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How bad is your Spotify?

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Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#511

Post by sundvor »

RogerL wrote: post #494
Alupis wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Speaking for myself? Content. Philip Glass has 27 albums on Pandora, 105 on Spotify. Nico Mulhy? 7 vs 14. Maarja Nuut. Only 1 album on Pandora. For her, Pandora makes no recommendations for others to listen to, Spotify lists 20. Pandora has no bio, Spotify does. Third Coast Percussion? 8 vs 10. I'm just randomly clicking in my library and doing a comparison, they aren't artfully chosen examples. I recognize this isn'…

You could check out YouTube Music (edit: changed from "music"), which has a long list of Philip Glass titles that may be up there with Spotify.

I gave up on Spotify when they removed the widget functionality on Android. I know they returned it eventually, but not without complete uproar. It burned myself as a decade old (family) premium user though; I used to love them, but that complete disregard completely changed that.

Now, only a 3 month minimum (6 would help) completely free retrial would get me back. Thus far, none has been received.

(On the flip side I absolutely love YouTube Red or Premium or whatever they call it these days.)

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#512

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

[deleted]

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#513

Post by scubbo »

fao_ wrote: post #401
kingosticks wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The playlists they (Spotify) created? Yes. I think there's an argument they own that data. The playlists that users created? No. I apologise if that distinction was not clear enough in my original post.

I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted. And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists (because, quite frankly, spotify alter their playlists all the time -- I've experienced this with the Soul playlists they have), and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?

> I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to, independently of ownership of the actual units-of-art themselves (overly-generic terminology is intentional, since although we're discussing playlists here, the same argument could be made for, for instance, "a particular framing/hanging of visual arts")

> And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists [...], and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?

What type of difference are you interested in?

* Effective difference in terms of output? None. * Spotify's desire to prevent people from doing so? None (they would want to provide both - and justifiably so, IMO, since, again, the playlist _itself_ is their own (algorithm's) creation). * Likelihood of evading prevention? The MTurk solution is less likely to get shut down, for sure. That doesn't mean that you have magically gotcha'd copyright and that corporation will cease trying to protect their IP, it just means that you have found the next step in the arms race.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#514

Post by will_pseudonym »

arp242 wrote: post #508
Alupis wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

> Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing That's exactly what I'm not looking for; I'm perfectly fine with making my own music choices. I know what I like, have an extensive "library" on Spotify, and play from just that. The biggest thing I'm missing from Spotify (or indeed, most players, except the one I wrote myself years ago) is the ability to say "play random album fro…

foobar2k wins again ;)

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#515

Post by canes123456 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #470
Alupis wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Oh how the world would have been different if Rdio hadn't been acquired and killed by Pandora. It's recommendations were perfect .

Fuck they were the ones killed it. I don’t remember how the recommendations compared but Rdio’s UX was miles ahead. Pandora really should have abandoned their frontend and went all in on Rdio.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#516

Post by trhaynes »

nindalf wrote: post #306
sbarre wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's any comfort I got the _exact_ same sequence of comments/questions but with different bands I listened to a lot in 2020.. Hope that didn't ruin the magic.

It kinda did. I was enjoying being judged but now that I know that everyone is, I feel less special.

My favorite part was knowing it was an AI but still feeling at least a little defensive at parts

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#517

Post by gfxgirl »

kick_in_the_dro wrote: post #495
Alupis wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

Spotify is great, people on HN like to complain. Aside from having nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free, their recommendations have helped me find a lot of great songs. I don't personally listen to the curated playlists but many of my friends love them.

Spotify objectively sucks compared to plenty of other services. Is it possible you haven't tried those other services? Having access to lots of music is certainly better than not but we've had services that do that since the early 2000s.

I subscribed to Rhapsody in 2004. It gave me access to "nearly any artist's catalogue available for almost free". As 2 examples of things it did better, instead of using a shitty recommendation system that when I pick some electro swing band it recommends death metal, instead for every artist it showed their lists of who influenced them and who they influenced. I found tons of great bands that way. Way more than i've found on Spotify's crappy system

And that's just one example. The now dead Google Play Music's recommendation system actually worked where Spotify's does not.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#518

Post by gfxgirl »

Alupis wrote: post #475
mike_d wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify won the same way Dropbox and Slack did. They didn't invent anything magical, they just had a client for every platform that worked when people tried it. Like web apps? Here you go. Linux nerd? Here is a deb repo. Have a smartphone? Cool, we don't care what kind. Even now I googled "Pandora windows app", clicked a few times, and ended up on some Microsoft Store page. Interestingly enough if I add "mac" to my s…

What's wrong with Pandora in the web browser?

Nothing is wrong with Pandora in the web browser, other people just like to install spyware and root kits so let them.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#519

Post by fao_ »

scubbo wrote: post #513
fao_ wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted. And what's the difference between someone mechanically scraping playlists (because, quite frankly, spotify alter their playlists all the time -- I've experienced this with the Soul playlists they have), and someone hiring people via mechanical turk or getting 3 other people together to make text-based lists?

> I wasn't aware that playlists can be copyrighted. I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to, independently of ownership of the actual units-of-art themselves (overly-generic terminology is intentional, since although we're discussing playlists here, the same argument could be made for, for instance, "a particular framing/hanging of visual a…

> I Am Not A Lawyer, but "a curated collection of units-of-art" seems like a very reasonable thing to protect access to

I'm going to need a citation on playlists specifically being protected under copyright. I'm not sure how you can claim that what is effectually a simple plaintext list of things can be copyrighted. What original content there is being put under copyright?

As you already stated, they do not alter the music itself in the way that a rearrangement would, most media players provide fade-in/out functionality so they cannot claim that is unique, and they do not provide any supplimentary content to enhance the experience, at least not in the same way that a book published list, or internet top ten list would ordinarily provide some kind of commentary on the items.

What you're claiming here is effectually that, not even the content, but the mere titles of every single "top 50 foos" list on the internet can be copyrighted. Or that the rearranging of a book's chapters without any change to the contents, can itself fall under copyright

I'm not sure how anyone could think that this is at all a reasonable position to have? It's baffling, to be quite honest.

Re: How bad is your Spotify?

#520

Post by stjohnswarts »

Alupis wrote: post #437
t0mbstone wrote: post #252

As someone who listens to spotify all day while programming, here's my secret to success: I create a playlist to fit a mood (for example, ambient electronic music with a good beat and no words), and I seed it with at least 10 songs. Then, I go down to the "Recommended Songs" section and I just play whatever it recommends. If I don't like a song, I hit the skip button on my keyboard. The vast majority of what it recom…

I'm dumbfounded people still put up with this mess on Spotify. Pandora's discovery, recommendations, and shuffle algorithms are objectively superior to Spotify - yet, everyone still seems to use Spotify none-the-less. Discovery, recommendations and shuffle are at the heart of what made Pandora a thing... it's literally what Pandora was built on back when it was purely a seeded radio of sorts. Whereas Spotify more-or-…

I use the "radio station" features on both because I'm not a curator. It does seems like Pandora's version is a bit better but not drastically so. Then again I'm not a music monster, I listen to what the algorithms tell me until they push me too far :)
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