[rsmets]

I thought this was such a marvel! However, my excitement level was tapered when I realized the playlist Best of the Decade was not created by only my music listening habits.

Seems as though users were pinned to some general playlist that had characteristics similar to listening habits? Still hats off from an engineering perspective. I as well wish there was more technical detail provided.

The year recap playlists though are fun personal snapshot of time.

[paxys]

I think the decade lists were a bit underwhelming considering not too many people were actually using Spotify all that much 10 years ago. I still got a ton of my music from CDs, iTunes downloads and other more nefarious places.

[thejosh]

I found my decade wrapped interesting, as I have been using Spotify for most of the decade and loved my change of music tastes. And the reaction to the music as I remembered which projects I was working on as I listened to those on repeat.

[matsemann]

I became a paying customer (Premium subscriber) oct 5, 2009. Everyone at my school was using Spotify at the time, albeit the free version. (Norway)

[huseyinkeles]

Interesting, maybe it was more popular back then in the nordics as spotify is a swedish company?

[LeonidasXIV]

Maybe it also depends on the stationery and mobile access you have. In Germany streaming music wasn't feasible a decade ago since you had pretty limited data plans and arguably it still isn't really all that feasible on mobile internet still unless you download for offline on WiFi.

Meanwhile in Denmark or Poland there is very little in terms of data limits.

[Orphis]

10 years ago, barely anyone had a smartphone. Spotify then was about Desktop usage.

[Jhsto]

I remember creating a mobile app for Spotify before they did. It used a reverse-engineered API on a server to download songs and stream them to mobile devices. Most of my friends used it at my school. There were some issues with the server providers and eventually Spotify disliking the fact that the server constructed DRM free music files and stored them temporarily on a disc.

Eventually, Spotify released its official mobile apps and a web player so the project had no use. But it was fun times, it was really marvelous how anyone could find their favorite music from the service and listen to them in good quality without a torrent connection.

Nowadays, I think all those friends who used the hack are Premium subscribers.

[mrep]

January 2012 for me (Chicago).

[nkrisc]

Spotify launched in the US while I was in college, probably 2009 or 2010. I've been a subscriber to this day since then. As I recall it became rather popular pretty quickly among my peers.

[swiley]

If you never listen to pop music it’s really easy to see when Spotify is bullshitting you. It makes me a little mad, I’m pretty sure some DJs went to jail (at least got fired) for this sort of thing.

Overall the suggestions are good when they’re actually derived from what you listen to, but stuff like this really bothers me. Last night I saw some of it creeping into the discover lists which makes me wonder if the good recommendations are coming to an end. There’s certainly money in it for them in the short term.

[aabeshou]

It's interesting to confirm that because anecdotally my best of the decade playlist sucked lol. It had songs that I really don't think I listened to that much or liked that much. It was weird.

[jmilloy]

I thought the decade lists were never meant to be personalized.