If they do, what is the issue?
Similarly, this isn't an active choice of users. And the harm isn't that they are listening to filler, it's that during their random listening, they aren't coming across any new good music. They are prevented from widening their horizons.
They aren't actively choosing this. Spotify deceives them into thinking this is music chosen because it is likely the users will like this music.
What I buy in the supermarket is very much an active decision. I pay a premium on the bottles of milk because the ones I pick taste better than the supermarket branded ones. I do buy some things that are supermarket branded when I perceive the quality to be similar (or sometimes even better).
This might be different from consumers that due to budget limitations have to buy the cheapest things available, which is why food regulations are very important.
> And the harm isn't that they are listening to filler, it's that during their random listening, they aren't coming across any new good music. They are prevented from widening their horizons.
I presume that people that are actively listening to filler are not appreciating music in their cozy living room while sipping on a glass of fine whiskey.
They just want background noise while they drive, work, study. Something to make their hours more tolerable, or to improve their focus. Apparently the issue is that generic slop from Spotify serves that purpose just as well.
> They aren't actively choosing this.
If the music was bad for them, they would stop listening to it. They don't.
That feels like a false dichotomy. Certainly for myself I can put on a generated playlist hoping to find new stuff I like, whilst still putting on the music as background. As filler.
If spotify has been serving me slop, then they have likely reduced the amount of new music I have added to my collection of things I like. That harms me, and it harms real artists whose music I might like.
In other words, I don't always actively choose the music I listen to. But serving me slop when I don't harms me.
Instead of blaming the company that provided the turds, you should perhaps reconsider your habit of eating feces.
Why do you willingly give a company such as Spotify power over what music you listen to? There are better ways to discover new music if that's what you are after.
Try finding communities of people with similar tastes, sometimes they share their own curated playlists.
Spotify suits my needs perfectly. Even if they do this fake music, it still works well enough. I doubt my half apathy is uncommon. The assumption of prevalence of this attitude is why this change by spotify is so damaging. It will harm my experience a little, and harms artists quite a bit.
People are fine consuming shit, they always were. Why would I be surprised that they are fine consuming shit music that Spotify add to slop playlists with the purpose of increasing their own profits? This is just a logical consequence of how things always were.