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Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

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Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#281

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You have real world data but it’s not at all clear that you’ve been interpreting it correctly.

It is also not clear that your opinion is grounded in reality. Not sure what more to say.

It is a no-brainer to use the collected data points instead of user feedback in this case. Only a small set of users would down vote enough to make it relevant. Also hard to measure the quality of the votes and how they age.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#282

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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 exactl…

> Like Doobie Brothers followed by Nirvana. What's inherently comical about this? One of my least favorite experiences is having a radio station based on a song and getting nothing but songs that sound just like it. Unless you have only played 90s grunge or 70s soft rock I'm not sure why this juxtaposition is not considered a feature.

Well for me at least, I listen to music depending on mood. It's not generally that I dislike mixing, quite the opposite actually. But when I'm in the mood for metalcore, I'm not in the mood for happy hardcore. And when I'm looking for something quick, I don't want a slow song mixed in.

I like the idea of mixing genres, but Spotify seems to totally miss on what aspects I want mixed.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#283

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…

It's only a matter of time comment like this will decrease your social score...

Do you want a high social score? A good citizen badge?

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#284
post #90

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That's the exact reason I switched to YouTube Music. I remember even about 10 years ago, last.fm's algorithm on bringing songs I would enjoy basing on previously listened/liked songs was far more accurate than Spotify's today.

YouTube makes recommendations around engagement metrics only (1 political video gets you Fox News recommendations for years), spotify still gives me plenty of small bands - I think if you’re listening to very popular music you’re screwed either ways

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Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#285

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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.

Matching is optional. If a song cannot be matched, your own copy gets uploaded instead to your private iCloud library. Edit: well, it's a bit nuanced of course, you can not match and not sync or match and sync but you can't mix and match that configuration. So it's either sync with matching when possible or no syncing.

I have a lot of rare stuff. Demos, live albums (grateful Dead, dmb), live captures of daft punk at Coachella, underground hip hop mixtapes, CDrips of local punk and Ska bands from the 90s

Fingerprint matching barfs on all this stuff.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matching is optional. If a song cannot be matched, your own copy gets uploaded instead to your private iCloud library. Edit: well, it's a bit nuanced of course, you can not match and not sync or match and sync but you can't mix and match that configuration. So it's either sync with matching when possible or no syncing.

I have a lot of rare stuff. Demos, live albums (grateful Dead, dmb), live captures of daft punk at Coachella, underground hip hop mixtapes, CDrips of local punk and Ska bands from the 90s Fingerprint matching barfs on all this stuff.

I haven't had an active subscription for a while (when iTunes was the desktop app instead of Music being the desktop app) but I distinctly remember being able to set metadata in the Info panel on a song or multiple at once that prevented fingerprint matching.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#287
post #73

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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.

Metal fans who listen to things beyond the mainstream hits tend to listen to a lot of music in languages they don't speak due to how much of the best metal out there isn't in English. If you listen to a lot of bands whose fans listen to music in other languages then I'd expect you to get a lot of recommendations in other languages.

I understand why it happens, but it doesn't mean I want it to happen. Unfortunately, this is a case where a recommender system runs into issues. Outside of these songs, I likely overlap a lot with the people who are okay with non English recommendations.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#288
post #272

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Sometimes your just not in the mood for a specific song or genre. A skip doesn’t imply I’d never want to hear a song again.

I suspect that this same effect is close to the reason so many services removed the dislike button: humans are emotional and were, in some cases, disliking songs which they were not in the mood for, but would like at another time. As a result, the signal coming from the dislike button was not very useful, and just added unnecessary complexity. Instead, the algorithm can present the user a fixed song in different sett…

I frequently will find one of their auto-mixes I like, and listen to it for a while throughout the day skipping songs I don't like or I'm not in the mood for. Then when I go back the next day, even if I didn't restart the mix, it has updated, and what plays isn't the stuff I liked and repeated. It was the stuff they have financial incentive to get plays on that I skipped the day before and "might be in the mood for now".

This alone drove me back to my local music library.

I would rather dislike a song and have it recommended in a "How about now" playlist to determine if I actually hate it or if it was a mood in the moment.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#290

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They could just ask. I promise my answers will be more accurate than any AI guessing for me.

People rarely know what they actually want

Let me fuck my own shit up please
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