6 ms·

I think all these comments discussing white noise miss the point, which isn't white noise but "if people would listen to what is more profitable to us, instead

I think all these comments discussing white noise miss the point, which isn't white noise but "if people would listen to what is more profitable to us, instead of what they enjoy listening to, we would make X more profit". They couldn't even have gotten to the point of confusing white noise and leaves rustling with podcasts and other "content" to make a buck off, if it wasn't for that first step. And that view of users as a resource, as people who need to be told what they want, permeates so much of tech... like a giant elephant shitting all over an otherwise quite elegantly made couch.

acters 3y ago
Something that stuck out to me during my time in college business courses is the fact that many teachers are pushing the idea of a manager, director, or other executive roles, into how to understand and allocate resources. One of the resources is humans, either as employees or, in other moments, the users. While clients and investors are more or less seen as another team or "entity"(eg, partner company) that facilitates the use or funding of the project. Just my two cents on what I have seen being thought to the next generation. I don't know how to feel about this. I am interested in others' opinions on this.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  A previous article about management styles kinda goes in the direction you're describing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159338 Reception wasn't great to say the least.
gantron 3y ago
But what’s driving people listening to white noise sometimes isn’t enjoyment, right? There have been cases of clear abuse [0] that Spotify is correct to crack down on. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5690590/spotify-removes-silent-album-that-earned-indie-band-20000 https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5690590/spotify-removes-si...
drBonkers 3y ago
> "if people would listen to what is more profitable to us, instead of what they enjoy listening to, we would make X more profit". I was ranting, immaturely, to my ML educated friend recently about how terrible modern discovery algorithms are ("if ML is so powerful why does Spotify exclusively serve up the steamiest of dog sh$t?") when he explained this to me. His response was "they aren't optimizing their discovery algorithms for your enjoyment, they optimize them for profit."
- mtillman 3y ago
  Another good example of this is Apple’s “radio station” concept. It plays deep cuts unrelated to the originally chosen music about 3 songs into your list to spread the wealth (play songs with the smallest possible royalty costs).
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Things like this are super annoying to me, especially when Apple is engaging in it as well. Just like deduplication on cloud services, this "feature" is literally only beneficial for the company so they can reduce your file storage use and make your data less secure and have an excuse to get to know more about your data they can use for other purposes.
    - democracy 3y ago
      is it what dropbox did back in the days eh? ))
      - Obscurity4340 3y ago
        I imagine they mostly all do it, with the exception of maybe Tresorit, possibly ProtonDrive but I am not super familiar with them. Its actually a "feature" of convergent encryption which Apple uses in lieu of true zero-knowledge e2ee like Tresorit.
    - nwiswell 3y ago
nightpool 3y ago
"prohibiting future uploads while redirecting the audience towards comparable programming that was more economical for Spotify" — this sounds like Spotify generating the white noise on device or partnering with an app that does so, which seems like a much better use of resources then letting users upload thousands of GB of machine generated audio per week streamed to hundreds of thousands of viewers. I don't think there's much indication at all that the goal is stopping people from listening to white noise and forcing them to listen to other podcasts. And i don't necessarily think they'd be wrong in assessing that this is a very poor use of bandwidth costs, or wrong in thinking that it's one that significantly changed the marginal economics of the platform (auto generated white noise can be uploaded in bulk by computers with no human involvement compared to the time it takes to create even the most bare bones podcast episode, and one "episode" of white noise is indistinguishable from a another for most users, leaving Spotify holding the bag for thousands of hours of back catalog that may never get listened to)
iraqmtpizza 3y ago
why does a white noise podcast need more than one episode? that's no different than uploading the same episode hundreds of times. it's an attack. except worse because noise is incompressible
- ricardobayes 3y ago
  In short, white noise is not just one pitch of "TV static". There can be many pitches in white noise, and also many other types exist: brown noise, pink noise etc. It also can be mixed in to provide an audio experience. Human mind is excellent in recognising patterns so if one is using it for sleep/anxiety reduction purposes, it needs variety. This is why a noise generator producing nature sounds never work, but a fan does.
dreamcompiler 3y ago
This is what enshittification looks like. It's gotten to the point where I only play specific albums I like now. Spotify hates that, as evidenced by how difficult the UI makes it to do.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  How is that difficult? I'm wondering if you have a different UI to me, because I can both search an album and then play it, click on the album art from a playing song, or if I want just pin an album and then it behaves like a playlist
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    I use it on the Tesla screen which to be fair is widely reputed to be a terrible Spotify UI.
agumonkey 3y ago
> as people who need to be told what they want, permeates so much of tech all under the disguise of 'objective and smart algorithm analysing data' even though it seems that they will always use data to fit their own need, it feels like a digital feudal system
- abwizz 3y ago
  > it feels like a digital feudal system it surely does. and quite an interesting take on the declaration of independence of cyberspace.
  - agumonkey 3y ago
    I'm a bit shocked in a way.. there's a principle about large central structures that apply the same no matter where. Any central service will be biased toward his own belief and enforcing absurd pain on smaller users ?
    - abwizz 3y ago
      not entirely sure what you are saying?
      - agumonkey 3y ago
        nevermind i'm not sure what i'm saying either
b112 3y ago
like a giant elephant shitting all over an otherwise quite elegantly made couch. This is a weird reference! Do you, mayhap, have large, boisterous, disliked relatives?

