"Hate when my stream of ads is interrupted by a song from my playlist." - Average non premium user. The ads on Spotify are pretty crazy for free users. Personally, I haven't been on the free version of Spotify for over a year now. Spotify premium has fueled my addiction to music. In 2024, I had music playing for roughly a third of the entire year (keep in mind this is the year they fired a bunch of people working on Spotify wrapped, I would estimate it was actually closer to 55%.) Spotify has the largest selection of music out of any platform except for maybe YouTube if you count the videos. The reason I have left Spotify at a 3 instead of a 4 or 5 is that Spotify has moved in the direction of layoffs and replacing their staff with artificial intelligence. This is a dangerous direction that the entire world is moving in and the effects can be seen with the quality of 2024s Spotify wrapped. Previous wrapped showcases were personalized with unique styles every year. 2024s had missing data, a generic background, and ai generated phases/seasons which caused serious online backlash. This was due to Spotifys decision to fire I think it was 80% of the staff working on Spotify wrapped and supplemented their work with AI. Companies like Spotify and Microsoft are moving towards AI to cut labor costs, this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.
