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The Spotify music streaming service is a playlist-oriented music streaming service offering music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Supports offline playback
Spotify enables premium users to mark a playlist to be available offline on their desktop or mobile clients. This allows Spotify to act as a user's primary media player even when no internet connection is available.
Pro Has good tools to help you find new music based on your tastes
Radio stations can be created from playlists and albums that will queue similar music. Discover Weekly Playlist provides amazing personalized playlists. Discover Weekly is a playlist based on your listening behavior and your starred music inside the starred playlist. It is updated on Monday every week.
Pro Social music discovery
Spotify allows users to easily browse the music collections of their Facebook friends and share music. It also has an influencer follow system in place that allows following certain people and get their recommendations. Spotify allows creating, subscribing to and sharing playlists.
Pro Available on virtually every major platform
The Spotify music streaming service is available on all major desktop operating systems - Windows, macOS and Linux, it's accessible from the web and Spotify is supported on almost all mobile platforms including iOS (dedicated iPhone and iPad apps), Android, Windows Phone, Symbian and Blackberry.
The mobile application supports syncing local files from the desktop client via Wi-Fi, offline playback and playlist syncing.
Spotify also supports a number of Hi-Fi systems such as Sonos, Squeezebox and Boxee so you can easily stream music to anywhere in your house.
Pro Generous free music streaming service
Spotify allows access to virtually all of its catalogue for free. The free plan has certain important limitation and includes ads, but is one of the very rare ones offering access to the catalogue of all major labels without requiring a subscription.
Pro Supports wireless streaming to other devices
Spotify is leading the pack when it comes to streaming its service to other devices. From AppleCarPlay using AirPlay to Play-Fi and Sonos systems.
Pro Stable service through P2P networking
Spotify utilizes peer-to-peer networking to reduce server and network strain and offer a stable service.
Pro Client's functionality can be extended via third-party apps
Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm.
Pro Huge collection of music and fast access to newly released songs
Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music.
The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists.
Pro Has a free version
A free, ad-supported account allows streaming from an extensive library of music.
Pro Android Client is easily modded to give all premium perks to a free account
Pro Social network integration
Spotify is the largest social network music service. Facebook integration allows users to follow their friends and see what they are listening to even in real time. Of course Spotify allows you to hide your music activity as well but by default music history is shared.
Cons
Con Free plan has very annoying audio ads
Expect to hear a 15 second audio ad after every song. This can become aggravating pretty quickly.
Con Disliking a song is a fairly ineffective as a tool to tailor music to your preferences
Spotify gives you the option to "dislike" a song which is supposed to tailor the music to your preferences. However it is limited to that specific radio station and that specific version of the song. You will still hear a song you've "disliked" on other stations and if the same song is played from a different album, or different edition of an album, your "dislike" will have no impact.
Con Severe skipping issues on Android
For some users, the Android app skips like an old CD player, even for downloaded tracks, using wired headphones, and with all settings turned down. Googling around shows that this issue has been unresolved since at least 2013. The suggested fix on the community page of deleting the app and manually deleting all caches is involved and often unsuccessful.
Con No ability to play specific song in free plan
The free version on mobile doesn't allow you to play a specific song, instead playing a "radio" playlist.
Con Search is terrible
It regularly doesn't find things that you yet can find when you search them via Google, it doesn't allow for fuzzy search ("did you mean "mad professor" instead of "mad proffesor"?) and it distinguishes between songs, albums and artists in a way that seems autistic.
Con Library has a 10k song or album limit
The limitation includes the Premium account as well. Along with having the 10K limit, there is no warning when you are near that amount. When you add albums/songs after that point, they won't be added.
Con Spotify Connect can only play the last 100 songs in a shuffled playlist
Spotify Connect lets you control playback from multiple devices. If Spotify detects other Spotify Connect devices, then a large playlist on shuffle will only ever play the last one hundred tracks, regardless of the size of the playlist.
Con They re-record many oldies
If you like oldies from the billboard charts and want to hear the original recording, this is not the music service for you. They do this to save money. This is why some quit this service.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Pro Radio stations allow discovering new music
Radio stations can be created from playlists and albums that will queue similar music.
Pro Discover Weekly Playlist provides amazing personalized playlists
Discover Weekly is a playlist based on your listening behavior and your starred music inside the starred playlist. It is updated on Monday every week.
Pro Built-in lyrics
Spotify integrates with Musixmatch to provide lyrics based on the track you are currently listening to. Musixmatch is a community based lyrics website, which means anyone can contribute to the lyrics.
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con Discovery is terrible
The discovery algorithm is poor and does not learn fast enough. Not obvious how to train it. (Spotify fixed this in its latest ui refresh update)
Con Web version requires Flash
Spotify's web app still depends on Flash. With Flash being phased out of web browsers due to security concerns (Safari already blocks Flash and Chrome plans to turn it off by default in fourth quarter of 2016), the need for Spotify to switch their web app to HTML5 is becoming increasingly pressing.
Con Can needlessly strain your network
Spotify utilizes peer-to-peer networking to reduce server and network strain. By using the service's app in online mode, you are allowing yourself to become a part of a node in their network. This can chew through uploads and place limitations on personal network bandwidth.