There is no puzzle here, they are 100% trying to force people to use the app. I suspect this is because it is much more likely people will pay for subscriptions since the app is severely limited, especially in comparison to the web/desktop version. IIRC you can't even see the songs in a playlist and it's fixed on shuffle for the mobile version.
I don't know what you're referring to here. In general you've always been able to see the songs in a playlist by pressing it. The big play button is shuffle, which is annoying, but pressing the first track will play the whole album/playlist in order (unless you've turned on shuffle already).
I do agree that the UI could be better and their data seems to be a complete mess[1] but it generally works really well for my everyday needs.
[1] I recently went to a big artist's page and clicked the list of their top tracks. After a few tracks it started playing tracks by a different unknown artist with their own page but the same name.
This was the case until a few weeks ago. Now it plays the tracks in order and there is an extra shuffle button. (Allegedly requested by Adele.)
This is distinct from discovery features, like starting a radio based on a playlist, which I actually enjoy using.
As someone who works on an app that has both mobile and desktop/web - doing visual stuff on the desktop/web can be quite hard unless you have top notch frontend people, while for mobile, it’s much simpler.
You can do both, though the 2nd one is a bit hidden (and to be fair, shuffle fits more the mobile experience)
My mother on the other hand uses Spotify on the PC connected to her TV in the living room or on her phone with headphones and mostly uses shuffle in both modes.
Can you explain the logic behind this? I don't want shuffle play unless I specifically ask for it, and that's independent of whether I'm on mobile, desktop app or browser-based. And it's certainly a pain to turn off on mobile now (the latest change seems to turn it on by default, which I'm not a fan of).
As an aside, I think the recent update to the Spotify app is a mess, and they seem to remove features (such as not wanting suggested songs in a generated playlist) at a whim.
You don't want to hear a playlist at the same order each time? I'm surprised people are questioning this.
Now if I go to an album on the mobile player it does default to the album order (i.e. not shuffle).