I agree, especially about Netflix and Pandora's poor recommendations as a product of their limited catalog. I don't however think that humans are any better in

I agree, especially about Netflix and Pandora's poor recommendations as a product of their limited catalog. I don't however think that humans are any better in this regard. Humans also tend to recommend near the center of a distribution of tastes, and when they stray from that, it's out of a deliberate move to find something new/different. Algorithms can do the same (and many do), but many of those suffer from other problems - such as poor interfaces or limited catalogs as mentioned. Just because no one has done it really well yet, that doesn't mean we should all go back to human-curated playlists in my opinion. Edit to add: Perhaps part of my reluctance to rely on DJ's and human-curated playlists is a lack of trust. When a person recommends something to the masses, my gut instinct is to question motives (who is being promoted and why). When an algorithm recommends something to me as part of an unlimited service, I tend to feel like it's been tailored to me for no reason other than to maximize my enjoyment (though admittedly, the truth is that algorithms may be built with just as much - if not more - questionable bias as any human).