Global hotkeys no longer global?

E.g. when spotify is playing in background, I can only use the play/pause button when spotify is active. it didn't use to be like that. same goes for other applications with sound playing.

any idea how to fix it in win11?

Try the suggestions in this article Keyboard shortcuts and Hotkeys are not working in Windows 11/10

This problem seems to affect others as well, You might take the time to open the feedback hub and report it, or upvote one of the other complaints there.

Yeah, sumpthin weird goin on there...,
used to work when we had the Desktop OSD...



now you have to open the now playing thing...



... hotkey seems to work only for the app that has mouse focus...,
I program mouse buttons!