3 of the Most Common Customer Complaints About Spotify

With over 293 million subscribers, Spotify is undoubtedly one of the largest music streaming services in the world. However, being the biggest doesn’t mean it’s free of frustrations, and there are plenty of reasons why some users might abandon Spotify altogether. Between unexpected app bugs, confusing subscription issues, and features that don’t always work as advertised, many users have found themselves experiencing inconveniences and even taking to online social media spaces to complain about the current state of the streaming service – with some going so far as to call it horrible.

From complaints about Spotify’s ability to surface new music to comments about how the service always seems to cycle through the same songs even though users have over a thousand options in their playlist, problems with Spotify aren’t exactly uncommon. I’ve even encountered some of my own annoyances with the service over the years I’ve used it. As more users flock to Spotify and the service continues to offer new features, these complaints evolve and even increase. So below we highlight some of the most common complaints reported by users in recent times.

One of the biggest complaints that comes up online when discussing Spotify is how the service’s shuffle feature tends to be spotty. One user posted on Reddit, complaining that despite having 1,500 songs in a playlist, he felt like he was hearing the same 30 songs five days a week while on the go. Others have commented on how the shuffle feature seems inferior to other apps, like Apple Music and even Deezer, noting that when they press a shuffle button, they don’t expect to hear the same songs multiple times.

The good news is that some users have reported finding a solution to this particular complaint. What many Premium users recommend is to head over to Settings > Playback > Turn off Smart Shuffle and turn it on Fewer repetitions option, which the company introduced to the platform in 2025. The bad news is that not everyone has had the same success with this change. While some say this has significantly improved their shuffle experience, others have noted that these features are already selected and they keep hearing the same songs over and over again. I can confirm that enabling Fewer Repeats doesn’t always guarantee that the shuffle feature will actually be better, as I’ve had the option enabled for months and haven’t really noticed a positive difference compared to before enabling it.

This is a bug I encountered myself a few months ago, and it was quite frustrating to deal with. Essentially, this bug causes users with a Spotify Premium subscription to continue to receive ads even if they have an active subscription plan. I’m also not the only person to have encountered this problem. Complaints emerged online, with users noting that Basic plan subscribers were receiving ads during playback, with some users not even allowed to choose individual songs even if they had Premium.

Although one of the largest and most recent outages of this type has been resolved and Spotify informed users of this resolution on its forums, the fact that this has happened to several users over the years shows how possible such a situation is. When this happens, Spotify offers a few troubleshooting steps you can try, like logging out and back in, but there’s no guarantee of a solution. In my case, even removing myself from the family plan and adding myself back did not solve the problem.

One of the other major complaints seen across online platforms regarding Spotify concerns the service’s recommendations. The problem here seems to be a double-edged sword, as some users have complained that the recommendations only provide content like covers of songs they already have in their library, while others complain that they only see the same songs and bands appear in their recommendations no matter what they are looking for, making it difficult to find new tracks to fall in love with.

These types of complaints have persisted, although sometimes in different ways, for years. And even as Spotify continues to introduce new features like an AI-powered DJ system and its various Discover-based playlists, many feel that the recommendations aren’t as good as they should be, with Discover playlists often only including songs already saved in the user’s library. Some have even complained that Spotify’s algorithm and the way it handles recommendations has ruined their Spotify Wrapped, because those aren’t actually the songs they like; these are just the songs that Spotify continues to provide them.

However, not everyone feels this way, as some users note that recommendations on Spotify have helped them significantly improve their music tastes. When I started using the service, I was able to diversify a lot and very quickly. However, now that my favorite songs are well over 4,000 tracks, Spotify seems to have a harder time recommending new things to me that I haven’t heard, unless they are complete new releases.