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To me the really gross bit is the dishonesty around the slop. Same track with multiple different names appearing under multiple different artist names is egregi
by cogogo 2y ago
To me the really gross bit is the dishonesty around the slop. Same track with multiple different names appearing under multiple different artist names is egregious. Classic corporate disregard for customers.
- surgical_fire 2y agoHow is it harmful to customers? You can listen to whatever you want on Spotify. It containing shit music that you will never listen to harms you in which way? If people are genuinely listening to those tracks and are alright with it, how exactly are they harmed? I already consider most contemporary pop music to be slop anyway, and people seem to be fine listening to it.
- noelwelsh 2y agoIt's unfair in that allowing multiple instances of the same song will almost surely lead to that song receiving more plays than it otherwise would due to how recommendation algorithms work. I don't think this is the most egregious act of dishonesty in the article, though. I think Spotify deliberately seeding this music into its playlists is a worse abuse of its position as owner of the marketplace.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> due to how recommendation algorithms work. You have to actively accept the recommendations from the algorithm. If the algorithm ia recommending slop, and you are fine with it, actively listening to it, who was harmed? > I think Spotify deliberately seeding this music into its playlists is a worse abuse of its position as owner of the marketplace. Nobody is forced to listen to the slop playlists generated by Spotify. Spotify puts them in the front page, but they can be ignored. If people are listening to those playlists and are satisfied with it, what is the issue? If the consumption is genuine and not bot activity, I fail to see any wrongdoing on Spotify. If people like listening to slop, who am I to judge?
- noelwelsh 2y agoConsumers' time is wasted by slop (by listening to it, skipping it, expunging it from playlists, etc.) Musicians are harmed when their material is lost in a sea of slop.
- surgical_fire 2y agoIf they skip or remove from playlists, this would not be a problem would it? These songs would not have a meaningful volume of listeners. Is consumers are actually listening to is, I fail to see harm. Musicians are harmed only in the sense that consumers don't mind listening to slop instead of listening to their music.
- Brian_K_White 2y agoWhy do people try to excuse this shit? Somebody works at Spotify, or is a hopeful Spotify wannabe themselves.
- surgical_fire 2y agoNeither. I have no desire to work for Spotify. Never worked there myself. I do pay for their service. I find it okay, perhaps a little expensive. You may think I am excusing Spotify, but I am not. At least not really. I am just completely unsurprised that people listen to bottom of the barrel musical slop as background noise and are okay with it. Spotify was smart that they figured out to give people what they wanted in a way that costs them less. But people in this thread act as if Spotify is committing a crime, using some very charged language. My approach is from another angle - if users are legitimately listening to crap, and they are alright with the crap they listened to, why are we making a fuss about it?
- noelwelsh 2y agoSpotify is a market. Markets have two sides. You're fixated on one side. Repeating my earlier comment, "I don't think this is the most egregious act of dishonesty in the article, though. I think Spotify deliberately seeding this music into its playlists is a worse abuse of its position as owner of the marketplace."
- ribadeo 2y agoPayola scandal said that the mere fact the platform schemes to prioritize on-platform cheap dreck under multiple names says they are watering down product in a cheating fashion. Adulterated saffron got you burned on a pile of your own fake saffron in parts of medieval Europe. Such a concept as fraudulent activity exists and will not disappear with mere hand wavery.
- rocqua 2y agoSpotify has automated 'next song' and playlist creation. Those are (or used to be) valuable for finding new music, and for getting out of a rut. But now spotify isn't selecting what goes into the playlist based on their best guess of what people would like. Instead they put songs there based on what earns them money.
- surgical_fire 2y agoDoes this have to be actively enabled by the user? I never really had this "next song" thing play for me, nor I ever looked at any playlists Spotify generated (I always presumed they would be bad). Then again, if people are using these features and they are fine with the results, I fail to see the issue.
- rocqua 2y agoYes, though I think smart shuffle might be a default mode for playlists. People who enable these functions will expect spotify to pick the best guess of what music they would enjoy. Not what music costs spotify the least to play. If this is only a little bit worse, people will likely not notice. But they will miss out on new music. Certainly this is how I normal find new music.
- surgical_fire 2y agoI might have disabled this functionality many years ago. I don't really remember ever having this smart shuffle thing where Spotify would add their own suggestions to my playlist. You see, I don't like Spotify. I don't trust any of those huge platforms, I expect them to actively work against my interests. I always disable or avoid anything they want to suggest me, and view it with suspicion, if now outright contempt. More people should act the same way.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago>I don't really remember ever having this smart shuffle thing where Spotify would add their own suggestions to my playlist. I thought that was always the default behavior unless you paid or something? You find a song you wanna listen to, and then Spotify just spits out a playlist for you, in a Pandora esque radio way where you don't have control over the susequent songs played. I liked Pandora back in the day, but there was something offputting about how Spotify implemented this. So I never really bothered and made my own playlists.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThat's the tricky loophole. My understanding of this situation is that there are indeed different artists that are taking the time to comppose a track. But they instead treat this process as an assembly line instead of an artistic pursuit. They give a template, so every song is going to sound similar, only giving a few freedoms to each artist. Templating is almost second nature in tech, but in something like art it feels like there's this ethereal barrier being breached. It's like making a song then paying 10 other people to remix it. But worse because at least remixes disclose the template.