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Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

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Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#441

Post by Broken_Hippo »

joe_the_user wrote: post #326
campground wrote: post #200

I'm genuinely confused by people who complain about Spotify's recommendation algorithm. I have eclectic, often obscure tastes, and I've found it to be an incredible way to discover new music. I think you do have to prime the engine a bit. I "like" a lot of albums and songs. Every time I hear something new that I like I press the little heart button. Same when I discover music outside of Spotify (I listen to WFMU a lo…

I'm genuinely confused by people who complain about Spotify's recommendation algorithm. I have eclectic, often obscure tastes, and I've found it to be an incredible way to discover new music. I too have "eclectic, obscure" tastes and I couldn't get anything from the recommendation algorithm and canceled after a month. I don't remember the thing recommending anything that seemed more obscure than what I searched for.…

To be fair, the recommendations are based on what you listened to lately in addition to what you've listened to in the past. A month probably wasn't long enough - it isn't really an immediate satisfaction thing when you have off-center tastes in music. If 70% of folks like popular music, that's the easiest thing to recommend.

They might want a bit more control, I don't know, but I very highly doubt fewer customers is the goal. If they wanted fewer, they could just pull the free model completely. I'd guess piracy would increase and they'd get blamed, but I don't know.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#442

Post by onion2k »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #164
Hokusai wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

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.

It's simply a reminder that when you work at scale you can't please everyone. Someone complaining that a feature doesn't work for them is not the same as saying it doesn't work.

On a site like HN the conversation is usually about the broader picture rather than individual complaints unless someone is responding directly to the CEO of a company. I think the CEO of Spotify posts here occasionally, so maybe he'll reply. The rest of us are talking about it in more general terms.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#443

Post by jstummbillig »

> Cornell researchers recently asked the question: Why do they still not let you vote down a song?

They do. "skip" does things other than skip the song.

They also had a dedicated dislike button and removed it years ago. Apparently what they are doing now works better.

> Specifically, they demonstrated that a listener is roughly 20 percent more likely to “like” a song if the algorithm is trained on 400,000 likes and dislikes, compared to an algorithm trained only on that amount of likes.

Building a naive recommendation engine and giving it more good data – paid for, and also not factoring in the difference in time spent acquiring it – will obviously yield better results in a direct comparison. Striking a comparison to what Spotify is doing is pretty naive.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#444

Post by Mehdi2277 »

tempestn wrote: post #400

I'm apparently in the minority, but I long for a return of the 5-star ranking. I really miss that about itunes, being able to rank each song, and set up smart playlists based on genre and how much variety (how deep in the star rankings) I wanted. I'd have to think an intelligent recommendation engine could do a ton more with star rankings than a simple up/down too. 5=love, 4=like, 3=ok, 2=dislike, 1=hate. It could ev…

There are two issues with 5 star ranking. One the more thought required to give feedback the less likely users give feedback. More interactions is very helpful for ml so minimizing the decisions needed by a user helps a lot. Great ui/ux for engagement aims for signals to require as little action from the user as possible. As a side effect short content is very nice as finish/playtime become strong signals that require a user to do almost nothing.

The second issue is a lot of people use it like 1/5 system. While yes some users use more of the intermediates and you can adjust on per user basis for that feature it’s just not as useful as you’d expect.

Of course any decision like this I recommend a company ab test and I’m just summarizing past experience in this area.

I had a similar discussion at a prior job on having creators add content tags to there submission. The main avoidance was while good tags would be nice for recommendation, if tags are required less content would be submitted and that hurts the platform.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#445

Post by nikanj »

campground wrote: post #200

I'm genuinely confused by people who complain about Spotify's recommendation algorithm. I have eclectic, often obscure tastes, and I've found it to be an incredible way to discover new music. I think you do have to prime the engine a bit. I "like" a lot of albums and songs. Every time I hear something new that I like I press the little heart button. Same when I discover music outside of Spotify (I listen to WFMU a lo…

Spotify's recommendation algorithm comes with a healthy pinch of Payola. "Hey you've been listening exclusively to chiptunes and power metal from the 80s. Here's a new single from $local_mumble_rapper you might love!"

And you can't dislike the recommendation, so next week the algorithm is going to go "Oohh last week he played some mumble rap, let's give him a little bit more of it!"

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#446

Post by intricatedetail »

ipaddr wrote: post #283
intricatedetail wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You will have no choice if you don't want to be excluded.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#447

Post by avh02 »

01100011 wrote: post #385

Things I want from Spotify: - Fix the damn album artwork in the browser. A big part of enjoying an album is viewing the cover and liner art. Let me do that full-screen with zoom. - Let me create genre-limited radio stations from my likes. Don't just play songs from my likes. If I'm in the mood for , say, 80s hip-hop, I want a radio station based off my liked 80s hip-hop songs which includes related artists. - Hide th…

Flipside opinion: I always thought album art was a feature every player tried to add for the pleasure of a non-existent user who fetishizes album art. Literally the last thing I'd want out of a music player.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#448

Post by petre »

kristopolous wrote: post #387
asveikau wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ones that you may be familiar with such as Rick Martin's Macarena It was done by a group from Seville. Los del río. Very southern Spanish accent which is quite different from Ricky Martin.

Gosh you are correct on that. My apologies. I don't know why I associated the two, I try to be pretty good on this stuff. I'll need to review 90s Latin pop again. Sorry about that.

You should see the video: two elderly men and some underage looking dancers. Nothing like Ricky Martin.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#449

Post by Broken_Hippo »

anakaine wrote: post #419
01100011 wrote: post #385

Things I want from Spotify: - Fix the damn album artwork in the browser. A big part of enjoying an album is viewing the cover and liner art. Let me do that full-screen with zoom. - Let me create genre-limited radio stations from my likes. Don't just play songs from my likes. If I'm in the mood for , say, 80s hip-hop, I want a radio station based off my liked 80s hip-hop songs which includes related artists. - Hide th…

Also, how about giving me the ability to not hear songs with certain words in them. I'm not a tea totaller or holier than thou Nancy, but I really don't want to hear any more songs from the hood rapping about their gangsta money hoes and all the other things that are basically domestic violence, gun violence, racism, gang mentality and "I'm so tough" stories all in one. Spotify keeps recommending them even though I s…

Surely, that has more to do with common themes in the music you frequent than spotify pushing these themes on you. If you don't like the themes that frequent the genre you are listening to most often, the solution seems to be to find alternative genres. I don't tend to get these themes often when listening to electro-swing, for example.

And like the other reply said, you can disable explicit lyrics and I'm pretty sure you can hide artists.

Re: Dislike button would improve Spotify's recommendations

#450

Post by jorvi »

tempestn wrote: post #400

I'm apparently in the minority, but I long for a return of the 5-star ranking. I really miss that about itunes, being able to rank each song, and set up smart playlists based on genre and how much variety (how deep in the star rankings) I wanted. I'd have to think an intelligent recommendation engine could do a ton more with star rankings than a simple up/down too. 5=love, 4=like, 3=ok, 2=dislike, 1=hate. It could ev…

Apple Music still has star ranking, although it’s a bit buried away.
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