An odd discovery on Spotify • Hacker News Board

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#211

Post by SantiagoElf » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

Let's not forget the reverse scam:

Music Business Worldwide’s story explains how the moneymaking trick worked. “Soulful Music” had 467 songs by virtually unknown artists — which is to say, artists who may have been created for the purpose of this alleged scheme. The vast majority of songs were about 30 seconds long, which is the minimum length a song needs to be to count as a monetized play on the service.

The most probabl explanation for all this is that someone or someones in Bulgaria set up 1,200 computers with premium Spotify accounts, then had them play the songs on “Soulful Music” constantly. While it would cost $12,000 to set up all those accounts, the payoff would be worth it.

Link -> https://www.inverse.com/article/41573-spotify-bulgarian-play...

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#212

Post by huffmsa » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:02 AM UTC

chewz wrote: post #184

midasz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a father of a young child, Spotify's algo's are completely useless to me. If their ML is so smart it should be able to determine that Row row row your boat doesn't mix well with Anthrax. Wish I'd be able to toggle 'don't recommend kids music' somewhere.

Both Spotify and Apple Music algos have no idea about music mood vs time of the day vs activity. Like late evening before sleep being perhaps not a good moment for heavy metal. And running not a right time for slow classical music. Which is weird in case of Apple Music because Apple knows exactly if I am sleeping, running or driving a car - just from reading my watch.

What that really means is that they either:

1) aren't doing the sensor fusion we all think they are, out of inability to access the data.

2) the models (and therefore modelers) aren't good enough to use the data they have correctly.

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#213

Post by fragmede » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #190

merijnv wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happens to me a lot on Youtube too - you watch just one thing - and now your recommendations are full of things like that one thing. Spotify's recommendation system is much better than youtube's (at least for me). I frequently "joke" that it is one of the few applications of ML that actively make my life as a consumer better. Having been following Spotify's "Discover Weekly" for several years now, I'm actually real…

Spotify's algorithm works really well until you let someone else use the account. I wish there was a "child mode", "party mode" or whatever to disable updating recommendations.

It does. It's called "Private Session".

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#214

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

suction wrote: post #187

alkonaut wrote: post #151

This is the TikTok-ification of music. The required response is the same here, as it is to the consumption of any other media, which is the same as when ordering food. Don't order food out of a random dark kitchen. Order from a brick and mortar restaurant you know . Don't use algorithmic feeds to discover video. Find a channel/producer you like and watch that. The same applies to music. Assume everything fed to you i…

Doesn’t it come down to „be a critical thinker instead of a mindless consumer“? From that follows that you don’t just scroll through the homepage but should use the search function, in an informed way. Which in turn already fails at the majority of people being too lazy to type, and not knowing how to search for things they want. They quickly give up, and just take the easy route of consuming what’s served to them. I…

[deleted]

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#215

Post by adamauckland » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

midasz wrote: post #160

merijnv wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Happens to me a lot on Youtube too - you watch just one thing - and now your recommendations are full of things like that one thing. Spotify's recommendation system is much better than youtube's (at least for me). I frequently "joke" that it is one of the few applications of ML that actively make my life as a consumer better. Having been following Spotify's "Discover Weekly" for several years now, I'm actually real…

As a father of a young child, Spotify's algo's are completely useless to me. If their ML is so smart it should be able to determine that Row row row your boat doesn't mix well with Anthrax. Wish I'd be able to toggle 'don't recommend kids music' somewhere.

Can't really complain if they offer Spotify Family which gives you 6 separate premium accounts, I think it's only double the cost of a normal Spotify account.

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#216

Post by dizhn » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:17 AM UTC

It sounds like the Fake Artists thing which is designed to make sure Spotify gets all the money and does not have to pay royalties.

They basically either have salaried/contracted musicians or pay a one time fee without royalties to make passable songs in every genre. Then they push their own songs in lists so people will listen to them more than "real" artists.

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/fake-artists-have-...

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#217

Post by geoduck14 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:18 AM UTC

chewz wrote: post #184

midasz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a father of a young child, Spotify's algo's are completely useless to me. If their ML is so smart it should be able to determine that Row row row your boat doesn't mix well with Anthrax. Wish I'd be able to toggle 'don't recommend kids music' somewhere.

Both Spotify and Apple Music algos have no idea about music mood vs time of the day vs activity. Like late evening before sleep being perhaps not a good moment for heavy metal. And running not a right time for slow classical music. Which is weird in case of Apple Music because Apple knows exactly if I am sleeping, running or driving a car - just from reading my watch.

>Both Spotify and Apple Music algos have no idea about music mood vs time of the day vs activity.

You say that, but I attended a conference with Spotify- they are specifically working on that problem now.

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#218

Post by vintermann » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:19 AM UTC

remuskaos wrote: post #82

Ooh, I think I found something like that too , a few years ago. I searched for a song (a real one, that I already knew) called "Dyson Sphere". That search still yields a few hits. One of those was by an artist called Adal, and while it wasn't what I was looking for at all, I still listened to it. It was slow, rythmic and very simple music (think "human music"). When I looked for other works of this Adal, they had may…

No, they're there on all the streaming services. YouTube reveals that it got there via DistroKid. I don't think it's spam, exactly - a spammer doesn't bother with choosing a theme in track titles as such. But it is possibly fairly low effort, as much DistroKid music is...

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#219

Post by drewwwwww » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:23 AM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #203

null_object wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spotify's recommendation system is much better than youtube's (at least for me). I frequently "joke" that it is one of the few applications of ML that actively make my life as a consumer better. I've had the opposite experience with Spotify - I'd say my discovery of new music has withered to almost nil since switching when Google Music shifted to YouTube. The algorithm just churns stuff I've already listened to, or…

> Spotify's own fake artists - session musicians generated to capture royalties in-house. Is this something you have any references for? It sounds super interesting, like shadow kitchens for music.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xabb3/spotifys-fake-ambient... - from 2017, they have been up to it for a while

Re: An odd discovery on Spotify

#220

Post by vintermann » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 10:24 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #110

ggm wrote: post #108

What "cost" to the money launderer? What is the "cost" like, compared to e.g. mules taking cash to casinos, or laboriously processing e-card visa style money? ie how "effective" is this, compared to alternatives? I had a belief the rate of IPR payment was low, so this is probably a low rate of return, high cost, fully digital method. Which in my theory, would also be making spotify significant profit, as the facilita…

Every single business can be a vector for money laundering. From cash laundromats to high end technology, if the launderer owns the business then it has potential. I would estimate the government catches somewhere in the ballpark of 0.00000001% of all laundering. Businesses also have zero incentive to stop this activity as long as they get their margin.

I have asked people who work with preventing money laundering how expensive it is, how much you get back from a launderer in clean money for every dollar you pay him in dirty ones. They have all estimated a 20-25% premium.

That doesn't seem like it would be sustainable if only 0.00000001% was caught.