[Discover] Please add a "Not Interested" Button

[jasonedokpa]

As the title suggests, it would be useful if Spotify had a "not interested" button like YouTube does for videos. I have been using Spotify for many years and still receive a lot of recommendations for playlists and podcasts that I am simply not interested in. One such example is "Learn Korean and Korean Culture" by jerry. I have no interest in learning Korean whatsoever, so it would be useful for me to remove recommendations such as these.

[KeepItDicey]

It's not even a hard idea to code. Already have the "ignore song" feature. Just add it to podcasts.

"Ignore album/podcast/artist" and you never see it again.

[Autoplay_is_Trash]

Recommendations on Spotify just suck, period. I have 0 interest whatsoever in podcasts, so why do ads for them keep popping up everywhere? If Spotify wants to diversify, how about creating a separate app/website exclusively for podcasts? If that’s too much work, then perhaps a separate tab/page on the same site/app? So that way music fans can enjoy music and podcast listeners can do their thing. 

Netflix has a remedy for the shows you watch once to try out, quit after 5 seconds, but then appear in your recommended section anyway. You can delete those from history. A similar feature would maybe help some of the above commenters.

I feel the bigger issue with recommendation algorithms is they’re too predictable. There’s nothing they can show me that isn’t already super popular and famous. If I haven’t already listened to the recommendation myself, I’ve certainly heard of the album or the band recommended. If I actually want to discover new music of the variety I like, I have to search it up and hope somebody else made a playlist. Spotify’s algorithms are effectively a feedback loop, whereby the biggest and most successful names (whom we likely already are aware of) are the ones constantly recommended, yet the struggling smaller artists who lack a pre-existing fan base are simply not going to get the exposure needed to takeoff. Perhaps Spotify could add a feature for discovering underground artists (defined as those with only a few hundred or few thousand monthly listeners). This would require a new, separate algorithm, and it would also be more difficult to create. Perhaps, in addition to mere (Did you listen or not, and for how long?) numbers, you could allow users to rate an album/EP from 1 to 10 in order to help others of similar tastes find this work. However, such a system could easily be distracting. I wouldn’t want to feel obligated to rate every single think I listen to with Spotify constantly asking me. But as an optional feature that is easy to access but out of view while listening, I think a rating system might do wonders to help promote new acts and give younger artists a better chance of discovery.

[FolcoDurand]

"It's not even a hard idea to code."

Hello,

Are you software Architect ?

[roxannemm87]

Any way Spotify can make it easier for me to have a more accurate algorithm would be much appreciated. I am tired of getting suggested songs and podcasts that do not interest me. Pandora has a dislike button and I feel like my algorithm with them is much more accurate for my tastes than on Spotify.

[M_A]

PLEASE do so already !!!
I contacted the Spotify support team about this matter as of around mid October and it was said to me that the request was moved forward to the relevant people and yet I see no change !

There's A LOT of useless recommendations I simply cant remove whatsoever !

Its very annoying...

[nyctereutes]

I commented on a similar thread earlier about how this feature really should be part of Spotify's push into podcasts.

On the music side, it's already possible to go to an artist and select "don't play this artist". I seldom need to use it, because the music algorithm is pretty good at recommending stuff based on my long listening history, but it's there if I need it.

For podcasts, Spotify really has no solid data on what I would like. I use a different service for podcasts, and plan to do so for the foreseeable future. As others have said, they're essentially limited to overall popularity + some demographic trends + presumably paid promotions (in my "ad-free" paid subscription, which is a problem in its own right).

Extending the "not interested" / "don't play this" functionality to podcasts would be a win-win for Spotify. They would start getting data on negative preferences from some non-podcast users like me, and over time their recommendation could improve, maybe to the point of actually winning me over one day.

Likewise, they would be more likely to keep me and others as paying customers if we don't feel actively annoyed and disappointed every time we open the app. Many people want to hide the sexually explicit podcasts from their home page, I want to hide all the alt-right wackjobs, and so on.

None of this would be in conflict with Spotify's current strategy of forcing podcasts down everyone's throat – it would just make those recommendations better.

[Pemberley]

We really need this.

As somebody else pointed out, our home pages end up looking like a wall of uninteresting offers.

I understand recommending artists/podcasts/playlists/genres/whatever that are extremely popular and all that, but if I'm not interested in them, it just becomes annoying. And it happens again and again so it goes from annoying to infuriating, to be honest. 

[danielengdahl]

This is an actual problem. Not just an annoying nuisance. For the last few months I've for some reason had the suggestion "Hail **bleep**"-podcast right in the middle of my home screen. I have no idea what I've done to deserve that but I definitely have no interest in it (or any other podcasts for that matter...).

This has the effect that I can't use Spotify at work since my co-workers might see my screen (desktop or phone) and think I'm a satanist, basically. Which of course could end badly depending on the situation.

This needs to be resolved asap.

Edit: Wow, that's ironic. I can't even write the name of the podcast in this message but it's fine to show it on my recommendations, together with a upside down cross as the cover image... Fantastic.

[slug_camargo]

I live in South America and OF COURSE Spotify thinks I must be crazy about tropical music - a genre of which I've never played a single f'ing song in my life as a user of the app.

This option should've existed for years. Either that, or just use my actual f'ing playlists and liked songs as a base for your suggestions.

[SLR96]

It would be even better if it wasn't simply a dislike button, since there are songs that I quite like and enjoy, but I don't want them to be suggested on particular playlists. So instead there could be a not interested button, which removes the song from the recommendations of that particular playlist.