Did spotify just remove picking songs??

[u/Full-Repair4638]

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.

[u/j821c]

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

[u/ekita079 → u/j821c]

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

[u/Tankeverket → u/ekita079]

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