Loving music has been a key part of my identity since I was a child. But, recently, I’ve noticed a troubling trend—I have a harder time answering the question, “What are you listening to, these days?“

This is a question that would have had a younger me geeking out about the latest artist, album, or genre I had discovered. Now I struggle to name a single artist. I’m still listening to a lot of music, but it’s largely dictated by Spotify’s algorithms.

I’m not following the cliche where my music tastes calcify as I get older. Quite the opposite. Spotify (and music streaming writ large) has dramatically increased the amount of new music I listen to. I heard a lot of cool stuff today. I just can’t tell you the names of any of the songs or artists.

I’m reminded of a quote from Yuval Noah Harari in Home Deus, “The algorithms won’t revolt and enslave us. Rather, the algorithms will be so good in making decisions for us that it would be madness not to follow their advice.”

There was a time when I lived for the thrill of discovering new music. I would spend time reading blog posts, browsing subreddits, walking around HMV—looking for the next thing I would love. Now I just press play on my Discover Weekly playlist, and I’m satisfied.

The algorithm is way better at this than I was, so I let it do its thing. I’m just not sure how to feel about it.