Smartphones, Music Platforms, and the Algorithm Selection

Abstract

This chapter explores how the adoption of smartphone-based streaming platforms like Spotify influences the experiences related to music consumption among young Italian listeners. First of all, the chapter outlines that, even though streaming platforms are today the main way to listen to music among youth, actual listeners’ situated experiences emerge as more complex and stratified, as they mix together older devices like the iPod and the vinyl with smartphones and platforms. Then, the chapter focuses more specifically on how the platform Spotify poses specific constraints that shape listeners’ experience: from the limits represented by subscription plans to the way algorithms influence them on the basis of the analysis of listeners’ behaviours, to the way listeners are enabled to discover new music. Finally, the chapter outlines how alternative digital streaming services, like Bandcamp or Soundcloud, offer a different relationship with music and artists when compared with mainstream platforms like Spotify.