It seems like every recommendation algorithm gets into a state that is broken eventually. For the music streaming services, I find they end up in one of two states, either it shows me the exact same artists and songs over and over again even if I skip their songs constantly, or I'll play a song once out of curiosity or accident and it decided that that genre is all I am interested in listening to for the next month. Is it really that hard to map artists

I got so frustrated with Tidal recently that I finally sat down and finally setup a media player on Linux to play my locally saved music (most of which is from What.cd).

> There is no joy of discovery of new music that you haven't heard. There is no connection to other humans through music.

Hard disagree here.

For new music, Discover Weekly is great, if you take some time to engage with it on a routine basis. Even better, if you have an artist/genre you already like, the Fans Also Like or Discovered On will link you to other artists and playlists. Super easy to go down rabbit holes of new artists and playlists.

As far as connecting with others, I do like the spotify DMs (in-app share), the friend activity tab, and particularly the share attribution. When you share a song via link (url with ?si=), you'll permanently be linked to it. For a number of my favorite songs, I see "From {friend}" at the bottom while listening. Makes me feel super connected to friends I've bonded with over music.

I had spotify premium for ~10 years i think. I recently cancelled. I travel a lot, so now they started complaining i was not listening near my address.

then they started blocking family members because i was not around.

then they wanted to charge in a different coin because i was not home, but EVEN if i would their login doesnt work because it redirects me to a different country if i am abroad.

they are vibe coding too hard that they add all bs they think is a good idea. it was a good push for me to cancel that.

I haven't used it, but YouTube Music has a samples section which is supposed to show you "shorts" of new (to you) songs.

> There is no joy of discovery of new music that you haven't heard.

I have my problems with Spotify, but this is not one of them. I discover new artists, or long forgotten artists, regularly - even some weird obscure shit like Tänzelcore.

But I have to agree, that the magic of discovering new music is not the same as, for example, digging records in a record store or via obscure boards and platforms (remember FF-Shrine?)

Then switch to YouTube Music or Tidal, they're way better.