Dear Google/Alexa/Cortana/Siri product managers in the streaming audio space, here is what we actually want:
* "never play that song ever again"
* "add <artist> to my blocked list"
* "set the plays limit for Baby Shark to once per day"
* a feature that prevents interpretation of any phrase leading to the same result, if the response to that result led to a "stop!" or "for fuck's sake!" within the next ten seconds. i.e. stop doing the same incorrect thing over and over again if it's clear that it's not the desired outcome.
* "play that song I said I liked a few days ago"
* "shuffle my favourite songs"
We don't want to block explicit lyrics, some of our favourite songs have swear words in them. We want to block entire artists who are simply awful.
We don't want you to get the song wrong and be forced to yell "stop!" until you shut up. We want to make it clear that not only was that the wrong song, we also never want you to ever think it could possibly be the right song.
We want the magic of our kids being able to play their music on demand, but without the headaches that come from kids being total assholes most of the time.
We want you - our voice assistant - to assist us, not provoke us to rage.
You've made a useful tool. You've made a fun gimmick. But now it's time to make it a pleasant experience, because right now it just plain isn't.
Google has responded correctly to "never play that song again" for me in the past. Same with "hey google, fuck this song". I don't know if it explicitly "downvoted" the song or not, but the song was immediately skipped and I hadn't heard it any time soon after.
That said, I've refrained from using my google puck in recent months and it had been regressing pretty heavily when I did, so I can't guarantee that still works.
Yeah, I'm sure some providers do support some of my feature requests here. But definitely not a single one supports all of them (or I'd have moved to it!) Amazon Music, for example, supports this blocking only for songs in their pre-built playlists. It's little constraints like that that contribute to the frustration.
- stop giving me suggestions. Alternatively, don't give me the same suggestion again within a month of the last time you have it to me.
- you've got the weather, that's great. Now stop repeating the same unwanted information (the current weather) when I ask for multiple forecasts (what's the weather for tomorrow and Saturday -> the weather tomorrow is... Currently it is... There is a weekend advisory in effect...The weather Saturday is... Currently it is... There is a wind advisory...)
- let me specify what information I want when I ask for the weather; it should be trivial to get the wind speed, UV index, it whatever other item I want every time I ask for current weather or forecast, not just if it's going to be unusual.
We don't want you to get the song wrong and be forced to yell "stop!" until you shut up. We want to make it clear that not only was that the wrong song, we also never want you to ever think it could possibly be the right song.
We want the magic of our kids being able to play their music on demand, but without the headaches that come from kids being total assholes most of the time.
We want you - our voice assistant - to assist us, not provoke us to rage.
You've made a useful tool. You've made a fun gimmick. But now it's time to make it a pleasant experience, because right now it just plain isn't.