[srndsnd]

All these recommendation engine problems people aren't discussing here aren't bugs or problems, they're features. They're either pushing the content that makes people engage with the platform the longest, or that promote another feature that the platform is trying to push on you. With YouTube, it's MrBeast style videos, influencer bait, and shorts. With Spotify, it's for sure podcasts.

Podcasts are so heavily pushed by Spotify because they're trying to make themselves the centralized one stop shop for your audio consumption. They didn't pay Joe Rogan millions for no reason.

As a man under thirty, I see the JRE logo on the front page of my Spotify at least five or six times a month. I have no interest in listening to podcasts on Spotify. I very much dislike Joe Rogan. I hit the option to not request it to me again, and yet there it is.

They're not recommendations based on your taste. They're a mix of just enough of your taste so that you trust and buy-in, mixed with whatever flavor of the week the recommendation engine would love to sell you.