There are a lot of features all these companies make available only on their mobile apps, because it’s where they have the most control (and access over your data). It’s the same for social media sites as well, because you can limit them a number of ways on a desktop browser.
Yup, we’re the product to them. I even deliberately use an older version of the app before they added those TikTok like videos in the search area because I get better music suggestions than the new version.
The app is nearly impossible to use to just find new music now. Discover Weekly has been a joke for ages too.
I don’t work for Spotify but I am a mobile app dev and while this could easily just be trying to funnel people into the app it could also be focused on preventing bots and fraud.
Mobile phones offer significantly better tamper resistance compared to laptops and PCs. If someone gives a rating from your app on a phone there are several different forms of attestation available to be sure it’s not a bot or fake account, none of which work on PC.
And if you’re trying to combat the rampant fraud that happens around review manipulation, that is one solution.
Fr, I just listened to the most recent 2-3 months worth on my backlog (I auto-archive my DW lists so they don’t disappear the next week lol) and I think a whopping 2 songs made it on to my master playlist. Usually there’s like 10 or more for similar time periods…I was just blaming it on my tastes confusing the algorithm (I like to jump around genre’s a LOT lmao) but maybe it wasn’t just me after all lol
If you save a song the system thinks you like it, so by continually auto-saving all the songs on your discover weekly you’re actually training it to give you recommendations that are further and further away from what you like
Same here, usually I get at least 1 or 2 songs I like from each week but lately it’s garbage meme songs or songs that I find annoying to listen to. My genres are everywhere too, pretty much everything except country music.
Tracker Control is an app that basically acts a DNS based blocker. Recognizes what your apps connect to, groups it into necessary and unnecessary domains and so on. It does set up a local VPN though, so you can’t use it alongside an actual VPN.
The Duckduckgo app does pretty much the same thing, no need to explain more.
There’s more that do the same DNS-based blocking, Netguard being another popular one.
Another option would be to have a blocker running network-wide, a pihole for example. But again, won’t do anything in case you’re using a VPN, obviously.
And then some apps will straight up refuse to run if you block their trackers. If this happens, it should be the last straw when deciding whether to actually keep the app or not.
Wasn’t OP running the desktop app, though? If that’s the case, then this theory doesn’t really hold water, as desktop apps can do everything that mobile apps can do.
There are a lot of features all these companies make available only on their mobile apps, because it’s where they have the most control (and access over your data). It’s the same for social media sites as well, because you can limit them a number of ways on a desktop browser.
Yup, we’re the product to them. I even deliberately use an older version of the app before they added those TikTok like videos in the search area because I get better music suggestions than the new version.
The app is nearly impossible to use to just find new music now. Discover Weekly has been a joke for ages too.
I don’t work for Spotify but I am a mobile app dev and while this could easily just be trying to funnel people into the app it could also be focused on preventing bots and fraud.
Mobile phones offer significantly better tamper resistance compared to laptops and PCs. If someone gives a rating from your app on a phone there are several different forms of attestation available to be sure it’s not a bot or fake account, none of which work on PC.
And if you’re trying to combat the rampant fraud that happens around review manipulation, that is one solution.
Fr, I just listened to the most recent 2-3 months worth on my backlog (I auto-archive my DW lists so they don’t disappear the next week lol) and I think a whopping 2 songs made it on to my master playlist. Usually there’s like 10 or more for similar time periods…I was just blaming it on my tastes confusing the algorithm (I like to jump around genre’s a LOT lmao) but maybe it wasn’t just me after all lol
If you save a song the system thinks you like it, so by continually auto-saving all the songs on your discover weekly you’re actually training it to give you recommendations that are further and further away from what you like
Same here, usually I get at least 1 or 2 songs I like from each week but lately it’s garbage meme songs or songs that I find annoying to listen to. My genres are everywhere too, pretty much everything except country music.
It shouldn’t be this way… Is there anything we can do against these practices? Client side.
Tracker Control is an app that basically acts a DNS based blocker. Recognizes what your apps connect to, groups it into necessary and unnecessary domains and so on. It does set up a local VPN though, so you can’t use it alongside an actual VPN.
The Duckduckgo app does pretty much the same thing, no need to explain more.
There’s more that do the same DNS-based blocking, Netguard being another popular one.
Another option would be to have a blocker running network-wide, a pihole for example. But again, won’t do anything in case you’re using a VPN, obviously.
And then some apps will straight up refuse to run if you block their trackers. If this happens, it should be the last straw when deciding whether to actually keep the app or not.
Wait I use AdAway rooted version, is it actually helping me to this matter with such apps as Facebook?
You can use AdAway to block unwanted connections, so yeah
Wasn’t OP running the desktop app, though? If that’s the case, then this theory doesn’t really hold water, as desktop apps can do everything that mobile apps can do.