Live data from Hacker News

Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

news.cornell.edu

71–80 of 660 posts

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to keep deleting my Spotify account because my recommendations kept getting contaminated with music genres I didn't like that were impossible to get rid of. Listening to the wrong song two times could irrevocably ruin my recommendations. I would have very much liked a dislike button, or at least a "forget everything you think you know about me"-button. Now it ended up with me getting rid of Spotify, because of…

I keep hearing from people how good is Spotify "Discovery" playlist. I've been a paid customer for 5+ years and their recommendations have a hit rate of 2%. I listen to a lot of different genres, artists, mostly dictated by my mood. Today it was some easy Dire Straits song, yesterday QOTSA, the other day some psytrance. So Spotify recommends all genres in the same playlist, creating an awful cacophony of songs that d…

Same here. I like Christopher Tin (e.g. Baba Yetu) and therefore for 6 years I've had no way to tell Spotify I don't like 8-bit video game music.

No amount of skipping or "I don't like this artist" seems to convince Spotify to stop offering me variations of 8-bit Tetris themes or MULTIPLE 8-bit Cowboy Bebop Tank! theme variations per every single Discover Weekly. I'd be thrilled to even get a 2% hit rate on music I like.

Seriously Spotify: two separate "Tank!" versions per Discover Weekly is too many.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#72

I'll never use Spotify again. My account was hacked by a latino and now my recommendations is 100% latin music. They told me there is nothing they can do to fix this. My recommendations are broken and my only option is to create another account, cancel my subscription, buy it again... Not gonna happen.

It happened to me with someone that loves Simple Plan. I only noticed in those end-of-the-year lists that Spotify prepares. A bunch of Simple Plan stuff on most played tracks.

I changed my password and it took me almost an year of listening to my songs to Spotify stop recommending me Simple Plan and similars.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#73
post #36

I'll never use Spotify again. My account was hacked by a latino and now my recommendations is 100% latin music. They told me there is nothing they can do to fix this. My recommendations are broken and my only option is to create another account, cancel my subscription, buy it again... Not gonna happen.

I keep getting recommended German music. I'm not German.

Listening to metal gets a lot of recommendations for me in languages I don't understand much of. You would think Spotify would have a way to not change languages between songs at least.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#74
This is the #2 feature I most want in every music streaming app

(The feature I most want is an interface for tweaking the rec algo to my liking - at minimum, for being able to crank up its adventurousness. Rec algos are depressingly conservative as a rule, I guess because most customers are the kind of people who eat at McDonald's when they travel abroad, stay at package resorts, and complain movies have gone to shit because they can't find anything they like on Netflix or Hulu)

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#75
post #43

Mi problema con Spotify es que cuando le hackeo la cuenta a un gringo y escucho mi música, a este le molestan las recomendaciones latinas y despues de un tiempo deja de pagar la cuenta.

How do you even handle this? You can't both be listening music at the same time. Are you sure the gringo doesn't stop paying because he keeps having his playback stopped?

It was a joke referencing another comment in this thread, but it got flagged, so it was probably coinsidered bad taste.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#76
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a service where I can upload my own files and easily access them from a player interface in the browser, mobile, etc. I want the ability to rate music across multiple user-configurable dimensions. Add tags. Create smart playlists that interpolate between these. I want to be able to pay a fee to subscribe to music discovery, then be able to mix these with my own library. If I really like a track, I'd like to bu…

Apple Music does this for half that price. - Rating and tagging - Upload and download your own stuff if you want to (marketed as iCloud Music Library) - Works offline - Discovery services available - API exists but mostly used to implement web players for some reason, works fine in desktop apps too, on top of that the current state of your music library is always available as an XML file even when you don't use the A…

Is it a true upload or some crappy file/fingerprint matching?

Most of these services aren't ever true uploads and do matching to save time, bandwidth and space.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#77

I work in this industry and actually we’ve found from online experimentation customers generally don’t want to tell you they dislike something. The expectation is customers get what they like (relevant) and sometimes they want to express stronger affinity for specific things. The converse hasn’t shown to be true. Generally customers don’t have a clear picture of how their explicit signals impact recommendations. Thou…

This and your responses below remind can be applied to handicapped parking or handicapped ramps (ie, they aren't used by most users therefore we shouldn't have them).

I prefer and use the dislike button when it exists. I don't care that 51% or 99% of users don't use it. Further, I want to send a concrete signal. Skipping a song doesn't mean I don't like it. It might just be that I didn't want to hear that particular song right now. Even if I skip it 10 times in a row that doesn't mean I don't like it.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#78
An option to hide all podcasts would significantly improve spotify's recommendations. I don't listen to podcasts (though I have accidentally clicked on one, when a podcast interviewed a musician I like... blech). Why is my screen filled with podcasts multiple times per day? I like the music recommendations, "so and so artist radio," etc., but they make me hunt for them.

Also, while I like a broad variety of genres, I only like listening to one at a time. I don't want a rap mix to be invaded by a Bach sonata. And yet...

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#79
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crap like this is why, to this day, my collection is digital files, cds, vinyl and streaming only for radio - like pandora

I want a service where I can upload my own files and easily access them from a player interface in the browser, mobile, etc. I want the ability to rate music across multiple user-configurable dimensions. Add tags. Create smart playlists that interpolate between these. I want to be able to pay a fee to subscribe to music discovery, then be able to mix these with my own library. If I really like a track, I'd like to bu…

Check out Navidrome [0]. It's the closest one that I've found. It supports the Subsonic API so there are plenty of mobile apps and probably some desktop ones that work with it. I use play:Sub on iOS.

0: https://github.com/navidrome/navidrome

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#80
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crap like this is why, to this day, my collection is digital files, cds, vinyl and streaming only for radio - like pandora

I want a service where I can upload my own files and easily access them from a player interface in the browser, mobile, etc. I want the ability to rate music across multiple user-configurable dimensions. Add tags. Create smart playlists that interpolate between these. I want to be able to pay a fee to subscribe to music discovery, then be able to mix these with my own library. If I really like a track, I'd like to bu…

I used to host my own Java based one for a while out of my house. Worked OK on my phone.

The software just wasn't as good of an experience of just having my trusty 400gb sdcard.

Post reply on HN