acters 3y ago

Something that stuck out to me during my time in college business courses is the fact that many teachers are pushing the idea of a manager, director, or other executive roles, into how to understand and allocate resources. One of the resources is humans, either as employees or, in other moments, the users. While clients and investors are more or less seen as another team or "entity"(eg, partner company) that facilitates the use or funding of the project. Just my two cents on what I have seen being thought to the next generation. I don't know how to feel about this. I am interested in others' opinions on this.

makeitdouble 3y ago
A previous article about management styles kinda goes in the direction you're describing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37159338 Reception wasn't great to say the least.

gantron 3y ago

But what’s driving people listening to white noise sometimes isn’t enjoyment, right? There have been cases of clear abuse [0] that Spotify is correct to crack down on. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5690590/spotify-removes-silent-album-that-earned-indie-band-20000 https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5690590/spotify-removes-si...

drBonkers 3y ago

> "if people would listen to what is more profitable to us, instead of what they enjoy listening to, we would make X more profit". I was ranting, immaturely, to my ML educated friend recently about how terrible modern discovery algorithms are ("if ML is so powerful why does Spotify exclusively serve up the steamiest of dog sh$t?") when he explained this to me. His response was "they aren't optimizing their discovery algorithms for your enjoyment, they optimize them for profit."

mtillman 3y ago
Another good example of this is Apple’s “radio station” concept. It plays deep cuts unrelated to the originally chosen music about 3 songs into your list to spread the wealth (play songs with the smallest possible royalty costs).
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Things like this are super annoying to me, especially when Apple is engaging in it as well. Just like deduplication on cloud services, this "feature" is literally only beneficial for the company so they can reduce your file storage use and make your data less secure and have an excuse to get to know more about your data they can use for other purposes.
  - democracy 3y ago
    is it what dropbox did back in the days eh? ))
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      I imagine they mostly all do it, with the exception of maybe Tresorit, possibly ProtonDrive but I am not super familiar with them. Its actually a "feature" of convergent encryption which Apple uses in lieu of true zero-knowledge e2ee like Tresorit.
  - nwiswell 3y ago

nightpool 3y ago

"prohibiting future uploads while redirecting the audience towards comparable programming that was more economical for Spotify" — this sounds like Spotify generating the white noise on device or partnering with an app that does so, which seems like a much better use of resources then letting users upload thousands of GB of machine generated audio per week streamed to hundreds of thousands of viewers. I don't think there's much indication at all that the goal is stopping people from listening to white noise and forcing them to listen to other podcasts. And i don't necessarily think they'd be wrong in assessing that this is a very poor use of bandwidth costs, or wrong in thinking that it's one that significantly changed the marginal economics of the platform (auto generated white noise can be uploaded in bulk by computers with no human involvement compared to the time it takes to create even the most bare bones podcast episode, and one "episode" of white noise is indistinguishable from a another for most users, leaving Spotify holding the bag for thousands of hours of back catalog that may never get listened to)

iraqmtpizza 3y ago

why does a white noise podcast need more than one episode? that's no different than uploading the same episode hundreds of times. it's an attack. except worse because noise is incompressible

ricardobayes 3y ago
In short, white noise is not just one pitch of "TV static". There can be many pitches in white noise, and also many other types exist: brown noise, pink noise etc. It also can be mixed in to provide an audio experience. Human mind is excellent in recognising patterns so if one is using it for sleep/anxiety reduction purposes, it needs variety. This is why a noise generator producing nature sounds never work, but a fan does.

dreamcompiler 3y ago

This is what enshittification looks like. It's gotten to the point where I only play specific albums I like now. Spotify hates that, as evidenced by how difficult the UI makes it to do.

RugnirViking 3y ago
How is that difficult? I'm wondering if you have a different UI to me, because I can both search an album and then play it, click on the album art from a playing song, or if I want just pin an album and then it behaves like a playlist
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  I use it on the Tesla screen which to be fair is widely reputed to be a terrible Spotify UI.

agumonkey 3y ago

> as people who need to be told what they want, permeates so much of tech all under the disguise of 'objective and smart algorithm analysing data' even though it seems that they will always use data to fit their own need, it feels like a digital feudal system

abwizz 3y ago
> it feels like a digital feudal system it surely does. and quite an interesting take on the declaration of independence of cyberspace.
- agumonkey 3y ago
  I'm a bit shocked in a way.. there's a principle about large central structures that apply the same no matter where. Any central service will be biased toward his own belief and enforcing absurd pain on smaller users ?
  - abwizz 3y ago
    not entirely sure what you are saying?
    - agumonkey 3y ago
      nevermind i'm not sure what i'm saying either

b112 3y ago

like a giant elephant shitting all over an otherwise quite elegantly made couch. This is a weird reference! Do you, mayhap, have large, boisterous, disliked relatives?