Yes please, let’s shame people into not using technology in novel and innovative ways that actually work for them. We know how utterly terrible the era of the mixtape was for artists when users had the choice to record - and share! - their compositions with technology they had in their own homes. We know how devastating it was for television when people could record shows on “tapes” that they could share with their friends and family or rewatch multiple times without incurring charges, and the terrible, exploitive industries of video rentals that came from that level of freedom.
Lastly, we absolutely know that there have been no new stars found outside of the music industry mega-machine, and that before streaming, artists were all making a decent living and the labels were being fair and responsible with their artists.
These repeated attempts by consumers to listen or watch music and media the way they want is the real problem - not that the industry has given them so few options to do so compared to the past! If only we could blame and shame those consumers more, maybe we could finally give all the control back to the corporations and get back them them telling us how and when we should consume our media!
Meh, if Spotify really wants to improve my user experience by removing things, they can stop prominently displaying fucking Joe Rogan podcasts. I would rather listen to tinnitus than that jackass.
DJ mixed compilations break far worse than album-oriented rock/techno albums. Spotify can’t even manage to handle them when they aren’t forced onto shuffle, there always seems to be a silent gap for a fraction of a second which completely breaks it. And Spotify always seems to have some songs with bits of other songs at the start, and you can’t find the complete original anywhere else.
Are they fucking insane? I do not use Spotify but if I did this would drive me mad. What would it do to something like Dark Side Of The Moon, or any album of live tracks with talking in between them to link / introduce the tracks?
Adele can’t tell me how to listen to an album but also, having a bright green play button default to “shuffle” is super weird behavior.
Why not just have both a Play and a Shuffle button on the album page? YouTube Music does that and it works fine. I know app designers value simplicity but it turns out that having two clearly labelled buttons with different functionality does not cause people to spiral in to indecision paralysis.
Because they know what you want even if you don’t want it.
That screengrab is from my acct this morning. It does seem to be platform-wide. I know this isn’t the first time they’ve received negative feedback as when I finally realized what was happening and looked at the forums there were loads of complaints. I guess appeasing Adele looks better than a corporate mea culpa.
Precisely. I’m really tired of hearing that fixing the shittiness of corporate behavior is the responsibility of the consumer. It’s a red herring designed by industries (mainly petroleum; to wit: 80s recycling push) that attempts to convince us that we’re equal stakeholders and that the issues stem from our choices, not the decades-long lobbying and marketing efforts these companies invest into the status quo. People buy from Amazon because it’s a better option with greater choice, not because they’re indifferent to worker exploitation. It’s not like buying from Target or Walmart is a better option that aids the local economy and buying local for 99% of consumer goods is unrealistic at best. Consumers limiting their own choice is not the answer, corporate responsibility is.
The obnoxious thing is that functionality was always there, too but just not on the main album view. They just decided that everyone always wanted to shuffle by default.
Do the Papasan Shuffle! 
