Ask HN: How random you think Spotify(or companies with user data) is?
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?
Comments
Here is related Spotify Engineering blog post from 2014:
https://engineering.atspotify.com/2014/02/how-to-shuffle-son...
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-...
Even since the iPod, it was found that people don't really want real randomness when they shuffle their music.