It makes complete sense that Spotify would chase after TikTok.
TikTok is what all the youngsters are into and so naturally each main model is out right here attempting to seize a slice of that extremely sought-after market, however Spotify’s new redesign that includes movies and a vertical scroll that mimics the wildly-popular social media app prefered by Gen-Z is certain to fail simply as definitely as Spotify is certain to attempt it anyway. We have seen this story play out a thousand instances earlier than, and it would not get any much less unhappy with repetition.
It is the type of factor that’s so transparently lame that Gen-Z is certain to shrug it off if it would not downright snigger at it, and all Spotify is doing within the try is risking alienating the individuals who really use the music service.
I am not saying that Spotify can not attempt one thing new, it completely ought to, however let’s put the emphasis on new.
Youngsters aren’t going to make use of a boomer music app
Whether or not it is Instagram or Spotify, each legacy tech firm is just about having a midlife disaster proper now and shopping for the proverbial sports activities automotive considering that that is what’s going to make them younger and interesting once more, and TikTok is completely in charge.
There’s one thing a few new app approaching the scene to steal away the hearts and minds and display time of a extremely fascinating 12-to-18 demographic to make a legacy app query itself. Apps, like folks, hate to really feel just like the instances have handed them by.
I, too, have felt the sting of not being the younger millennial that appeared to know what all the newest tendencies had been. However the one factor worse than listening to 1996’s Doom get known as a Boomer Shooter by a 14 year-old is speaking to that 14 year-old like I used to be considered one of their cohort.
And that is what all these tech firms pivoting to TikTokify themselves are doing, at its core, and youngsters can sniff the poser stink off the hassle from half a world away. Gen Z is wedded to TikTok, and no firm is shaking them, irrespective of how a lot they struggle.
Change is nice, however not like this
There’s completely nothing unsuitable with shaking issues up, and redesigns might be nice. New UI experiences can streamline a service and provides your person base extra of what it needs, and there is all the time the attract of a brand new look.
Spotify even has an actual purpose to make wanted adjustments. It is expanded nicely past simply being a music streaming app, and UI adjustments are positively warranted consequently.
However change must be pushed by want, and a completely new redesign must emerge from the wants of the prevailing person base, not from an try and seize one other one fully. I can inform you that loads of present customers are going to completely hate the brand new design, and so they may head elsewhere. Apple Music is not pulling this type of factor.
So all Spotify is doing is risking present customers to decorate itself up just like the Steve Buscemi meme.
Change wants to return from inside if it should work
The strangest factor about the entire obsession with TikTok is that there are many social media and tech firms that have already got extremely sturdy manufacturers as it’s.
As a lot as we have tried to get away from it in latest months, there actually is nothing like Twitter on the market, and Spotify has an equally sturdy model ID. Why threat throwing that away simply to be a TikTok clone that Zoomers can level at whereas rolling their eyes from the again seat of the automotive?
Spotify ought to work inside that construction to seek out the wanted change it is going to inevitably must introduce, since that’s finally what has the very best probability of success. No, you may not win over the Gen Z crowd, however Spotify was by no means going to do this.
Construct a powerful sufficient model and finally many Gen Zers may find yourself migrating to Spotify over time when TikTok not serves their wants — or when another upstart app hits the scene and wins over no matter Gen Z’s youthful siblings are known as and TikTok upends its whole interface to chase after that apps viewers.
Hopefully, by then, Spotify and different tech manufacturers can have discovered to age gracefully like the remainder of us.
Discussion about this post