Why is This AI Judging My Music Taste?

I'm coming to you all with another one of my "champagne problems". Maybe that could be the title of a series moving forward. Time will tell.

Anyway, a lot of us have devices that we use to listen to music in our cars. From what I know, a CD player, tape decks and eight tracks have gone the way of the dodo. These don't seem to exist in any model of a car made after 2020. I have heard people talk about the lack of this, but we have moved into this bluetooth hookup world while we drive now. That's all well and good with me. I prefer to have the least amount of stuff I can carry when I'm driving around my neighborhood anyway. The less I have to bring the better. So, if all I need is keys, my wallet and a phone, I'm here for it.

The issue I keep running into lately while listening to music in my car, all streaming from Spotify on my phone, is the attitude I tend to get from my AI generated DJ's, or commercial after commercial after commercial. I used to use Pandora and Jango for music, but have since moved on from those. The reason why, I was sick of having a skip limit, or after skipping two or three songs in a row, I'd get what seemed like a five minute ad break. This frustrated me. I'm fickle when it comes to music. I've actually gotten a little more fickle the older I've gotten. I like the music I like and I go through phases of wanting to hear certain songs time and time again. So, when Pandora or Jango would play something different, I was quick to skip. But then the commercials happened. I almost felt like I was being punished for not wanting to listen to what they were recommending, or playing a very deep cut from an artist I had shown affection for at the time. I don't need to be criticized by computers for not liking what they suggest. In fact, a lot of the stuff they suggest is not for me. I'm not into whatever the hippest new pop song is at the moment. I don't like modern country music. I don't want to hear mumble rap. So, if I go on a binge of listening to Ben Kweller or Johnny Cash or NAS, I don't want to hear what Pandora or Jango's bots think I'll like. They have a very, very low success rate.

Moving on from those services was easy because my wife got us all subscriptions to Spotify awhile back. That was cool. I could hear similar stuff as much as I wanted, and check out new records from the artists I like without having to buy a physical copy. That being said, I have been thinking a lot about getting a record player and getting into vinyl, but that is a different story for another day. And when Spotify introduced this AI generated DJ, I thought it was a good idea. I know this may sound contradictory to what I'm saying today, but I've never been much of a playlist person. As I said before, I tire of the songs and move on to a different artist in a different genre. I also feel obligated to listen to a full playlist at any given moment, but that's due to OCD. Playlists just aren't my thing. But this AI DJ intrigued me. So, I use it and I use it a lot. I like how it starts out by playing artists that I'm currently listening to at that time. And when they go into their second part, they play music from different eras that I tend to check out. The problem for me is when they play stuff they think I'll like. Sometimes it works. I've found a few artists that I genuinely listen to now based on the DJ's suggestions. But, when I find artists I don't like, or heaven forbid I skip a few songs in a row, the DJ chastises me. I was doing this very thing the other day and the DJ came on and gave me the third degree. They told me that I could just skip right away or press some button on my phone to immediately get to what I want to hear. Look, I'm all for trying to find new music, but if the picks by the AI DJ aren't working, don't yell at me about it. They messed up. They gave me poor recommendations. I don't need to be yelled at by a robot, of which I'm paying monthly subscription to by the way. That seems like a bit too much. I just want to freely skip songs that I may not want to hear at that time and I don't appreciate being judged for it.

I know it may sound silly to some, me complaining about this, but hey, it happened the other day and it has been a thorn in my side. I just want the streaming services to allow me to consume music how I want. Is that so much to ask? 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Is piracy helpful? Kirk has some ideas.

Once upon a time, I pirated movies, television shows, music, and software without feeling the slightest measure of guilt. There are many ways that I used to justify this shameless disregard for the artists of the entertainment industry. In some ways I still think that piracy is warranted ethically if not legally. Although I have not given up piracy completely, the media world has changed dramatically and thus negated some of the excuses that I once used.

When I was in college, as I was introduced to piracy through a friend who had a then rare home broadband connection and a piece of software known as Napster, I was poor. I was the typical broke college student. I paid for music from the artists that I already knew about and whose music I knew I would enjoy. What I was downloading was merely for discovery purposes. These were artists that I would never have had a chance to listen to in that era. If anything, it broadened my taste. I probably bought more music as a result.

In the ten plus years since then we have music subscription services like Spotify, Google Play Music, and now Apple Music. I listen to most of the music I want through one of these services and do occasionally purchase an album I would like to own. The fact is, legal music adapted to what the consumer wanted. I could still be pirating music, but the paid alternative is more attractive. Which brings me to another justification that I once used and still, in some respects, do.

The industry has to compete. Prior to high speed internet, folks had to put up with any antiquated system that any of these media companies wanted to use for distribution. There was no alternative and would not have been any alternative without high speed internet. The technology to distribute content in a more user friendly way was there long before the big media companies decided to take advantage of them. I contend that without piracy, big media companies would never have been motivated to offer content on services like Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, Steam, or any of the other digital content service providers that exist in the wake of piracy.

Big media companies are champions of capitalism. In a capitalist system one has to compete with any other service providers. That does include black markets in this case. At first they resisted. They tried to sue their way back into the game. They were used to having control over the method of distribution and did not want to make changes for the kids of tomorrow. Eventually they have started seeing that they would have to offer a more alluring alternative to piracy. It wasn’t hard. Piracy can be clunky. Do you think I am going to pirate a movie or series that I can find on Netflix? Not a chance. It is so much easier to use Netflix and have a library of content at my fingertips. I even tend to choose something that is on Netflix over something else that I maybe wanted to watch which is not. This all because of the efficiency over piracy that Netflix provides. In that light, content providers are losing money by failing to provide it through such a service.

As much as I would like to say that I am a pillar of progress and that through only viewing content which is available through these types of services I am only supporting those content providers, I cannot. I have found that currently airing television series are still served superiorly to me through piracy. I think that network fragmentation is culprit there. Hulu has tried to offer a solution to that issue, but those particular content providers are still too greedy to go for it. I am pretty sure someone could improve on Hulu anyhow. Sorry, but serving ads along with subscription content will not fly.

So, dear reader, what do you think? Has your use or justification of piracy changed with the times? If you were a user of early services like Napster, do you still pirate to the same extent or at all today? Was it ever really justified or would we have progress just the same without it? Let me know your thoughts.

Kirk Aug

Kirk is still the new guy around here.  He is added some gravitas and intelligence to the group. Follow him on twitter @kirkaug