# Spotify 299 Hacker News commenters recommended Spotify and 732 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 10 years (30 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for its huge catalog, strong music discovery and apps that work on every device, though critics say recommendations get repetitive and artists are poorly paid. ## Why people recommend it - Great music discovery (10 comments): "I've never really had good luck with the artist radio, but I've found a lot of music I like by starting at a band I like and going through the Related Artists." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48229858)) "I'm pretty happy with Spotify. When I want to discover new music, I pick an artist I like and start the artist radio. I always get good new recommendations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48229668)) "Spotify recommending new music to me or continuing to play music suggestions when my playlist runs out is in no way harmful. It improves my life." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49357585)) - Nearly everything is available (4 comments): "I am stunned how much music is on Spotify. I'm not here to say that Spotify is perfect, but I can almost never find something that isn't available on Spotify." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48965067)) "Most people do not experience major holes in the Spotify catalog and are perfectly well satisfied by the breadth of the catalog." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932680)) "nearly everything available on CD, at any time, as often as they wished, for $7/month they would have been ecstatic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46740656)) - Works on any device (4 comments): "something like Spotify works just as well, as long as they do a great job of maintaining to-the-second sync across devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48772882)) "I have my own fair share complaints of Spotify UX but it actually works as a music player anywhere and everywhere." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49532133)) "Spotify still stands alone by being set-and-forget, working on any device and having full feature support." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46267883)) - Easy playlist sharing with friends (3 comments): "They also have a feature that lets you build and mix playlists together with others, not my personal speed but adds to the stickiness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49527849)) "I access my friends' playlists and they access mine. Spotify lets you do exactly what you're describing, only faster and easier." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48937012)) "If I want to make a playlist for someone, 95% of people I know use Spotify, so I need to have Spotify." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49527140)) ## What people warn about - Repetitive algorithmic recommendations (4 comments): "Spotify stopped having humans curate their playlists back in like 2016 or 2018 and the subsequent ML algorithms always recommend the same sounding stuff" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49578143)) "It floods my pages with "created for you" which is just the same 4-5 artists played in the last few weeks ago kludged together into a playlist." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49521975)) "Artist radios almost inevitably become a mix of songs I’ve listened to the most that have even the faintest crossover with the artist genre." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48230002)) - Artists are poorly paid (3 comments): "Spotify (and Apple Music and Amazon Music and probably others) have chosen a business model in which consumers can listen to basically everything and yet artists do not get paid." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48941248)) "First and foremost, I feel like Spotify is scummy. I don't like what they did when they were founded, I don't like what they do to artists." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47782736)) "If Spotify royalties were allocated fairly a scheme like this shouldn't be able to pull more money out than the subscriptions put in." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012776)) - Filler and AI music in playlists (3 comments): "Spotify actually commissioned artists to produce fairly generic songs for the highly played but passively listened to background noise playlists" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47979832)) "services like Spotify that are removing real songs from "mood" playlists and replacing them with AI music that directs royalties toward Spotify" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48719616)) "They were caught flooding their own playlists with specially for them produced Garbage Music for which they don't have to pay royalties" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344821)) - Cluttered, slower app (2 comments): "Spotify's whole UI is far too complicated and I wish they would go the Facebook route of breaking out the separate products into separate apps." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47385694)) "Earlier this year an update to their mobile app introduced loading time, and resulting slowness, for opening menus that used to be ~instant." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49579548)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Apple Music](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-music.md): 131 recommend - [Tidal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tidal.md): 48 recommend - [Qobuz](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qobuz.md): 31 recommend - [Pandora](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pandora.md): 29 recommend - [Deezer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/deezer.md): 22 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://open.spotify.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Spotify", https://hackerapproved.com/p/spotify/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).