system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: What is cache?

I want to clear my Spotify cache so the app works smoother, but I don’t know what will happen if I do. Any explanations I try to find for cache don’t provide enough information.

(edit) thanks y’all! Glad to be graced by the tech gods.
gpt
Pulling data from somewhere else into where the computer needs it can take a long time. If it's over the internet, it can also cost money. If that information isn't likely to change, or doesn't have to be up to date, you can keep it somewhere more convenient. After a while, or if you get some signal that the information has changed, you can update it, but you only have to go back to the inconvenient "source of truth" infrequently. This convenient store is called a "cache."

Sometimes, the information in the cache will be out of date, or partially out of date, in a way that the app needs to compensate for. "Clearing" the cache means telling it "forget all this, and when you need information, go look it up from the source of truth, and then write down that new value in the cache." So, "clearing" it isn't a permanent thing, it just means it starts building it from scratch again.