[psKama]

That's the exact reason I switched to YouTube Music. I remember even about 10 years ago, last.fm's algorithm on bringing songs I would enjoy basing on previously listened/liked songs was far more accurate than Spotify's today.

[taurath]

YouTube makes recommendations around engagement metrics only (1 political video gets you Fox News recommendations for years), spotify still gives me plenty of small bands - I think if you’re listening to very popular music you’re screwed either ways

[geoduck14]

I was at a conference the other week and Spotify had a Keynote. They talked about the tradeoff between playing "diverse songs" and "consistent songs". It is a hard problem to solve.

When you start your listening session they try and predict how long you are going going listen (based on your past history and time of day). If you are probably going to listen for a while, they are more risky and might play something "different". Playing different stuff is risky (short term) because you MIGHT not like it. Playing the same stuff is safe (short term) because they know you will like it - BUT people will eventually go searching for something new, so they have to risk diversity eventually.

[addandsubtract]

They could just ask. I promise my answers will be more accurate than any AI guessing for me.

[chiefalchemist]

Exactly. There's no reason the "personlized" Daily Mixes can't be built/labeled to indicate "acaccuracy" rate. It annoys me when I'm in the mood for new or different - which is 60% of the time - and all the new Daily Mixes feel like the day / week before.

I'd love a personalized playlist titled "Curveballs" that contined things different and/or challenging.

[geoduck14]

Funny you say that, because Pandora has that option

[charcircuit]

People rarely know what they actually want

[ratww]

Bullshit. What people rarely know is what some rich tech company actually want them to want.

[lamontcg]

Let me fuck my own shit up please

[tehjoker]

Sometimes yes, but a lot of times they actually do know what they want if you ask them the right way.

[harles]

I get mostly small bands in Spotify and I worry that Spotify is actually bias towards them. I assume the royalties are cheaper for smaller bands and that may factor into recommendations.

[foota]

Youtube music isn't the same as youtube.

[AcerbicZero]

Weird, I switched to Spotify once Google Play Music (or whatever silly name it had when Google ate songza) became YouTube Music because I found it such a poor experience.

Perhaps I was missing something but the change def did not improve the recommendations - it made them drastically worse.

[vanilla_nut]

In my experience, Spotify's recommendations are good for a few months, and then stick in a rut at some point for reasons I don't understand. So you're probably in that nice honeymoon phase where it's actually allowing you to discover new things instead of surfacing the same 20 artists over and over and over again.

[bryan0]

For me Spotify was discovering good new music for years before getting “stuck” recommending the same artists over and over again last year. I do mark them as “I dont like this song” but it still will recommend them later. I think it’s time to reset and start over.

[aeyes]

Does the algorithm of YouTube Music behave similar to standard YouTube? YouTube (not Music) basically always recommends the same tracks in the same order and within the same genre bubble. It is hard to discover anything new which makes me not want to try YouTube Music.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

My experience is the algorithm is a bit different. I have not been on the platform for long, but my recommendations have been great. I've also been listening to music on the same youtube account for 10+ years, so I assume they have alot of data.

[notatoad]

This was my experience with YouTube music - no matter what genre station I started off with, it eventually settled back onto the same small number of currently-trending songs. I get much more diverse recommendations from Spotify.

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

I just switched to youtube music, its leagues better than spotify. YouTube music seems to have a pretty solid recommendation algorithm, and I frequently find music more in tune with my tastes there than on spotify. Honestly, I would not mind seeing spotify disappear.

[didibus]

I'm thinking of going the other way, I just dislike how YT Music doesn't have some small feature like saving my queue to a playlist. But perhaps I should hold out.

[sillysaurusx]

Fwiw, I was shocked how much better YouTube music was than Spotify. I turned on the trial on a whim, and now I actually miss it (it expired a few days ago).

It was so nice that I’m seriously considering just turning off Spotify. It’s sort of interesting to analyze why we don’t —- for me, it’s become unconscious habit to reach for Spotify and not anything else. Plus a lot of other stuff integrates well with it.

(What if… what if we can use both? Mind asplode, it’s not a decision.)

[T00TH3M00N]

Haha same. I couldn't believe how much better YT Music was. There's no going back

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Its funny how much better Googles side show product is. Shows that the internal technology is truly advanced and capable of swiping away another company at the drop of a hat.

[jcims]

I'm just trying it out now based on the recommendations in this thread. When you start it asks you to pick some favorite artists. The first few rows were clearly based on artists that I've watched recently on YouTube, so it's pulling in history (I mean...no surprise).

Then I scrolled down a bit b/c I wanted to give it a strong signal of what I liked. I found an artist, clicked it, and noticed the recommendations below changed immediately afterwards.

So then I scrolled some more (because there were still 95% misses), found one I liked, scrolled to see the next row then clicked on the artist I liked above to see if it indeed changed.

It did. But not only that. I love every artist on the following row. Then it quickly diffuses back to noise, but holy cow that was a bit of a spine tingler lol.

[LegitShady]

I think Youtube Music does a decent job on recommendations but its android app is annoying. How does it still not have a horizontal screen mode?

[1_player]

The iOS and web app are _bad_. And knowing Google, it won't get any better anytime soon.

[LegitShady]

their development team is a goldfish swimming in a bowl beside a keyboard, I think