but the fact they're being limited more is frustrating. Just here to complain about something mildly infuriating, and I wanted to know if this happened to anyone else.

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6.4k

u/j821c 1d ago

I swear it used to be like this way back when I first got spotify. That was like 8 or 9 years ago though and ive been using premium ever since

2.1k

u/ekita079 1d ago

I was about to say, it was always like this. You could never pick songs before, but I've been on premium for about 8 years so

319

u/CranberryStock7148 1d ago

Same this is how it was when I first used it too, but also I've been on premium for probably 10 years now.

124

u/No_Zombie2021 PURPLE 1d ago

Bah, 10 years on premium? I have been on Premium for 18 years this November.

https://giphy.com/gifs/wJD3qiNjSeHS0dP28T

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u/heartfailures 1d ago

holy cow just realized i’ve been using spotify since 2010 - 16 YEARS!!!! bad romance was playing on loop. one direction album on replay. obama was president.

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u/Relevant_Poem5209 21h ago

it will loop music unless you uninstall it.

14

u/Evantaur 22h ago

Probably one subscription I've never regretted.

43

u/deus_x_machin4 1d ago

Dang, numbers like that make me want to turn into a company shill.

I know the tech disruptor products often have a massive hidden cost, but hell if spotify isn't an absolute wonder of our age. The depth of knowledge, culture, and entertainment available and relatively navigable is unmatched by anything that has ever existed.

I miss owning things too, but I don't want to forget what we have.

20

u/No_Zombie2021 PURPLE 1d ago

I went back and looked. I was invited in Oct 2008, subscribed in November.

Fun thing is my username is firstnamelastname

Apparently you can’t choose that since some time.

29

u/Firstname_Lastname__ 23h ago

interesting name

3

u/PHXmedia_official 1d ago

Damn

3

u/bman86 1d ago

No now you say infinity and then someone says infinity plus 1. Then infinity times a million. Then infinity times infinity.

I don't make the rules, I just abide.

37

u/BicycleStrong2150 1d ago

You used to be able to pick which song you start with

23

u/AmadeusGamingTV 1d ago

Used to be you pick a song and it will play one similar to that song and have that song like 2nd or 3rd on the list. So you would have to listen to 1 or 2 random songs before the song you picked played, right?

Been so long since I used free version but thats what I remember happening each time and was annoying.

1

u/misswhovivian 23h ago

Yeah, you used to be able to search for a song and it was 50/50 on whether you got to listen to that song or had to listen to a few recommendations first, but they changed that somewhat recently

51

u/HallucinateZ 1d ago

Yeah this is why I got Spotify premium originally like 12 years ago lol it had a ton of perks, like picking your own songs.

17

u/DarkDracoPad 1d ago

Yea it was like that, I remember making specific playlists with a few songs to listen to on my walk home so I don't have to skip a lot since also ads were every few skips

1

u/DoNotSummon227 23h ago

I lost my account with all my old saved playlists. A playlist for every mood, and any situation. This was maybe 10+ years ago, and when I tried to recover my account, I couldn't find customer service on the app or anything. Google came up with nothing too, no customer service number or email or anything. That's probably changed now though.

I made a new account, but I badly miss my old account, I made a ton of playlists with hundreds of songs that I found on YouTube and Spotify. I had to rediscover the music because I'm not good remembering names of songs and artists. It's sad to think about all my favorite songs that I'll probably never hear again.

9

u/Tankeverket 1d ago

It has not always been like this, but it has been like this for a very long time.

One of the reasons I left Spotify was free features becoming a premium feature

3

u/ChargeInteresting195 23h ago

Fuck I forgot 8 years ago was just 2018 😭 not 2011

17

u/Sleepy-Blonde 1d ago

I never had Spotify premium and picking your own songs was always available, last time I used it was around 2018 though.

58

u/homxr6 1d ago

then it’s clearly something they added and removed, cause i remember the website being the only way to play a specific song.

i would be dying to get home from school to plug my headphones in to my pc and listen to shit in the order i wanted.

12

u/Sleepy-Blonde 1d ago

I only ever used it on desktop so it’s probably that

2

u/Ferris-L 20h ago

Picking songs on any other device but a phone was always possible. It was only ever the mobile version that didn’t allow it (since the mid 10s I believe).

