I do think the Spotify DJ has been dumbed down a lot since its launch (“a’ight, I got you. Here’s some songs for your washing up session.” [proceeds to play the same 10 songs it always does]).
But for classical music: Apple Music Classical is where it’s at, it understands the relationship between composer, work and recording.
First, I'm sorry you're having problems finding a job -- that sucks.
Second: consider that sometimes, the cost-benefit of automation depends on perspective. An example that I like to give is Ocado's automated grocery warehouses in the UK: impressive technology, very efficient, but during the COVID-19 pandemic - when everybody wanted online groceries - Ocado had to stop accepting new customers. They didn't have the capacity, and adding a new warehouse took years. The regular supermarkets hired people and bought vans, they were able to scale up.
Automation is great, but it can't help businesses adapt to novel situations. Corporate life is about cycles: the pendulum swings one way, then the other - we've just swung hard over to the automation side for now. The best strategy: know the limits of AI tools, prove your agility and ability to do the things the tools cannot do.
> it's almost like I've been using only 10% of my mental capacity for work (the rest was on dating/dealing with breakups/dealing with depression/gaming/...)
I think that could give an indication of what might be wrong here, I can relate (somewhat!). I work for a top-flight tech firm, straight out of school, for about 5 years or so, and for a long time I felt just like that: I focused for a very long time on achieving the next goal - passing an exam, getting into University, getting that job, and not really focusing on what that was all for, not really focusing on my personal life etc. Once I got my job I was like “what is all of this for?”
So I changed tack, I rotated positions at my job, I tried to “live with purpose”, do something with a super-high impact, and not put myself under such relentless pressure to succeed. It may not feel like you have a super-high impact, but I’d say you do - the services you run help to improve literally millions of people’s lives. Try to think about it like that, instead of “I’m not living up to my potential”, think about the enormous impact you already have. If you just don’t find the work interesting, talk to your manager about the possibility of a secondment to another team.
I’d also advise that relationships are hard, and it is OK to feel miserable when they end. But one thing I only realised recently is that if your misery extends by more than a two months, it could be indicative that you need to see a doctor. Depression is a terrible condition that’s still (IMO unfairly) stigmatised and it’s often hard to disentangle from the rest of what goes on, but it is not a weakness to admit that we all need some help sometimes. If you need an impartial but sympathetic ear, you can find my email in my profile. Good luck! :D
However, they have just merged a feature called jumbo which squashes lots of compilation units together. The guy who developed it (Daniel Bratell from Opera) reckons an improvement of 70%-95% in per-file compilation time[1]. But, it's only for the core of Blink right now.
But for classical music: Apple Music Classical is where it’s at, it understands the relationship between composer, work and recording.