I have this theory that people only like what they allow themselves to like. That is, I’m more likely to decide that I like something if it was recommended to my by someone whose taste I am familiar with, or even someone that I like. I also succumb to the critical darling factor; if a record gets unanimously great reviews, I become excited to listen to it and find stuff that I like in it. I give streaming services a much smaller margin of error because I have no context within which to place the new information (music) that it is throwing at me. I might focus more on the elements of the song that I dislike, simply because I have not been told to like that music, or I have no stake in liking it. I am much more willing to discard the recommendations that an algorithm gives me.

There is also another layer to his which I think has something to do with patience. When I have the testimony of friends or critics going to bat for a band or a record, I am more likely to listen closely more than once to each song. Part of liking any song is just becoming familiar with it, and letting what was alien about it become “catchy.” But listeners skip streaming service songs fairly quickly. If we think of how much time it takes for a new sound to become palatable to us, it seems really unfair that we expect every song on Pandora to hook us instantly. That is not how new music works, generally.
In a sense, these streaming services seem to suffer from the very immediacy that they are built on, so they end up re-plating what is familiar to the listener over and over again to avoid the long arc of time between the first listen and the actual grasping of the song.