The thing with any 'recommendation' system like Discover Weekly is that while it recommends based on past preferences, the recommendations have the effect of in

The thing with any 'recommendation' system like Discover Weekly is that while it recommends based on past preferences, the recommendations have the effect of influencing and reinforcing the musical tastes and at some point one will notice that one's taste in music has been entirely manufactured by the algorithm, week by week. This is not just in music, the filtering 'according to preferences' is ubiquitous in today's applications - so I wonder - were does the recommendation end and influence start ? For example, Google maps routes you to avoid high traffic, but by doing this, it is also generating traffic and the more people use it, the more influence the app has in the real world traffic. I for one use it sporadically; my music tastes are so state-dependent - sometimes I want ambient music, sometimes I want heavy metal, sometimes I want lyrics and sometimes I want a hard electronic beat. The algorithm does not know my current state, wether I want to keep or change it - even I don't always understand exactly what and how I feel. Also, I've had it happen lots of times - sometimes I listen to a track or album which I don't immediately like, but then it grows on me and I discover something beautiful hidden in it. There's value in listening to things that don't follow the usual pattern and that's very hard for an algorithm to do.