Yeah, Spotify's auto playlists are Pandora-level shit. Songza and Apple Music do much better.
Honestly around 75% of the time Pandora's playlists are actually pretty good. It'll never be as good as an actual human curated list (one of the best parts of Spotify is how many there are). I honestly haven't given Apple Music a shot. Long ago I realized that Apple only cares about experience on anything that's not a Mac.
Maybe it's my taste in music, but I stopped listening to Pandora years ago, before there was even a viable alternative because of how stale it sounded. No deep cuts, a lot of repetition, and the discovery engine was just terrible. I know I don't speak for everybody though.
No, I definitely agree with you. I stopped using Pandora something like a decade ago, but at my fiancée's work they have a business account so she got reacquainted with it and it's definitely better as far as algorithmic playlists go. Still can't compare to a curated list, but definitely better.