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I'll take algorithms over payola. At least they suggest things to me that I'd like to hear.

• asdfman123 7y ago
  No, algorithms can be used as tools to hide payola far better. If someone subtly tweaks the algorithm to favor a certain artist, how do you ever catch that? It's particularly concerning because there did a study that showed in different control groups of music listeners, new songs became popular just based on which ones became popular earlier. I mean, try this trick on yourself: find a random song and listen to it 20 times. Odds are you'll like it a lot better after the first several listens than the first time. If in addition to that all your friends happened to know and like the song, and they started advertising the artists heavily, bam! It's a hit. It's just groupthink, and we're all susceptible to it.
• bsder 7y ago
  Really? Ed Sheeran is so good that he had 5 of the top 10 hits simultaneously? If that's the end result, I think we need to bring back payola.
  • holy_city 7y ago
    meh? Charts have always been poor representations of musical quality/popularity. I use spotify because the algorithms suggest me good music based on my taste, and despite the weird polarity of it they always find new music that interests me. I have no problem with Spotify's algorithms. They do a very good job with a very difficult problem.