Remember when subscribing to artists would give you alerts for when they released new content? It was a fantastic way of keeping up with new music. For me it was a killer feature. They replaced it with the terrible "Release Radar" playlist that shows a small sample of whatever this week's ML algo recommends. It's garbage.

For me it usually does what you describe. When opening the application it shows me the new release of an artist I follow if it finds one.

Following an artist works fine for me. Perhaps check your communication preferences? Maybe you've disabled emails or notifications about new releases from artists you follow.

Probably they did the math and found that that feature wasn't delivering enough value or cost too much to maintain.

In comparison, Release Radar is an easy win; all the ML is already there.

similar for me, very long time premium subscriber and it is extremely annoying how seemingly all the "improvements" over the years have been nothing I cared about while features I actually found useful have been removed

I stay a subscriber because of (1) the size of the catalog and (2) the 'discover weekly' constantly delivers me new songs/bands that I thoroughly enjoy and would never have discovered on my own

Same here. I'm contemplating unsubing and my first thought was to look if there is a tool to download my discover weekly archive. I have an IFTT applet that adds the weekly playlist to an archive so I can listen to it later. Over 900 songs that I still haven't checked/catalogued.

Unfortunately, Spotify has reached a point where there's a potential (possibly even real, but I'm not in any position to know) higher return in monetizing existing users over improving the experience in order to gain new users or make sure they keep whatever miniscule number of users who'd otherwise leave over a lack of updates and improvements (or even a gradual loss of 'minor' features). Spotify is good enough for a vast majority, such that they just won't leave. Then there are other factors like network effects and the power of the default that are far more effective (if your friends are on it, you're much more likely to stay) in keeping users captured to their platform.

They lose more money and more if you actually use the service. Since they’re a publicly traded company now, they’re probably being pressured to keep earning more and more money each year.

That's true. They have a perverse incentive to reduce music played time or interaction with their service while still preserving one as a customer. I hadn't thought of that.

I tend to agree. Take their lyrics feature for example—imagine if Netflix showed subtitles, but then obscured them with “interesting facts” at random times, and that they were missing altogether from most of their selection.

One feature I loved when I first joined Spotify was syncing two devices to play in sync. Wouldn't that be a game changer to have back. RIP Sonos.

Really miss that feature as well. It's a real shame it was removed.