Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Ruffin Bailey's avatar

The conversation once Pelly leaves seems to stop one step away from the real lesson. The problem isn't that people who don't love and can't recognize great music are running the means of production and access. It's that middleware like Spotify, through networked apps that log user choices, outsourced "taste" to the millions of consumers (qua gig workers) that listen.

And, of course, not necessarily in a good way. First, obviously, every user is providing free labor in this algorithmic expression of "taste", as the discussion with Pelly covered, filling the role of record producer. But second, as she suggested, this "algorithmic taste" is fed & manipulated not to make better, more fulfilling music, but to learn how to provide streams that maximize listening engagement and opportunities for profit. Like the Apple App Store, it's a race to the bottom, and we've been more than happy to show the middleware exactly how.

It's a small distinction, and your "Bezos doesn't love books" as a heuristic isn't far off, but the nuance is important.

We're being used to sell ourselves what satisfies us most inexpensively, not what, given real infinite choice and exposure, we'd choose or want to hear. We're in a land of Little Debbies, not World Pastry Cup winners. And that's a shame, because, at least with digital media (contra pastries), once you've created perfection, the price to share with the world is no different than any other content, and quickly approaches zero.

What we want isn't a romanticized notion of interested humans curating our playlists like radio DJs and old record execs. What we want is for art, not (simply) profit, to be the algorithms' primary driver.

Where's the app in Pelly's inbox that does that?

Expand full comment

No posts