I have no doubt Spotify is doing the same. Every large company does it. This practice of data-driven development is such a disgrace to the IT industry.
I don't get how people can be comfortable using that stuff at all.
The results are quite predictable: numbers that go up, and UX that goes way, way down. Eventually this falls over because your model ends up in local maxima.
With Spotify, it would often be an update that looks pretty but was harder to use, which is the exact opposite of what I care about… I’m here to listen to music as fast as possible and get on with my life, not scroll through giant menus with way too much spacing, when it used to all fit on one screen.
There are still usability issues with Tidal that are similar to Spotify (hard to find something specific, etc), but they basically never change anything about the core UI, it just always works the exact same with some minor additions here&there. And honestly it’s reduced my frustration dramatically.
I'm thinking about switching since native spotify app's playing gif (or icon) spikes my CPU usage for some very strange reason.
Back in the day I use Rdio, which had a pretty good UI; unfortunately they shut down.
I've switched to Deezer which I find saner, but I fear these streaming companies just aren't incentivised to produce simple interfaces.
Pick one already.