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How bad is your Spotify?

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Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#491

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

Alupis wrote: post #447
CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pandora is only available in the U.S. right now – but we are working on bringing our music service to other parts of the world. I guess Spotify is still the only game in town :(

I didn't realize Pandora was region locked - what a bummer! The rest of the comment still stands for all US based users, however.

Spotify is too, just not as drastically. I opened an account in Prague and found when I got to the US that it wouldn't play anything. Curious how they knew I wasn't in CZ anymore, yet instead of just letting me play the US version, it wouldn't let me play anything.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#492

Post by Alupis »

DrSiemer wrote: post #487
Alupis wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Pandora in the web browser?

The browsers RAM usage and the challenge of finding it among the often many tabs and windows come to mind.

Eh, does the RAM usage of a single browser window even matter on modern systems?

Anecdata, but I open Pandora in it's own window, then minimize it. This makes it pretty easy to find if you have a hundred+ tabs open at once like I often find myself with.

I currently have 44 tabs open, including Pandora in it's own window, and Chrome is only using ~2GB of RAM - perfectly acceptable to me.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#494

Post by RogerL »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Speaking for myself? Content. Philip Glass has 27 albums on Pandora, 105 on Spotify. Nico Mulhy? 7 vs 14. Maarja Nuut. Only 1 album on Pandora. For her, Pandora makes no recommendations for others to listen to, Spotify lists 20. Pandora has no bio, Spotify does. Third Coast Percussion? 8 vs 10. I'm just randomly clicking in my library and doing a comparison, they aren't artfully chosen examples.

I recognize this isn't mainstream listening, and for all I know the ratios are reversed for more popular music.

I found the Pandora choices of songs annoying. I love Philip Glass; I don't want to listen to a bunch of other people playing triplets against eighths. It's derivative and boring in comparison. I do want to listen to his contemporaries that compose in different ways. Or let's take Nuut again. I came across her recently while surveying contemporary Estonian composers. Pandora doesn't let me do that so far as I can tell. I'm interested in what is going on there compositionally over the last 2 decades, I am not looking for another person that writes something that is very 'similar" (according to the Pandora algorithms).

Finally, I never use shuffle. So much of what i listen to are

I understand my use case is not the only one, but neither is yours! People select different apps because they provide what the person wants.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#495

Post by kick_in_the_dro »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Spotify is great, people on HN like to complain.

Aside from having nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free, their recommendations have helped me find a lot of great songs. I don't personally listen to the curated playlists but many of my friends love them.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#496

Post by mike_d »

Alupis wrote: post #475
mike_d wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify won the same way Dropbox and Slack did. They didn't invent anything magical, they just had a client for every platform that worked when people tried it. Like web apps? Here you go. Linux nerd? Here is a deb repo. Have a smartphone? Cool, we don't care what kind. Even now I googled "Pandora windows app", clicked a few times, and ended up on some Microsoft Store page. Interestingly enough if I add "mac" to my s…

What's wrong with Pandora in the web browser?

That is like asking "What is wrong with driving across town to pick up your Amazon purchases?"

If you are in a highly competitive space that is effectively winner take all - you go where your customers want to be, not where your developers think they should be.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#497

Post by thr0w__4w4y »

sk5t wrote: post #39
dx87 wrote: post #30

I was hoping it was a questionnaire about how bad Spotify recommendations are. I have no idea why Spotify feels the need to clutter my recommendations with radio stations like "Rap Caviar" and "Music for when you know you're the bad bitch", meanwhile it doesn't show me new releases for music I actually listen to because of all the irrelevant suggestions taking up space. I ended up creating a new account because appar…

Spotify really wants people to listen to podcasts... it's oh so much easier to wedge some advertising into podcasts.

You're right, but I'm grateful anyway. I used to listen to Joe Rogan's podcast sometimes (on Overcast, which is awesome)... since he moved to the vastly inferior Spotify platform, I don't listen to him at all. The platform is pure shit for podcasts, so I've cut Rogan out of my life, and saved many hours per week in the process. Not that his $100M is going to notice my absence!

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#498

Post by lvturner »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Pandora restricted access for me when I was living in the UK years a go and I could no longer access it. (I don’t know if this is the case) Spotify won for me by default, as I can actually access it.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#499

Post by thr0w__4w4y »

Might have missed the point of the site here (just speculating) -- I got a lot of sarcastic criticism (hey cool, I don't care) but not a single suggestion. Spotify has helped me find lots of music that I like. This site didn't.

Fuck this site.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#500

Post by damontal »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

I bit the bullet and just subscribe to both. Pandora for discovery and radio and Spotify for specific listening.
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