A possibly interesting quirk of it is that this is a fairly intellectualized description (specifically):

> - Spending more time and attention when selecting next artist

> - Reflecting on what you like about the song/album, and why

> - Taking time to curate your collection

> - Exchanging thoughts with other people, and reflecting on their opinions

Of a process that at the time could have been summed up as “chit-chatting with your friends and picking the next song.” I wonder what it costs us, that these sort of process have become something we have to actively reflect on and make an effort. In the past this didn’t feel at all effortful, it was just fun and the easiest way to get music.

This isn’t intended as a criticism of your line of thought, I think you’ve accurately described a good process. Just a thought about how the accurate current description somehow doesn’t quite match the feeling of the past.

I wonder what it would look like to have a feature that elicited reflection, perhaps purely for its own sake but maybe also to help feed further discovery. You could have a player that didn't immediately start playing the next track but presented an interface where you could write notes or react to the song in a variety of ways. That reflection could deepen your appreciation for the song or help you put into words what you find missing. It would also be a much richer feedback for the system to understand what you are looking for and find the next song. We now have all these fancy tools and vector databases for a nuanced and meaningful search based on text content.

What I find most tiring about the status quo is that you have to skip through a bunch of tracks to find something that resonates. It seems mentally taxing and I can't help but think I may actually like a lot of these songs if I was in the right frame of mind to hear them.