--- title: "Spotify's Time Capsule Change and the Enshittification of Software" description: "Spotify just removed one of its best features. Beyond a bit of complaining, I want to open a debate about what software is turning into." pubDate: 2026-09-2 tags: ["software", "life"] --- import ObservationCard from '../../../components/ObservationCard.tsx' There I was, the other day, listening to music on **Spotify**. I usually listen to other things, but at that moment my queue was full of American pop, **one of my momentary hyperfixations**. So I decided to open the time capsule in the app to find out exactly how many hours I'd spent listening to _Justin Bieber_ and _Taylor Swift_. That's when I saw something had changed after the app's latest update: the **"Time Capsule"** section had been replaced by a new feature called **"Music Stats."** # What it used to be **The Time Capsule was amazing.** You could see the songs you'd listened to most that month, the artists who'd been with you the most, and a few fun facts, like _"you listened to The Fate of Ophelia 5 times on such-and-such day."_ It was really good, and one of the best parts was posting a card Spotify gave you to Instagram at the end of every month, showing off that info. It was perfect. Not too bloated, not too minimal either. You could even **look back through a history** of every previous month. # What it became Instead of being broken down by month, the section is now broken down by week. Sounds like a small detail, but it just **ruins the whole experience**. Not only can I no longer see previous months, it also makes for a terrible Instagram recap. But there's something worse: they also threw in a **USELESS** feature to invite friends into a group so everyone can see what everyone else is listening to. **Nothing but bloat.** # Why are they doing this? Honestly, this kind of update **seems to be a trend** across platforms and SaaS products in general. They cram in a feature **absolutely nobody asked for**, and users just end up adapting. It seems to come from some need to make everything feel cooler, more practical, more intuitive. But it ends up having the opposite effect. Some things should just embrace minimalism. **It's better for everyone, you know?** # Alternatives? For a while now I've been following a kind of **"de-modernization"** movement, a **return to the roots**. There seem to be people out there willing to drop all these trends and go back to a time **when everything felt better**. What about actually owning your music instead of renting it, using platforms like _Tidal_ or _Qobuz_, for example? Going back to organizing MP3s into folders, scraping album covers yourself... it does sound interesting, I won't lie. It's something I'm considering doing. **Piracy is also an option.** For a long time, people downloaded their music from shady sites. I won't get too much into it, but anyone who lived through that era must remember **how much better things were**. Unfortunately, I'm too young to have had experiences like that. # Anyway... They could have just left it as it was, or added this new update as a separate section. That way we'd at least have had the option to say no. But what can you do, right? I think it's fair to be disappointed with the direction we're heading in, and to look for a different stance to take. I'm just giving my opinion, you're under no obligation to agree.