As a very deliberate listener this has been the case for me too but I don't know that the same applies broadly. I can't tell you how many times I've heard somet

As a very deliberate listener this has been the case for me too but I don't know that the same applies broadly. I can't tell you how many times I've heard something I liked in somebody's car, apartment, etc. and asked what it was only to find that they had no idea and it had popped up on their Discover Weekly, radio playlist for some other band/song, or some random mood playlist. Many people probably have similarly shocking listening stats but for the average user how many of those songs were just background noise and wouldn't be recognized again? Spotify is also a little crafty with the genre stats by using a ton of sub-genres that nobody has heard of to create the illusion of diversity. As for expanding taste, wouldn't Spotify-generated playlists theoretically do the opposite by attempting to replicate your demonstrated taste and converge on certain themes? Again, I would describe my experience with Spotify as you did, I just don't think Spotify inherently expands peoples' tastes so much as it provides an endless supply of somewhat anonymized music that people already have a taste for.