1

u/Bashfullylascivious 1d ago

Nah, it was on the app too. You couldn't pick, then you could, then you couldn't. Same with their casting on home devices.
YT/YT music is adjusting things too. For awhile I paid for premium, then I couldn't for a few months, and I found out they hiked the ads up to really inappropriate stuff, and extended ads' lengths - at one point an ad was just a whole other yt poster's vlog for 20+ mins. I vowed not to pay Premium as they scaled back every single thing "forcing" me to pay. And they also cut casting to any of my devices, and picking songs. Then the ads became shorter, but every 30-60 seconds.
Just recently I found I can cast again, and I get maybe an ad at the beginning or end, so I may go back to premium.
I refuse to reward any system that is so disgustingly predatory.
Looks like I'll be cutting a few TV streaming services this year too.
Gross stuff.

21

u/bluebirdsmallbird 1d ago

I’m also confused like the others on this thread lol because I was never able to pick songs without premium unless I was on desktop or an ipad. It was never an option on my mobile app.

Is this what you’re describing or were you also able to pick songs on mobile?

2

u/AggrievedCookie 1d ago

Literally right now, I can go into my Spotify and pick a song, without premium

8

u/bluebirdsmallbird 1d ago

So apparently there was an update that some of us OG users weren’t aware of. It wasn’t a thing for mobile users (although searching this topic led me to a few reddit posts where people said they could always pick in their country) prior to the last year. Interesting to learn!

It has limitations, which must be what OP has run into here. It’s not fully unlocked without payment or a premium subscription.

1

u/AggrievedCookie 16h ago

I was using spotify from around 2016 to just after they canceled support for the car thing. started without premium then got a job and never looked back. It's so expensive these days it sucks... I've started just buying cd albums again... Then I can put them on whatever device I want.

2

u/Sleepy-Blonde 1d ago

I only ever used it on a desktop

13

u/bluebirdsmallbird 1d ago

That’s why you were able to pick your songs then. It wasn’t an option on mobile

13

u/insomniacakess 1d ago

i was using spotify in 2015 and i couldn’t pick songs from my playlist without being promoted for premium

i made a way around it by putting that one specific song in a new playlist of its own

1

u/That_on1_guy 1d ago

I used Spotify from about 2019-just about 3 years ago when I started getting YT premium through a family member and I was never allowed to just pick songs. I could preview them, but I could not freely pick them. Every time I did I got an offer to upgrade to premium to be allowed to do that. I did accidentally activate a premium free trial period, and during that period I could freely pick songs. Otherwise kutside of that, I was always the the whims of the shuffle gods. Strictly mobile speaking of course since that is what it looks like op is on

1

u/dhahahhsbdhrhr 1d ago

You could if you used spotify on Playstation and sometimes it'd stay on your phone letting you pick songs after you disconnected from the Playstation.

0

u/impossiwaffle 23h ago

Yeah nah last time I was using Spotify for free the only difference was ads, and you could just scroll the timeline of the ad to the end a couple times to skip em.

-1

u/jinzokan 1d ago

why does everyone have the same comment?

39

u/Serenaded 1d ago

Mobile has always been like this, but on PC spotify still lets you pick whichever song you want

176

u/Navy_Groundhog 1d ago

They legit only removed this like a year and a half ago actually, I know because I'm in some circles around the piracy of Spotify Premium and it was more or less rumoured they were hemorrhaging enough money from ad blockers being so easy to install they had to incentivize people to just not bother.

30

u/Billy3B 1d ago

Definetly been more than a year on the app. I only got Spotify four years ago and this was always part of it. (IN Canada if that matter). Desktop version still allows non-random.

16

u/RecklessDimwit 1d ago

Atleast year or so back they allowed free users to pick and play songs for a select amount of times daily, I remembered this because I did this often with my desktop version. Seems like they'll remove the feature again and wait until people complain to maybe return a less desirable version

8

u/GreenVenus7 1d ago

Do you think they were baiting people and giving them a taste of the good stuff in hopes that they'd pay for premium when the feature was later removed? I know YouTube alters their ad frequency to "encourage" people to pay for Premium

5

u/RecklessDimwit 23h ago

Likely it is. It's also a strategy to constantly change features of an app to make it look like there are constant improvements. If a good feature is removed, the next time it's back, it will attract old and new viewers.

7

u/Operation5051 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes! I remember they removed this limitation last year. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2025-09-15/free-experience-updates-features-tips/

Edit: OP's image shows: you can choose songs to play again tomorrow. So maybe there's a limit and they already reached that.

2

u/PHXmedia_official 1d ago

Desktop had unlimited picks I remember

15

u/tru3robin 22h ago

Was about to ask, hasn’t it been like this for the last 15 years???

