Spotify made much of their work model - completely autonomous teams working on whatever they thought was most important. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the reasons their app sucks is because of that. User interfaces don't really work when designed by committees.
Downloads gone after every update, downloaded albums in your favourite songs list, Chromecast integration spotty. The list goes on and on. That's what you get for 10-ish $ a month.
Most of their effort now seems to be driven by saving them money, hence the big podcast push. Every time you listen to a podcast instead of music costs them less money so their profit from you goes up.
