Well, on PC or tablet you always could, but on mobile it was always album random shuffle... and if you created an album of less than N songs, in mobile they added related tracks in the reproduction (radio-spotify like) so it remained not possible to control what you listen...

EDIT: I updated the verb tenses to the fact that now you can in the mobile app chose the song to play

No, you could tap shuffle on an album-by-album basis, or on a Playlist with like 10+ tracks or something.

This is why I never even gave Spotify a chance. It didn’t make sense to me.

Nope. At some point spotify forced FREE users to shuffle play playlists. You couldn't pick which specific song you'll hear first. And with ads, obviously.

I think it depends on whether you used the web interface or mobile app. Mobile app was more restrictive.

Currently, for free users, only PC or tablet allows to control what you listen (caveat occasional ads) but mobile constraints to a shuffle reproduction of albums, and if you dare to do a short album they spice it with additional related tracks, so you are never in control of what is likely to play...

EDIT: well, apparently I can do that also on my mobile app, I remember in the past some glitched occasions bit it seems is real now...

Keep waiting then lol

The mobile application has always had this restriction for free users (as far as I know), but the desktop application has not.

Be happy it was free and ads could probably be blocked.
Would you appreciate it more if they blocked the view of the library like the videostreamers like Netflix or D+ do?

I know it's cool to shit on spotify and streaming services on Lemmy, but personally I disagree. I loved Winamp and had tens of thousands of songs back in the day, downloaded on my zippy 56k dial up connection. But being able to search for and play virtually any song available instantly and share collaborative playlists, no matter where you are, is so much better.

Why would I decide what I like to listen to when am algorithm can do it for me?

YouTube Music allows this, maybe they're losing ad money to them on the people that weren't going to get premium anyway.

I had an account day 1 when Spotify launched in my country. It was such a big deal to me, a person who spent their teens and 20s hoarding music. One service and it was most of the music I wanted. I could sideload my own music and shuffle it all together.

I miss that little app store on the desktop client. You could join shared radio stations and vote on the next track while people wrote to each other in a chat.

Probably ads. It’s always ads.

My theory is, since they’re releasing lossless audio for premium users, they had to make the free version more appealing to the casual user.

I use Musify on Android. (From the F-Droid store) It pulls the music off of YouTube and works pretty well. Save playlists,download individual songs, it has recommendations but u didn't know how they work.

I switched to Qobuz, it's great!

I recommend .

Jokes aside, the only reason I use Spotify is for discovery and the vast catalog (primarily the JP music market).
And I havent seen Qobuz be mentioned in any capacity by japanese artists.

I was looking to try Qobuz, but they didn't like my email domain, so skipped it.

Seen the recommendation plenty of times.

Is it better than TIDAL? I'm interested in switching to either of those, perhaps.

only premium subscribers could pick individual tracks previously

The desktop application (both Windows and Linux) allows free users to pick tracks. The mobile application does not.

me too. I pirate instead now.