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Goodbye, Slopify

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Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#201

Post by 827a »

There's been so many small changes over the years that have decimated the experience further and further for me. Most recently, the "Podcasts" Library tab has now been renamed "Podcasts and Courses". The competing KPIs that must have been at play to make "Audiobooks" a separate, third tab, but bundle "Courses" into "Podcasts" could surely be written about. Certainly with merit: That horizontal scroll area now has so many tabs that putting "Audiobooks" in 3rd place basically puts it over the fold at most screen sizes, and "Courses" in 4th place would be as invisible as a Google search result on the second page.

Woe befalls the Audiobooks team, who lost that war. Sad for them.

Sorry, throughout that diatribe I forgot to even mention what Courses were, or why anyone would want them. That could only be because, I have no idea. Seeing it written in my Library tab, "Podcasts and Courses" is like hearing the echo of a feature that doesn't exist. Where do I find these courses? What do I search for? Are they included in my plan? There's none on my home page... wait, I just realized how little I care.

I think, or rather hope, we're entering an era of tech business where money gets more expensive, thus sensibility must return, you can't just be focused on growth you need to make money, keep customers happy, and not worry less about the next hundred million customers. I'm seeing it in some products. Not in Spotify, to be clear. Here's the sensible thing Spotify could do: Create a $22/mo plan, hi-fi audio, a big "Super Premium" badge around your avatar, custom app color themes, customize your home page and sidebars, this literally writes itself, people would buy it. Would it make enough money to justify the investment? Hey Dan: Did building Podcasts and Audiobooks? Yeah that's what I thought.

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#203

Post by robertlagrant »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #173
robertlagrant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's evidence for this. While listening to podcasts is evidence of liking them, not listening to podcasts isn't evidence for detesting them.

Spotify has over 640 million active users. Of those, 100 million are active podcast listeners, despite having an app they frequently use that lets them listen to podcasts. This suggests that many of Spotify's users hate podcasts as much as they hate the wacky morning DJs who say democracy's a joke.

Zero could hate them and they wouldn't all listen to them. I don't hate podcasts and I've never listened to one on Spotify.

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#204

Post by jppope »

dunno about the AI generated, but their discover weekly algorithm definitely changed a couple of months ago. I went from getting a nice mix of post-2012 music, new, fresh, to a ton of songs I listened to in when I was first getting into music. Very frustrating

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#205

Post by redwall_hp »

jsheard wrote: post #17
swyx wrote: post #11

without any hate to the well intentioned engineers working on the thing, spotify has just exceedingly poor product taste in any number of dimensions - the godawful ai dj they tried to force on pple - buying gimlet media and running it into the toilet. some of the world's best and favorite podcasts, gone because some swedish billionaire decided to throw all his money into foie grasing a perfectly fine niche media comp…

> locking up joe rogan and whoever to try to put walled gardens around podcasting Not to mention blowing >$250M of their subscription revenue to lock down one podcaster when most of their subscribers joined for not podcasts. That money could have gone towards paying music artists better rates like Apple Music and Tidal do.

Spotify pays on a pro rata model. Something like 70% of their operating revenue is divided amongst license holders based on the number of plays. The only way the majority of artists make more money is if Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Drake and The Weeknd suddenly fall off the face of the earth and their record labels burst into flames.

All streaming platforms realistically pay out close to the federally-set royalty rate.

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#206

Post by throwaway2037 »

I want to focus on non-AI complaints for my question. Each time Spotify comes up on HN, the sentiment is dominated by nitpicking negative comments. To be clear, I am a musical normie that looks forward to daily Spotify to listen to popular music. I also don't mind the phone app, web app, and even Linux desktop app (what a blessing).

My question to the haters: If Spotify is so bad, as you claim, why haven't we seen a flurry of competitors emerge? My guess: Licensing a large enough set of music to make a compelling alternative is the primary moat.

Last point: While I believe people and their stories about AI gen'd slop appearing in their playlists, I have not experienced the same. Are my musical tastes so bland that they just don't bother? (No trolling to others on that one... Just poking a bit of fun at myself.)

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#207

Post by woah »

I'm so confused by these complaints. I use Spotify every day, and just type in the music I want to listen to. You click on a song and it plays. How are people getting all wrapped up in whether some podcast shows up on some screen, or whether there's AI generated music on there, or if the Electron app is properly optimized?

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#209

Post by randlet »

smackeyacky wrote: post #147
jcstk wrote: post #142

I'm reading these comments and I'm thinking "are we using the same Spotify?" I don't see any AI music, I don't get Podcasts pushed on me, the UI is fine, playlists are fine and I get new music I like suggested to me often.

"I'm not seeing a problem so how is there a problem" is not the right critique in an era where the selection algorithm is so personalised. Spotify is awful for me, I concur with the original article. YouTube Music is heading slowly the same way. At this rate I'll have to cast around for another phone that can take an SD card again. The service I really miss is eMusic, they had little in the way of well known music so…

eMusic was so good!

Re: Goodbye, Slopify

#210

Post by fragmede »

ysavir wrote: post #153
zamalek wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use SoundCloud from time to time, my taste is really niche and it works great for that (but you need to find a relevant artist first). I recently jumped off Qobuz exclusively because of their drunk recommendation algorithm, or lack thereof (it seems I'd often end up with whatever is on the front page). I wound up on Pandora: their whole value proposition was finding music you like, and music you might like. I haven…

I've been using Pandora for over a decade now. Always been happy with it and it's always served great as a discovery tool.

I was looking for the Pandora mention. They're what's really wanted, Spotify isn't targeting the same thing.
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