4 ms·

Spotify does a great job generally but they lost me as a customer because they keep testing removing the Discovery functionality. I don't understand why that's

Spotify does a great job generally but they lost me as a customer because they keep testing removing the Discovery functionality. I don't understand why that's a section they want to kill, but so be it. I canceled in 2016 after a year of being annoyed by the on again-off again presence of the Discovery section. It looks like the same game is still going on. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-recommendations-gone/td-p/1623221 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Discover-re... https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_section_gone/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/7rbvnr/discover_se... I tried Google, Amazon, and Apple's offerings and went with Apple Music since I'm a Mac, iPhone, Apple TV user. Couldn't be happier. Should Apple remove their discovery section I'll find a different provider. Rinse, repeat. I've found a lot of awesome bands that way without any effort on my part.

ljm 8y ago
I never honestly noticed the difference here, but now you point it out... it looks like they're pushing advertising no matter what kind of user you are. What made me notice that is how subtle the payola is. I follow my best friend's Discover Weekly playlist too because we share similar tastes, and every now and then I would spot that we get the exact same songs (typically some new release but not always from a big band), at the exact same position in each of our playlists. I still enjoy Spotify greatly, but it's a shame that they're trading serendipity for marketing. The Release Radar thing is practically useless.
- johncalvinyoung 8y ago
  My interpretation of a similar scenario (my girlfriend and I both followed & listened to each other's Discover Weekly) was that Spotify noticed that traffic and started assuming our tastes were converging (they were).
mekkkkkk 8y ago
This also drives me crazy. Maybe not exactly the discovery feature, but how flimsy the UX feels. Features disappear and reappear all the time. I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. A/B might be valuable, but to me it should be conservative.
- hk__2 8y ago
  > I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. Yeah, I once "decompiled" the Spotify desktop app (it’s mostly a bunch of zip’d web apps glued together), and found details about ad targeting and A/B identifiers. I had 20+ identifiers, most of them regarding ads (i.e. named `ads_<something>`), but also some with weird names like `liar_detective_rollout_Exposed`.

ljm 8y ago

I never honestly noticed the difference here, but now you point it out... it looks like they're pushing advertising no matter what kind of user you are. What made me notice that is how subtle the payola is. I follow my best friend's Discover Weekly playlist too because we share similar tastes, and every now and then I would spot that we get the exact same songs (typically some new release but not always from a big band), at the exact same position in each of our playlists. I still enjoy Spotify greatly, but it's a shame that they're trading serendipity for marketing. The Release Radar thing is practically useless.

johncalvinyoung 8y ago
My interpretation of a similar scenario (my girlfriend and I both followed & listened to each other's Discover Weekly) was that Spotify noticed that traffic and started assuming our tastes were converging (they were).

mekkkkkk 8y ago

This also drives me crazy. Maybe not exactly the discovery feature, but how flimsy the UX feels. Features disappear and reappear all the time. I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. A/B might be valuable, but to me it should be conservative.

hk__2 8y ago
> I've listened to a Spotify people brag about their A/B testing efforts. It is absolutely crazy how many different variants they have at any given time. Yeah, I once "decompiled" the Spotify desktop app (it’s mostly a bunch of zip’d web apps glued together), and found details about ad targeting and A/B identifiers. I had 20+ identifiers, most of them regarding ads (i.e. named `ads_<something>`), but also some with weird names like `liar_detective_rollout_Exposed`.