If you are an avid user of Spotify, you may have encountered their recommendations sponsored on the home page, and if you are like me and you have not done it, consider yourself among the lucky ones.
In summary, sponsored recommendations are small emerging windows on their home page that show music suggestions but in the form of an ad, and have been rubbing Spotify users recently, especially those who pay for premium subscriptions.
A recent Reddit publication on sponsored recommendations (see below) obtained more than one hundred answers, with users sharing their thoughts about sponsored recommendations and when and where they appear. Despite not explicitly declare how users can choose not to participate, there is a way to avoid it.
The ads for a service that pays to be added for free is absolutely diabolical. of R/Truespotify
To stop seeing sponsored content, all you have to do is enter Spotify on your desktop (you can’t do this in the application) and go to the ‘account’ section. From there, go to ‘privacy of the account’ and deactivate the ‘custom -measure’ ads, and must be free from sponsored musical suggestions.
While some users do not seem too annoying to see sponsored recommendations, they have proven to be a great detour to others, and those who are not fans have shared three main objections in the previous Reddit thread.
Although some Spotify users in Reddit have been open to sponsored musical recommendations, a common complaint of others is found sponsored by artists with whom they have never committed: Spotify’s classic behavior.
R/truespotify comment
A user (shown above) stressed that the emerging window of sponsored recommendation forced new music to larger artists like Drake and Taylor Swift on their home page, despite the fact that this user has never transmitted his music, which seems a bit presumptuous to say at least.
These recommended slots are evidently reserved for more popular artists who can pay Spotify, resulting in their music is promoted at the expense of rising artists that could otherwise appear in user recommendations. That said, Spotify showed sponsor content of artists that users really follow and transmit, it would not be a big problem.
2. Spotify does not indicate this when you register in Premium
Another argument that Spotify paid users have raised is that when registered for a Spotify membership, it is not mentioned in the registration process that users may have sponsored recommendations.
R/truespotify comment
However, some users have said that they only care about music reproduction without ads, and they say that sponsored recommendations are a reasonable intrusion. On the other hand, others firmly believe that all areas of the Spotify ecosystem, including podcasts and the home page itself, must be free of sponsored content. I keep the last.
If there is one thing in which Spotify fans can agree collectively, it is the importance of supporting smaller artists, which I mentioned above, and users have indicated that the sponsored recommendations expel the next music releases that users have already previously saved and songs of artists who already follow.
However, there is another factor that seems to be linked to how sponsored musical suggestions are presented: Tiktok.
R/truespotify comment
It cannot be denied that the circulation in social networks plays an important role in promoting the new music: take the last album Addison Rae, for example, which is currently doing rounds on social networks, and that is mentioned in Reddit’s publication.
This is something that users have previously expressed disappointment on online, highlighting their experiences with Spotify, crowing their reproduction lists with viral successes and pushing their vertical video content of Tiktok style. Now, it could be possible that viral music is interfering with sponsored recommendations.
Given the number of users who have presented to share their frustration with the sponsored content, it is fair for Spotify to present and address these concerns. That will be a testimony of how much matters to your subscribers, but we all know what the result will be.
