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Ask HN: How random you think Spotify(or companies with user data) is?

by log101 on 12/21/22, 2:22 PM with 3 comments

Hi HN, I have a question! As you know you can listen Spotify playlists in a "random" order. I've been wondering about this lately and I don't think there's any chance that these randomizers are implemented using regular rand() functions. Do you have any experience/idea on how these random functions are implemented in companies that have massive user data? What factors they take into account?

by r721 on 12/21/22, 2:30 PM
Here is related Spotify Engineering blog post from 2014:
>How to shuffle songs?
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2014/02/how-to-shuffle-son...
by mtmail on 12/21/22, 2:31 PM
It's knows not be true random "It doesn’t like songs that are totally different bumping up against one another" and users wouldn't like if the same song is played twice in a row regardless how logical that would be with rand().
https://lifehacker.com/the-reason-spotify-shuffles-aren-t-re...
https://medium.com/immensity/how-spotifys-shuffle-algorithm-...
by Raed667 on 12/21/22, 3:00 PM
Even since the iPod, it was found that people don't really want real randomness when they shuffle their music.