Spotify has over 600 million users. It's the default music app for most people under 40. And yet if you spend an hour reading its App Store reviews, a surprisingly consistent picture of frustration emerges.
We ran an AI analysis of tens of thousands of Spotify reviews across App Store and Google Play. Here's what the data actually shows.
What Spotify Gets Right
The discovery algorithm is still the gold standard. Discover Weekly, Daily Mixes, and Radio remain the features users cite most when explaining why they stay. Despite all the complaints, no competitor has matched Spotify's ability to surface music you didn't know you needed.
The cross-device experience is seamless. Starting a playlist on your phone and continuing on a desktop, smart speaker, or TV just works. Users rarely mention this because it's invisible when it functions correctly — but the reviews from users who've tried to replicate it on Apple Music or YouTube Music highlight how genuinely good Spotify's multi-device sync is.
Podcast integration has been a retention driver. Users who consume both music and podcasts appreciate having everything in one place, even if the podcast features themselves attract mixed reviews.
The social features — collaborative playlists, friend activity, Wrapped — create meaningful community touchpoints. Spotify Wrapped in particular has become a cultural moment that no competitor has successfully replicated.
The Complaints — Ranked by Frequency
1. The algorithm pushes podcasts and audiobooks too aggressively. This is the dominant complaint in 2024-2025 reviews. Users who pay for a music subscription describe their Liked Songs radio and recommendation feeds being polluted with podcast recommendations they never asked for. The phrase "I pay for music, not podcasts" appears hundreds of times.
2. Shuffle on free tier is broken by design. Free users know the limitation exists, but the implementation — where shuffle plays the same songs repeatedly rather than genuinely randomising — generates disproportionate anger. Users describe it as dishonest rather than just limited.
3. Music library management is surprisingly primitive. For a 15-year-old product, basic library features are missing or broken. Sorting liked songs, creating smart playlists based on listening patterns, bulk-editing playlists — things that iTunes did in 2005 are still absent from Spotify.
4. Audio quality complaints are growing. As competitors like Tidal and Apple Music have pushed lossless audio, Spotify's delay in rolling out Spotify HiFi has frustrated audiophile users. They're not the majority, but they're vocal and they churn to Apple Music.
5. Price increases without feature improvements. Spotify has raised prices twice in two years. Reviews following each increase show a predictable spike in cancellation intent. Users aren't opposed to paying more — they're opposed to paying more for an app that hasn't meaningfully improved.
6. Lyrics disappear and return inconsistently. Users who use lyrics as a feature — for language learning, karaoke, following along — report lyrics being unavailable for a significant portion of their library with no explanation.
The Pattern Behind the Complaints
Reading through thousands of reviews reveals something interesting: Spotify's users aren't angry at the core product. They're angry at the direction the product is moving.
The complaints cluster around a perceived shift — from "the best music app" to "an entertainment platform that happens to include music." Users who subscribed for music discovery feel like the app is optimising for Spotify's content ambitions rather than their needs.
This is a classic platform tension. Spotify has legitimate business reasons to push podcasts and audiobooks — they're higher-margin and reduce dependency on music label deals. But the users experiencing this shift don't care about Spotify's unit economics.
What Users Want
The feature requests are remarkably consistent:
A music-only mode. A significant number of users explicitly ask for an option to turn off all podcast and audiobook recommendations. They don't want to remove podcasts from the platform — they just want their music recommendations to stay musical.
Better playlist management. Smart playlists, sorting options, duplicate detection, folder organisation. Users want their library to work like a real music collection.
Transparent audio quality settings. Clear labelling of what bitrate is playing, with easy access to quality settings rather than buried menus.
The Opportunity
Spotify's complaints reveal a gap that seems counterintuitive: the world's biggest music app has created an opportunity for a better music app.
Not a podcast platform. Not an audiobook platform. An app that is obsessively focused on music — discovery, library management, audio quality, and personalisation — with a business model that aligns with what users actually want to pay for.
The users aren't leaving Spotify yet. But they're paying attention.
See the full AI analysis of Spotify reviews including the opportunity score: View the Spotify report →