Living Outside the Algorithm
Reactions To a Recent Guardian Article
While scrolling on Bluesky this past weekend, I saw frequent discourse over a particular article in The Guardian titled “I traded Spotify with an MP3 player for a week. Life outside the algorithm was rough.”
Though completely legitimate, at times, the piece, written by Lauren Gould, bordered on possibly being satire. This is because so much of Gould’s challenge — to stop utilizing her streaming services for a week in lieu of an mp3 player — goes awry quickly. It ends up with her listening to about six albums, and complaining how hard it is to listen to music if you don’t have a streaming service.
Despite being vaguely humorous to me, someone who actively shirks streaming in favor of physical media, there were other takeaways that were a deeper sign of the endemic issues with streaming and algorithm-pushed music.
A lot of it has to do with a particular word — “frictionless.” It’s come up a lot lately in conversations I’ve been having lately (in person and online). It exemplifies what many have become content with in many media platforms — having content “pushed” to them, instead of discovering it themselves.
To a degree, this has in some ways always existed — the radio, for example, is a curated service that collects music into a program you can listen to. The difference is that curation happens by a human, not a computer. (Though even here, this has begun to be suspect, as many robot DJs have replaced humans over the years). Additionally, you often don’t have to pay for a radio program to listen to cool tunes. It’s free and you just tune in.
Meanwhile, streaming services, though they can often be free with a ton of ads, they push listeners to become subscribers. But because their subscribers are paying a fee, they have a different agenda — one that prioritizes increasing retention and also decreases “friction” (meaning making the product easier to use).
The result is not necessarily a product that focuses on the user finding cool music, but instead one that pushes convenience. Instead of having to find what you want to listen to, don’t worry — streaming services will do it for you. You don’t have to even know the artist — just click one of their vaguely titled playlists and get in the right mood1.
The problem lies in what Gould illustrates in her Guardian article. By using these services, corporations create a dependency on their product. Thus, when users leave, it becomes difficult. Listeners like Gould likely ask themselves, “Well, now what do I even listen to? How do I find new music? How do I even buy music anymore?”
I’m aware that these questions might sound dumb, especially if you’re an active music listener, but I’m telling you, there are many more people like Gould than you think. Those that actively DO NOT KNOW how to find new music. Those that DO NOT KNOW they can go to a thrift store and buy CDs for $2 a pop. Those that DO NOT KNOW that Bandcamp exists. Those that DO NOT KNOW that if they build a music collection, they’ll end up SAVING MONEY in the long run.
How do I know this? If you actively browse music social media as I do, there are many that believe they’ve found “lost media” if the album doesn’t exist on Spotify, when it’s actively available on Bandcamp. And of course, it’s all throughout Gould’s article, representative of what an average, non-music freak’s experience is trying to listen to music.
Though it’s easy to lampoon someone like Gould and drag her across the mud, I think it’s better instead to think about how we (music sickos) educate normal listeners to the benefits of building one’s own music collection, as well as where streaming services suck. And additionally, perhaps, why the algorithm isn’t actually on your side.
Because if we don’t, the future could be very bleak. One where the average populace believes they legitimately need the algorithm to find what they need. It’s up to us to explain they don’t need that easy IV drip needle of content.
The big question looms though: How do we do it? Streaming isn’t going away anytime soon, and articles like Gould’s in The Guardian prove we’re in a nadir of music exploration and discovery.
Though I have some ideas (which I’ll probably cover in a future Substack post), I’d like to hear your thoughts. How do we convince others that the “algorithm” may not be the best option when it comes to music discovery? How do we show listeners the value of physical media? How do we pivot from this bleak future?
There’s a lot more to this argument, and it’s covered in Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine, a takedown of the giant streaming service. I can’t recommend it enough.