I hit Spotify’s 10,000-song limit on My Music this week. I have strong feelings, which I would have written here, if Chris Welch hadn’t already done such a great job expressing exactly how I feel.
This is not a beautiful constraint. This is a limit which only stifles, instead of inspiring creative problem solving.
The next time you consider imposing a restriction, first think about what it’s for. If it’s for limiting your most interested, and perhaps vocal/influential, customers, think twice. Since we’re picking on Spotify today, I’ll continue to use them as the example. Spotify tests features by pushing them to some, then all users. This is not an unusual way to roll out software interface changes. What drives me crazy is when I adopt a feature wholeheartedly, only to find out Spotify has discontinued it, and it’s always without warning, or notification, or even a blog post explaining why. All the messages I’ve sent to friends through the Spotify platform, sharing songs and leading to music discovery? Gone.
Google does the same thing with entire products, but it’s handled appropriately. Google+ is about to go away. But we’ve known about it for months. And there’s an easy way to download all of your data.
Come on Spotify, don’t make me move to Google Music.
This is not a beautiful constraint. This is a limit which only stifles, instead of inspiring creative problem solving.
The next time you consider imposing a restriction, first think about what it’s for. If it’s for limiting your most interested, and perhaps vocal/influential, customers, think twice. Since we’re picking on Spotify today, I’ll continue to use them as the example. Spotify tests features by pushing them to some, then all users. This is not an unusual way to roll out software interface changes. What drives me crazy is when I adopt a feature wholeheartedly, only to find out Spotify has discontinued it, and it’s always without warning, or notification, or even a blog post explaining why. All the messages I’ve sent to friends through the Spotify platform, sharing songs and leading to music discovery? Gone.
Google does the same thing with entire products, but it’s handled appropriately. Google+ is about to go away. But we’ve known about it for months. And there’s an easy way to download all of your data.
Come on Spotify, don’t make me move to Google Music.
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