> It's literally impossible to find new music you like without recommendations.
As another old fogey, at least old enough to have been active in the filesharing scene, that filesharing has got me so much music stored on disk that it would take nearly a year to listen to every recording if they were played back-to-back 24/7. With such an embarrassment of riches, what need is there for continual recommendations for new music? Sure, I occasionally add new music if I come across some interesting mention of an artist in a book or article, but I have a hard time understanding why some other old fogeys feel that a discovery algorithm is essential.
Back in the Napster days, my "algorithm" was to stumble around somewhat randomly until I found something cool. Then I could look at that peer's collection and download other things that seemed interesting. Usually, it was possible to go deep and get full albums.
After they killed Napster, my discovery ended up on BitTorrent, which often optimized for the complete discography of artists. This could leave quite a backlog but it was interesting nonetheless.
Now I use Apple music, primarily for the albums and the depth of the catalog. I was an early Spotify user but they lost me when they were serving other people music through my connection in the early days, I didn't appreciate that.
When they started monetizing, I also didn't like the way that they took in tons of money from people who liked exclusively small artists and paid it out to mostly the top acts from big labels. Sure, they all do that now, but Spotify started it. At the time, iTunes still had you paying by the song.
It's hard to stay into new music as I get older. A lot of times I already know what I want to hear, and I'm not a constant soundtrack type. But I do make an effort to prowl around the catalog a little and also listen to college radio. Those experiences haven't failed me yet.
By that logic, what need is there of new books, paintings, movies, TV, or ideas? You can't possibly consume all the good ones already available to you.
You may be surprised to learn that some people just enjoy exploring new and recent music. Music and culture change, so you can't just find everything you might want in a historical catalog.
>By that logic, what need is there of new books, paintings, movies, TV, or ideas?
you may legimatey not need them based on your goals for the medium. For books, I tend to only read technical textbooks these days, so sure. I'm not looking for any fiction or biographies.
Likewise, I really haven't bothered curating a playlist since Google Play Music shut down, I was barely adding new songs to my playlist by then anyway.
>You may be surprised to learn that some people just enjoy exploring new and recent music.
Sounds rough with the current landscape, especially if they feel stuck to Spotify. But if there's one thing I learned from exploring new and recent adult media, it's that the truly great stuff isn't found on Pornhub. You gotta search deep and discover your kinks through "word of mouth". Really teaches you to properly "research" when billion dollar corporations are too scared to touch your medium to begin with, and most forums forbid even talking about such stuff.
and how to rummage through spam. My god, is there so much spam when you hit a niche adult theme and you just end up with weird russsian websites. Corporate propaganda shilling can't even phase me anymore
> You may be surprised to learn that some people just enjoy exploring new and recent music.
I never said otherwise. I just believe that most old-fogey listeners are going to divide their time between exploring new music and dealing with the backlog they quickly accumulate from that exploration, and therefore an algorithm that pumps out recommendations nonstop is not essential.
As another old fogey, at least old enough to have been active in the filesharing scene, that filesharing has got me so much music stored on disk that it would take nearly a year to listen to every recording if they were played back-to-back 24/7. With such an embarrassment of riches, what need is there for continual recommendations for new music? Sure, I occasionally add new music if I come across some interesting mention of an artist in a book or article, but I have a hard time understanding why some other old fogeys feel that a discovery algorithm is essential.