[anchpop]

Don't compare Spotify against god, compare it to the alternative. Everyone has a "recommendation algorithm", it just doesn't have to be spotify's. It could be the radio, or what they see talked about in pop culture (e.g. WAP), or what their friends are listening to, etc. Spotify's algorithm has the potential to be radically more fair than any of the available alternatives. A fair algorithm is one that always shows people the songs they're most likely to appreciate, and the incentives are correctly aligned for Spotify to make a good effort to get as close as possible to that ideal (Spotify's top-tier "discover weekly" playlists are why I stick with it over any other platform). Music I listen to through the recommender is actually more valuable to me than music I picked out myself - if I only wanted to listen to music I already know about, I would just pirate it or buy it on itunes and save myself $10/month.

As an aside, I also disagree with "In scenario 3 and 4, the user just wishes to have something making noise, not anything specific, but not random". I don't just want something making noise, I want something making the kind of noise that I like to listen to, which includes a mix of old songs/artists and new ones I've never heard before.