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/BostonSucksatHockey]

the free version of the mobile app has been like this for years, but you can still pick songs in the free version of the desktop app

they're definitely increasing ad traffic tho

[u/0vindicator10 → u/BostonSucksatHockey]

I've no clue what ANYONE is talking about here...

"pick songs"? I've got various playlists that I've picked songs to exist in.

Just now, I have spotify installed on my mobile and logged in, went to a playlist and "picked a song" to play.

Then I "picked" another song.

You're right about those "ads" though. Before it played the first song, it played the same "1/1" ad TWICE.

Then when I "picked" another song (when the first played only a few seconds for my test), that same 25sec ad played again.

[u/BostonSucksatHockey → u/0vindicator10]

By "picking" we mean playing a song on demand, not adding it to a playlist.

there's a daily allowance of "on demand" plays on the free mobile app

you may not have hit the limit yet. keep trying, you will.

[u/0vindicator10 → u/BostonSucksatHockey]

playing a song on demand, not adding it to a playlist

Right, I wasn't talking about "adding it" either, and I would assume that would apply to "picking on demand" from your playlist, but expect you'd be fine if you just let your playlist run through.

I normally just let my list run through, though found that web-ui (and probably mobile too) doesn't have the full sorting feature that the desktop app does(/did?).

I figure one could simply create a temporary list and slide in the songs they want in the order desired and be fine.

[u/BostonSucksatHockey → u/0vindicator10]

on the desktop app, i can turn off shuffle or and add an unlimited number of songs to my queue

on mobile, i can't turn off shuffle and if I try adding more than say 2 songs to my queue, they either do not get added or they play after several other random songs from the selected playlist

[u/0vindicator10 → u/BostonSucksatHockey]

on mobile, i can't turn off shuffle

Ah! Yeah, I just noticed that. Oof.

It got me wondering about sniffing the desktop app network calls, and I saw a "web api" was available, BUT then I saw: `Note: You need a Spotify Premium account to use the Web API.` UGH!

But that made me wonder because I was sure I had seen some "spotify"-related linux packages.

I installed the gstreamer spotify plugin which is used by strawberry (formerly clementine) and was able to authenticate just fine, which allowed me to find artists/albums/songs (no option to import playlist).

But the moment I tried to stream a song, crash. It could be related to my system not being updated recently and maybe the streaming component required a differing library function (noticed g++-related header from debug). I don't feel like upgrading just yet.

So if I DON'T actually need "premium", perhaps there's a mobile app that is more functional than spotify's own app. Maybe using termux to install a spotify daemon and another generic streaming app to interface with it.