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Comment by ThrowawayTestr | Hacker News Reader

Emby can stream without a subscription. But why does the author hate algorithms so much? Spotify has great recommendations.

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I very much hate them. I know I'm going be the old man yelling at clouds on this one, but I genuinely believe that algorithms are garbage "curators" and no substitute for individual humans (DJs, radio show people) with taste, because algos can (and will) be gamed.

There is no human with music tastes as specific as mine besides me. But an algo can take all of my listening history and recommend whole genres I didn't even know about. I don't think Spotify's is one that can be gamed.

What in the world makes you think it can't? I can think of a TON of ways this could happen at MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS.

Is it open/transparent? Okay, then they could just be lying.

How does it weigh things? There's no such thing as "objective" here.

Okay, from the outside, what's stopping me from "ddosing" fake streams from vps' or similar?

It strikes me as utterly naive to presume "fairness" here.

It serves me songs it thinks I like and it's usually correct. Why the conspiracy theories?

"Serving you things you, an individual, like" and so-called "conspiracy theories" are in no way incompatible.

I'm saying this as someone who's seen a relatively long 'history' of what is popular in hip-hop as an example, and I think there are observable trends that go beyond mere "oh, the kids always like something different from the adults."

Every generation hates the music of the next generation. You couldn't be more of a cliche.

You're right, which is why I (as a music nerd) have gone out of my way to ensure that it's more than that. In a nutshell, here's why, despite every reason not to, one could still believe me.

When I as a youngster had to defend hip-hop against my parents, I was able to reference the music itself, see, this comes from that tradition, this sound come from here, roots in African and Black American traditions, this rapper is actually a saxophonist and adopted his style from jazz etc. etc. Citations and sources and the like.

As I've found/seen in entirely too many music conversations today, the kids can't do that. As in, if I'm like "okay, this guy who sounds like he's JUST mumbling, what am I missing here? I'm open minded and used to these conversations, go."

Crickets when you get to this level. They can no longer rely on "But music always changes, why do you hate young people, blah blah."

What does this have to do with Spotify?

I’m not the author, but I’ve gone down the same path as them (Plex + ripped CDs.)

My breaking point was when - as a premium subscriber already - Spotify insisted on promoting their family plan, Taylor Swift’s new album and whatever the flavor of the current week was via full-screen modal popups in the app with no way to prevent them. I asked support several times and was told they didn’t have a toggle.

I tried moving to Apple Music, but the discovery patterns in that app didn’t align with what I was looking for, and offline play has been nerfed so hard I can’t find any way to do it any more.

I’m now on Plex + Plexamp for music and happier for it.

I use an old version of the android client and don't see any of that stuff.

>Spotify has great recommendations.

For some people Spotify absolutely does not have good recommendations, at least that has been my experience

My favorite band's presence on streaming consists of a greatest hits compilation (and I believe the same is true of their back catalogue on digital stores). I have their CDs but they've also retired so I imagine they'll never have a meaningful digital/streaming presence. Any recommendations from streaming services have a blind spot for them.

You gotta work with the algo. Sometimes if you only listen to one genre for a while it gets stuck in a rut. It does get annoying when it keeps playing the same song I've only listened to once and then skipped every other time.

I'm not sure about other people, but I hate Spotify's recommendations, and I think it's because my unit of music discovery is albums, not tracks. The Daily Discovery playlist is just randomly selected tracks, and I can't even listen to that. It's too scattered and doesn't go deep enough.

The old Discover tab/page was amazing for finding new albums, but they killed it for some reason.

Perhaps this is more what you are looking for: throw together a playlist with a particular "vibe". Doesn't have to be large, 5-10 tracks works fine. Either switch on enhanced and look at the suggestions, or use the separate section for suggested additions at the bottom. Add the ones that fit the vibe, reject the rest. Repeat. I've found that it mines niches particulary well and discovers new tracks much more effeectively than the pre-canned discover playlists, or daily suggestions.

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