Spotify’s new direct messaging feature shows a lack of care for users’ wants and safety.
Have you ever had the desire to directly implant your favorite songs into your friends’ brain stem? Well, here’s good news for you Spotify is introducing direct messaging to their app. So on top of sending the track through iMessage, Instagram, Twitter or even a concert clip on TikTok, you now have yet another line of communication to annoy your friends.
In all seriousness, this puzzling addition begs the question – would in-app discussion really change the way we talk about music? Despite what Spotify would like you to believe, the answer to that question is not actually the core of the issue surrounding this new feature.
The real question is of the state of Spotify’s platform – from ongoing demands from fans for a higher quality listening experience (which they have recently announced to be working on, possibly in response to the mixed reactions towards direct messaging) and their ongoing AI music and botting problems, casual users and experts alike can agree that there is more important work to be done than adding a seemingly useless feature it appears only a minority of users asked for.
This move from the Swedish-based company reflects two growing trends from large companies: first, and perhaps the longest-existing, is that of blatantly ignoring the demands from their users. Beyond the two examples mentioned previously, users have historically complained of app-breaking bugs, frustrating algorithms and outrageous pricing for their tier subscription model.
If you’ve ever had a problem while using Spotify, take a minute to look it up; you will undoubtedly come across multiple unresolved support threads on their own website describing a similar, if not the same, issue.
I’ve come across many as a long-term paying user of the platform – why does it take endless fiddling to make locally uploaded files work? But, yes, instead of major bug patches and quality of life updates, what we need right now is direct messaging.
The second, and more alarming trend, is the poor moderation of social interaction online. Privacy is a double-edged sword when it comes to direct messaging. Although one-on-one interaction is appealing to many, such conversations being inaccessible to general users causes the chances for abuse to skyrocket – especially when moderation isn’t up to par.
Spotify has already had issues with moderating its own platform. The company faced a scandal earlier this year when X-rated podcasts were topping the charts even though such content is banned on the platform. Taking a look at a similar situation where all caution is thrown to the wind when it comes to moderation, the Roblox predator issue, this fact goes from concerning to alarming.
The child-centric platform has had longstanding issues with online dating and grooming, inappropriate public avatars and an infamously poor (nonexistent, really) response from a multitude of representatives for the gaming platform. Users’ safety should be a number one priority of any platform, and with worrying details, such as a 16+ restriction absent of any information on how it will be enforced, the future of this addition seems grim.
This is the bottom line: We have seen how disastrous poorly-moderated social features have gone in the past, and with clear signs pointing to a weakness in Spotify’s own enforcement of safety, I am extremely worried about the consequences of direct messaging in the app.
From a commercial aspect, I can understand the desire to make the app more inclined to socialization. The science behind social media shows that we become addicted to it extremely easily – why wouldn’t a large corporation want to get in on that? However, I believe there are much better ways to go about doing this while taking into account users’ desires.
Spotify was on the right track when they added an in-house playlist cover creator, albeit with an intrusive AI component, allowing for a convenient way to partake in a tradition dating back to cassette tapes. There’s also the existing commenting feature on podcast episodes, which could easily be ported to actual music and pushed to the forefront of users’ feeds. Another existing feature that could be better utilized is the social feed – an opt-in experience that allows you to see your friends current and recently listened songs, though it is extremely well hidden.
Finally, a proposed feature I am personally a big fan of would be advanced profile customization. This would take after popular music-sharing apps like Airbuds, which features unique tools to tailor your profile and easily share the music you love without the need for direct messaging.
Ultimately, the potential for Spotify to become a music sharing platform rather than just music listening platform is most definitely there, it just doesn’t start with direct messaging.
