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How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

engineering.atspotify.com

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Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#21

Post by croisillon »

rob74 wrote: post #20

Ok, so this article proves that they know how to do it, but they seem to have forgotten over the intervening 9 years - according to some, the shuffle function now prefers similar songs to "keep the vibe", but according to the Spotify support pages, that's a "smart shuffle" feature, and I don't have that because I'm too cheap for the paid plan. Anyway, shuffle should play the songs in a playlist in random order, but m…

if you're not on the paid plan you have ads every now and then, right? how is that not more annoying than the non working shuffle?

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#22

Post by bayindirh »

Akronymus wrote: post #6
theshrike79 wrote: post #3

This is one of my favourite things about psychology, perception and programming. When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. They want the perception of randomness, but _true_ random doesn't abide by rules. If you're actually random, there is a probability that it might just play all the songs straight through. Or just pick songs by a single artist back-to-back.

I want all songs truly randomized once, then playing in that order. Sadly youtube just picks the next one based on the current ones ID + some seed, so it constantly gets stuck in loops

Sony's CD players used to choose the next when the song finished, however it removed the ones it played from the candidate list, so it never looped.

As another neat trick, they have added a small animation while seeking to next track with some lower time bound, so it looked like thinking for a second or so. In reality, the decision was instant, seeking was not.

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#23

Post by lovestory »

globalise83 wrote: post #18
airstrike wrote: post #7

I actually just wish Spotify stop spamming me the very same songs and artists over and over in virtually any "made for airstrike" radio / playlist. Give me "NOT made for airstrike", please. I often want to start a radio off a song precisely because I'm trying to find new songs that go with that one, not so I can have an excuse to unironically listen to "More Than This" for the 20th time this week...

Yes, Spotify seems to want to force you to listen to the same things over and over, almost as if someone wants to boast about how many millions of seconds of loading time is saved by their clever caching.

It's known that record labels pay Spotify to promote certain artists more (known as industry plants if they are not already established). They found a loophole so that it's not considered payola (which is illegal) https://twitter.com/AbelowRob/status/1641455112345493506

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#24

Post by rob74 »

croisillon wrote: post #21
rob74 wrote: post #20

Ok, so this article proves that they know how to do it, but they seem to have forgotten over the intervening 9 years - according to some, the shuffle function now prefers similar songs to "keep the vibe", but according to the Spotify support pages, that's a "smart shuffle" feature, and I don't have that because I'm too cheap for the paid plan. Anyway, shuffle should play the songs in a playlist in random order, but m…

if you're not on the paid plan you have ads every now and then, right? how is that not more annoying than the non working shuffle?

Well, if you are using the web version, there are ad blockers (e.g. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/spotify-ad-blocker-...)... Actually, if you're familiar with web tech, it's not that hard to write your own ad blocker, then you're not dependent on the extension provider updating it when Spotify changes the names of the HTML elements again. But I'm confident they are already working on a WASM/canvas-based version which would make such attempts much harder.

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#25

Post by mhitza »

troupo wrote: post #10
theshrike79 wrote: post #3

This is one of my favourite things about psychology, perception and programming. When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. They want the perception of randomness, but _true_ random doesn't abide by rules. If you're actually random, there is a probability that it might just play all the songs straight through. Or just pick songs by a single artist back-to-back.

> When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. Same in games. "I had an 80% chance to hit and didn't" is a perfect example.

It also depends how well that randomness makes sense in games. In my recent memory nothing was more ludicrous that the modern XCOM games where you were upclose to an enemy and got only 90% hit chance with a shotgun.

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#26

Post by Bewelge »

Akronymus wrote: post #6
theshrike79 wrote: post #3

This is one of my favourite things about psychology, perception and programming. When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. They want the perception of randomness, but _true_ random doesn't abide by rules. If you're actually random, there is a probability that it might just play all the songs straight through. Or just pick songs by a single artist back-to-back.

I want all songs truly randomized once, then playing in that order. Sadly youtube just picks the next one based on the current ones ID + some seed, so it constantly gets stuck in loops

I have had the (conspiracy) theory for a while that this is by design. Kept happening to me on an account where I've disabled watch-history. Now I'm watching on an account where it's enabled and it hasn't happened even once. And it's been months since I switched.

Actually not sure if it's even that far fetched. Making the logged-out-experience worse on purpose is something all the big internet firms do.

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#27

Post by t-3 »

troupo wrote: post #10
theshrike79 wrote: post #3

This is one of my favourite things about psychology, perception and programming. When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. They want the perception of randomness, but _true_ random doesn't abide by rules. If you're actually random, there is a probability that it might just play all the songs straight through. Or just pick songs by a single artist back-to-back.

> When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. Same in games. "I had an 80% chance to hit and didn't" is a perfect example.

To be fair, this is due to game devs giving percentage chances that are straight-up lies. "80% and didn't hit" is actually "92% and didn't hit" in many Fire emblem games, for example (https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/True_hit).

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#28

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

theshrike79 wrote: post #3

This is one of my favourite things about psychology, perception and programming. When people say they want to "randomly shuffle a playlist", they really don't want that. They want the perception of randomness, but _true_ random doesn't abide by rules. If you're actually random, there is a probability that it might just play all the songs straight through. Or just pick songs by a single artist back-to-back.

The problem isn't that people "don't want random", the problem is that "random" isn't unambiguous. Shuffling a playlist before playing it is just as 'random' as picking any one of the tracks to play next.

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#29

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

The only thing I really want is for albums to never shuffle. The number of times I've started listening to an album in shuffle-mode unintentionally, then only realised by the 3rd track that plays, by which time the playthrough is ruined and I have to just listen to a different album altogether...

Re: How to Shuffle Songs? (2014)

#30

Post by nzoschke »

No code or pseudocode for the algorithm? Boo.

Something like this would be nice to add to my app JukeLab that turns your tablet into a jukebox, powered by Spotify.

It currently uses Fisher Yates to shuffle for auto play which does feel weird sometime.

Other polish I’m working on in the app…

How to skip skits and interviews during autoplay.

Removing (remastered) etc from album and song names correctly.

Taking total control over playback and the queue through the Spotify SDK which is buggy and hostile wrt auto playing unwanted tracks.

https://jukelab.com

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