I work in the industry, so I've watched Spotify's editorial playlists go from great to terrible, with increasing amounts of payola, nepotism, and corporate influence, leading to a slow homogenization of music culture.
Six or seven years ago there was genuine independent acts breaking through Spotify. Today, the ones who get played on the so-called recommendation algorithm are seriously propped up by a small team of relatively private, inaccessible curators of the major editorial playlists who only answer to established music industry professionals with their corporate agendas. Spotify's recommendations are not the fair system that you think it is, and is worse than radio tastemakers of the past as they have no skin in the game thanks to their anonymity.
> watched Spotify's editorial playlists ... leading to a slow homogenization of music culture
All based on the assumption that people only use editorial playlists and there's no other way.
> Spotify's recommendations are not the fair system that you think it is
I never wrote anything even remotely saying that I think their recommendations are 'fair'.
> worse than radio tastemakers of the past
Is it though? With radio, you had pretty much no choice. I can now pick from millions of playlists on a whim. If I find a new artist in some way, I can listen to all their music and I can instantly find artists with similar styles.
You assume that people only listen to curated playlists.
You gatekeep by implying that only genuine independent acts are worth listening to.
You imply that if Spotify wouldn't exist, people would have better ways to find music.
None of this is true. Most people would would just go back to listening to the same 10 songs being played on the radio over and over. Or they would venture to iTunes, Beatport or the likes, which are just as curated as Spotify.
For me, Spotfy is a nearly limitless collection of all the music I could want to listen to. Vacationing in Germany and hear a Polish song I like? Add it to Spotify and find more from the artist, while still on the highway. Feel nostalgic? Play Major Tom and some more Bowie on a whim while on the way to work. Want to discover music that sounds somewhat like another artist? Open Spotify Radio for the artist and let the Algo show me some other stuff. Suddenly have a craving for a genre I never listen to? Search for a playlist on the genre, which usually isn't curated by Spotify.
Through this process I recently found some songs by an artist who's most played song is at <3k plays. This is a musician who sings in an incredibly local dialect. I don't know how I would've found them otherwise. Especially since I found them while road tripping, not while reading some snobby music blog.
So please stop with the gatekeeping and just accept that people might actually like Spotify and use it in another way than just playing curated playlists. And even if they do just use it that way, accept it.
What's the gatekeeping? The biggest gatekeeping is Spotify's editorial system. No one is judging you on your music tastes, so you can stop with the projection and calling people 'snobs'. The problem is with artists not getting a fair shot. I can tell you from first hand experience that over 95% of artists that have >100k streams (which is nothing) know someone connected to Spotify -- the social dynamics of which heavily skew towards rich, trust fund kids.
It's great that you can find an artist that has <3k plays that sings in an incredibly local dialect. That artist is probably making $10 over the entire year. I don't think that's a fair deal for artists. Spotify is the single biggest gatekeeper for artists finding meaningful success. That is a fact.
Six or seven years ago there was genuine independent acts breaking through Spotify. Today, the ones who get played on the so-called recommendation algorithm are seriously propped up by a small team of relatively private, inaccessible curators of the major editorial playlists who only answer to established music industry professionals with their corporate agendas. Spotify's recommendations are not the fair system that you think it is, and is worse than radio tastemakers of the past as they have no skin in the game thanks to their anonymity.