Some time last year I finally realized it's really only going to become worse in the foreseeable future (I could've seen this earlier, but had faint hope left that at some point they'd have to listen to their customers). It has consistently gotten worse over the last 5 years I've been a customer and podcasts were my final straw.

I moved to Tidal. It's not exactly perfect either (still pushing crappy playlists on you), but at least they take their job somewhat seriously: Playing me my damn music without too much fuss. Their algorithmic recommendations have become quite good too - even this Spotify somehow managed to mess up, playing me the same 10 songs all the time.