Listen, TikTok is great and all, but not everything needs to be TikTok. Here’s looking at you, Spotify.
As Mashable’s Elena Cavender covered, Spotify is rolling out a new home feed that features small snippets of vertical video that take over the entire screen. Basically, it’s a version of TikTok’s FYP. The new feature from Spotify has left lots of folks asking something quite simple: Why?
Spotify is a music streaming app and a wildly popular one, at that. Is there really any demand for it to morph into TikTok? Does anyone want to open the app and endlessly scroll through snippets of music videos and podcasts? Or do we want to — hear me out — listen to music in a convenient manner.
Lots of people online openly questioned this decision from Spotify.
Spotify, by most any metric — well, besides actually getting money in the hands of artists — is a beloved and popular music streaming app. People go bonkers sharing their listening habits on Spotify at the end of each year. Taste in music is so personal, and Spotify has done a good job of feeding people the music they love. I suppose you could argue that the new feed is aimed at making folks become more engaged and help them find new music. But Spotify’s algorithm already does a nice job of suggesting songs. It feels like a pivot to video, a way to force more eyeballs on your app and battle TikTok, which has a chokehold on the music industry.
Of course, other apps like Instagram have tried to battle TikTok and flopped in the process. It’s quite hard to duplicate the algorithm of TikTok. Nobody was clamoring for Spotify’s version of an FYP. But you’re going to get it, nonetheless.
