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A Mental Shift
I’ve never really been into social networks. It’s not that I was inherently against them from day one, it was more about my lack of personal involvement.
I remember my the first social network, I used it primarily as a chat program. It was simply a place where we could send text messages because everyone around us was there. Sharing things publicly, opinions, photos, jokes, just wasn’t my thing. Since I was never deeply affected by social networks, I remained largely untouched when they began impacting our social lives too heavily and the digital dangers became real.
Addiction to YouTube
However, one platform did manage to make me dependent, and even addicted: YouTube.
When Apple shipped the Screen Time feature, it became clear that I was spending far too much time with YouTube active on my phone. I was constantly either:
- Listening to videos in the background
- Watching videos actively
It became a non-stop process. Whether it was cognitive overload or something else, I realized I could mindlessly scroll through YouTube for minutes without actually selecting a video to watch.
When YouTube released the “Shorts” feature, it introduced a new problem. Now, I wasn’t just scrolling warching long videos, I was literally spending hours watching Shorts. That was the moment I truly understood how TikTok affects people. Lately, YouTube has become less interesting to me (mostly due to broken recommendations), but the underlying habit remains an issue.
Switching to Music
I’m not entirely sure how sound this decision is, but I thought I would try moving away from addictive videos and transition to music.
Due to my “unusual” personality I had almost never listened to music in my life. That left me in a situation where I had almsot no preferences. It doesn’t mean I can’t distinguish what I like from what I don’t, it just means I don’t know what exactly I’d like. I needed use “recommendations” to build my own list.
It meant I need to choose a streaming service where I can feel comfortable.
Choosing a Streaming Service
it was obvious, I needed a service where I could choose a few initial songs and artists, and use it’s recommendations to build a library.
In my mind, I had only one core requirement: I wanted a “magic playlist” that would combine my randomly shuffled saved music (songs I enjoy and have liked/favorited) with a shuffled in recommendations. To me, this felt like the best possible user experience to get started. At least during my the first few months.
YouTube Music
YouTube Music was the most obvious solution, and I almost liked it. However, I cannot understand who made the genius decision to limit it “wearable” client to work ONLY with connected phone.
When I ride a bike or go to the gym, I don’t want to bring my phone with me. I prefer to connect my smartwatch directly to my headphones and listen music completely without phone. It’s an incredibly comfortable setup.
Because of this limitation, YouTube Music was removed from my list automatically, without any second chances.
Amazon Music
I don’t remember exactly why or how, but Amazon Music offered me a 3-month free trial right around this time. I couldn’t resist taking it for a try.
Amazon Music works reasonably well on a smartwatch… almost. In general, it works, but it’s quality is similar across all Amazon’s applications: the UI feels unresponsive and laggy.
While Amazon Music has made steps forward, it only works well, until it doesn’t. Sometimes, when skipping to the next track or going back to a previous one, the synchronization between album art, title, and audio breaks entirely. It can display the image from one track, the title from another, and play the audio from a third.
The most frustrating part? When it break on my smartwatch during a ride.
Apple Music
Since I am deeply invested into Apple’s ecosystem, it made sense to try Apple Music, expecting a highly consistent experience. While for Linux, it provides a functional Web UI.
But after spending some time with it, I realized their recommendation engine simply doesn’t work for me. I read all their playlists are “hand-picked.”, but those curated selections never quite aligned with my taste.
Apple Music features a personalized station called “User’s Station,” but whenever I put it on, I wanted to skip every single song. The tracks felt completely disconnected from what I’d expect.
Moreover, one interesting feature that frustrated me, I did not expect from Apple.. When I was playing music via the Web UI and tried to switch to my mobile phone, instead of seamlessly moving the active playback between devices, it showed me an error that I need a “Family” subscription to listen on multiple devices. I haven’t similar issues on other services.
Spotify
And here we are!
Everyone recommends Spotify for its legendary recommendation algorithm. I expected this algorithmic magic to make me happy right from the start.
To be fair, Spotify boasts the highest UI quality. It just works. From my perspective, there are only two streaming services consistently building top-tier user interfaces: Netflix and Spotify.
Regardless, I started the app, completed an onboarding experience, and started listening. To my surprise, I couldn’t find an obvious “User’s Station” equivalent on the home screen like Apple Music had. It features many automated playlists, but all of them were standard Artist and Similar radios.
It wasn’t quite what I was hunting for.
After many attempts and our lovely chat bots, who help us search in internet I’ve found a hidden feature: Smart Shuffle inside the Liked Songs playlist. This was exactly what I had been searching for.
Over the last few days, I’ve quite enjoyed Spotify, and I plan to stick with it for now.
Closing Thoughts
I understand that my specific use case might be an outlier, but it feels clear to me that Discovery and Shuffled In1 playlists should be on the main screen.
Do most people really listen to music by looking for recommendations based on an artist or a song?
From a good UX, I’d expect those playlists on the main screen:
- Discovery: A dedicated space to find new suggestions based on the current intests.
- Shuffled In1: The hybrid mix of known favorites and new algorithmic suggestions.
- Mood-Based Playlists
- Time-and-Activity Categories (e.g., morning focus, workout, evening wind-down)
I’d love to hear from others on this. How disconnected are my UX expectations from an average streaming user?