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Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

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Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#161

Post by AbrahamParangi »

Strs2FillMyDrms wrote: post #137
jorgesborges wrote: post #22

So basically they’re developing a product marketed to streaming platforms to identify what’s “more attractive” to consumers. The algorithms are still optimized for increasing sales and engagement, not improving recommendations (for the user). That’s exactly why I’m unhappy with Spotify lately. I feel I’m being sold a bunch of corporate portfolios on what’s currently in vogue, and not just artistically but politically…

Quoted post unavailable.

I think that people bristle at it in the same way that people used to bristle at having Christian-normative culture pushed on them. Not everyone enjoys cultural imperialism.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#162

Post by zz865 »

thepasswordis wrote: post #135

Has pandora licensed their music DNA engine to anybody? Pandora recommendations have always been 1000x better than anybody else. It’s not even a comparison.

Yeah I was wondering if Pandora had a patent on channels based on likes/dislikes.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#163

Post by juanitolol »

Spotify does have a dislike button on their recommendation playlists and also, Spotify's recommendations engine is by far the best that have ever been on the market. It managed to discover new artists that I'd have never found unless I lost several dozen hours on Discogs. The important part is to train recommendation playlist accordingly.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#164

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

Hokusai wrote: post #141
onion2k wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically they’re developing a product marketed to streaming platforms to identify what’s “more attractive” to consumers. The algorithms are still optimized for increasing sales and engagement, not improving recommendations (for the user). It's possible that the recommendations are both good for users and good for corporate interests. They might not work for you, but for millions of Spotify users they seem to work…

> They might not work for you, but for millions of Spotify users they seem to work. That is the most reasonable explanation. HN users are not the average user of Spotify.

I’ve never really understood what variations of the rejoinder “you are not the target user” are intended to accomplish, at least in conversations like this.

When discussing things like product strategy it makes some (more than a little) sense. But in a conversation about personal preference, what do you expect the reader to take away from it? “Oh okay, sorry, I didn’t realize I wasn’t meant to like this. I guess my opinion’s invalid.”

Who cares who the average user is, when someone is saying something doesn’t appeal to them? Is the sentiment some kind of scolding for not liking it? I sincerely don’t understand.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#165

Post by milofeynman »

greggman3 wrote: post #54

I cancelled spotify recently when I had a guest in my car who proceeded to play all her favorite music on my account. I wanted to remove her music from my history so spotify would hopefully not recommend her music to me but there is no way to delete your history https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/2021-how-do-we... Account deleted. I know I'm not the norm but Spotify has never done a good job for me recomme…

I have a similar problem where I play Disney music/movie music in the car when I drive my kid to school. Every time I have to go find "private mode" deep in the settings. Typically I just forget. I am primarily a discover weekly and release radar user, so it's definitely frustrating. They have basically done almost nothing positive for users in years in terms of UX. They tried to git rid of dislike, but brought it back because it ruins those suggestion playlists, when you can't hide awful songs.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#167

Post by notyourwork »

soylentnewsorg wrote: post #160
notyourwork wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What this results in, is you have an inferior product, your customers leave, then you leave and go screw up another company's product without ever learning your lesson. I'm not sure what you're suggesting and I don't need to qualify my experience in the software industry or within the domain of recommenders and personalization.

I did not suggest anything. I very clearly stated what I stated, in plain English that is very easy to understand. Your qualifications are irrelevant. Your point of view on the issue we are discussing is wrong for long-term product success, and destroys the hard work others have put into the idea, in order to feel personally superior to your users. I don't know how more plainly I can put it for you if you had trouble…

You’re speaking as if you work beside me and have a clue about anything in the music industry. There’s a reason Spotify doesn’t but uses to have dislike buttons more accessible. I’m not sure why you are disagreeing with me but there’s no need to speak down to someone because of different perspective. I have real world data and work in recommenders I’m not sure what your background is.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#168

Post by sabellito »

Strs2FillMyDrms wrote: post #137
jorgesborges wrote: post #22

So basically they’re developing a product marketed to streaming platforms to identify what’s “more attractive” to consumers. The algorithms are still optimized for increasing sales and engagement, not improving recommendations (for the user). That’s exactly why I’m unhappy with Spotify lately. I feel I’m being sold a bunch of corporate portfolios on what’s currently in vogue, and not just artistically but politically…

Quoted post unavailable.

Sarcasm and belittlement are a terrible way to engage in conversation. You seem more interested in aggrandizing yourself than to actually make a point or bring some food for thought.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#169

Post by rumblerock »

jorgesborges wrote: post #22

So basically they’re developing a product marketed to streaming platforms to identify what’s “more attractive” to consumers. The algorithms are still optimized for increasing sales and engagement, not improving recommendations (for the user). That’s exactly why I’m unhappy with Spotify lately. I feel I’m being sold a bunch of corporate portfolios on what’s currently in vogue, and not just artistically but politically…

On top of that, if you listen to a wide range of genres the attempt to shoehorn your history into 6 Daily Mixes yields some comical results. Like Doobie Brothers followed by Nirvana.

Give me a home screen with 12 or more Daily Mixes that segment my listening behavior at a finer resolution, and I'd be a lot happier with the service.

I understand why all the other playlists exist, but I generally have an idea of exactly what I'm trying to listen to, so these low effort curated playlists are pretty useless for my listening style.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#170

Post by raffraffraff »

jorgesborges wrote: post #22

So basically they’re developing a product marketed to streaming platforms to identify what’s “more attractive” to consumers. The algorithms are still optimized for increasing sales and engagement, not improving recommendations (for the user). That’s exactly why I’m unhappy with Spotify lately. I feel I’m being sold a bunch of corporate portfolios on what’s currently in vogue, and not just artistically but politically…

I've never used Spotify or any other recommendation service. Music is like food: it's far too important too substitute with junk. I won't eat Subway, I won't listen to auto-generated recommendations. I browse (and support) rateyourmusic.com, I use the last.fm API (to find out what my neighbors are listening to) and I listen to music for free on YouTube before I buy it. I also heavily use tags on my purchased music so I can easily put together a playlist matching my mood.
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