Thankfully, at least for now, the rules for who you can message within Spotify are somewhat stringent. (That means no spammers asking for money through song—yet.) As of this writing, you can only message someone with whom you’ve previously shared content, according to TechCrunch. That applies to anyone sharing a Family or Duo plan, and extends to users whose jams or blends you’ve previously joined, or with whom you’ve shared a collaborative playlist. At least anyone who made the playlist for their office or a party and doesn’t want a bunch of strangers sending them songs can relax a bit. You’ll have to approve anyone who wants to message you, and can disable the whole update in your privacy settings if you want.
Spotify has always stabbed around at being a social app. For years, users have been able to follow their friends and see what they’re listening to at any given moment. (Side note: you can turn that off too in your privacy settings.) The platform also recently added the ability to comment on podcasts and last year, per TechCrunch, a Spotify VP “didn’t deny” the idea that the feature could one day be coming to songs as well.
Anyone upset about that prospect would just be adding on to the pile of frustration already coming at the streaming platform from multiple fronts. Spotify recently inked a new partnership with music publisher Kobalt in a bid to help songwriters, which is all well and good, but the move comes after multiple Grammy-nominated songwriters boycotted the app’s award celebration last year over a new bundling strategy they said drastically decreased their royalties. In recent months, artists including Deerhoof, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, and more have also left the platform, citing CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in an AI defense software company. But hey, you can now send songs you like directly to your crush!
