I read Filterworld by Kyle Chayka last year and have been trying to be more mindful of where algorithms are influencing my consumption. Music is probably the biggest portion of that consumption. For the last 10 years or so I have largley moved away from listening to albums or making specific playlists and just relying on generated “stations” in YouTube Music. Part of this is due to the fact that all of my friend group uses Spotify so I can’t connect and share with them as easily for recommendations. The other part is it’s just easier when I’m working or commuting to just click a single button and zone out to an endless, themed playlist.

Towards the end of last year I read Kyle Chayka’s Filtwrworld and since then I’ve had the theme of curation stuck in the back of my head. Basically everything on the Internet has turned into a “feed” over the last decade or so. And every major feed has algorithms applied to inject more ads and optimize for “engagement”. After reflecting on it for a bit I decided to try and cut out as many algorithmic feeds as possible.