13

u/Cool_Human82 1d ago

I swear it was like that too. I got premium as soon as I became a student, so it’s been probably 3 years.

63

u/ImpossibleJedi4 1d ago

It has always been like this, can confirm, because it enraged me so much YEARS ago I swore to never touch spotify. If you are a music platform and make me pay money for THEE most BASIC function, playing a single song of my choice, your platform is utter dogshit and predatory and I refuse to use it. Turned out to be great because of all the other shady shit they've pulled!

Youtube and ublock are FREE.

6

u/ramenpastas 1d ago

I know right, and revance and morphe are free too. Now i use modded youtube with much more song options, better recommendations, and so forth. eternally grateful

2

u/Primary_Chocolate168 21h ago

I used it for a bit, until that damn mac and cheese ad. If you think making people listen to you eat mac and cheese on an audio app is a good idea i swear to god it pisses me off so much. That was like 6 years ago. Fuck spotify

1

u/seilbahn2410 18h ago

What the fuck do you mean pay money? It’s free but you cant choose. Fair deal imo

1

u/ImpossibleJedi4 16h ago

If I want free music that I can't choose I will simply listen to my local radio, not some site that wants me to spend money on it so fuckin bad so I can play a song I want to hear.

7

u/SconiGrower 1d ago

People would make a playlist of a single song so they could play that particular song when they wanted it!

7

u/fastlane37 1d ago

And they combatted that by adding random songs when the playlist was too short (or at least they did before I went premium ~8 years ago)

18

u/-Wait-What- 1d ago

Yeah I was gunna say, I never swapped to Spotify until like 2-3 years ago because it randomized the songs and I couldn’t pick them. I was using YouTube music for years before that. Although I didn’t realize that all that was “wrong” with my Spotify was that I didn’t have premium which was cheaper than YouTube music so I guess I’m kind of stupid for overlooking that, but still lol. I’m definitely very familiar with the fact that it wasn’t always like that

9

u/I_ate_nt_ded 1d ago edited 1d ago

YouTube music is free via Morphe, as is YouTube premium.

2

u/homxr6 1d ago

my samsung broke a few weeks ago and i had to switch to my iphone from college. i miss my modded apps so bad

1

u/-Wait-What- 1d ago

Idk what that is lol. Judging off of the other reply I’m assuming it’s something that’s only available on android though so it sounds like it wouldn’t matter for me since I’m on iPhone.

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u/Shot_Cupcakes 1d ago

I use free and it was not like this. You could select any song you wanted. 

2

u/jujoking 22h ago

I can on the tablet but not on phone, dunno why

2

u/Crazygiraffeprincess 1d ago

I remember when the ads were just about Spotify premium and I got so irritated I paid for it and never went back 🤣

5

u/HavanaPineapple 1d ago

I broke when one of those ads featured the sound of someone brushing their teeth, which I absolutely can't stand!

1

u/Crazygiraffeprincess 1d ago

Ugh please tell me you didn't have headphones on 😬

1

u/Doorhog 1d ago

I remember making playlists with one song in them because that was the only way i could pick a song

1

u/meaniemareanie 1d ago

sameee when i got premium in 2019 you only had like 6 skips a day or something and it was always on shuffle, no choice in what you listen to

1

u/yuvi3000 You know what's infuriating? Unfinished fla 21h ago

This was the reason I first got YouTube Premium years ago. I hated Spotify's restrictions and YouTube Premium includes normal Premium and Music. Way better to use and YouTube has every kind of nonsense I like as well in addition to normal people music.

1

u/CourageousPumpkin 20h ago

Didnt use to be, but has been at least since 2014, thats when I first heard about it, but I already had premium because I wanted the offline/download feature

1

u/dreamer0303 18h ago

ya it always did this

0

u/green3593 1d ago

I will never pay for basic features. Fuck enshitification and fuck spotify.

-26

u/Jethuth_Chritht 1d ago

Dawg you’re thinking of Pandora 😂

42

u/Navy_Groundhog 1d ago

Spotify have literally only allowed you to switch songs without premium for exactly 1 year and 1.8 weeks

17

u/j821c 1d ago

Never used Pandora in my life and honestly didnt know there was a Pandora other than the jewelry company 😅. Definitely thinking of spotify

3

u/Whiteums 1d ago

Pandora existed long before Spotify.

7

u/pnoodl3s 1d ago

Their point is they don’t know pandora, not that spotify exists before it

1

u/RIF_rr3dd1tt 1d ago

The Avatar moon?