In time, the lean-back dynamic would infiltrate not just streaming, but a lot of the experience of being an internet user. One former Spotify engineer I spoke with described the TikTok feed, and Spotify’s eventual attempts at approximating it, as an ultimate distillation of lean-back listening: “You’re not putting any input in. You’re just being shown things. You’re giving it input based on which things you linger on longer, or what you skip. But it’s not like you’re choosing what you want.”
