Spotify Streams vs Real Fans: My Take on Playlists, Majors, and AI

I’ve worked with artists who hit millions of streams and landed big playlist spots. On the surface, it looked like success. But when the numbers faded, there were no fans at the shows. No tickets sold. No real community. Just streams on a screen.

Here’s the part most people don’t see: Spotify isn’t neutral.

• Majors had a seat at the table. In the early days they invested in Spotify, negotiated equity and licensing. That deal gave them leverage that still shapes who gets playlisted today.

• They also get paid more. Majors often receive higher effective rates per stream - it’s public info, not a rumor.

• Playlists run the game. Listeners don’t usually search for artists, they search for moods: Chill, Running, Deep Focus. Even if your track makes it, people follow the playlist - not you.

• Some tracks aren’t even “real.” Certain playlists run commissioned or anonymous music under generic names. Plays go up, but not for independent artists.

And now AI is adding another twist.

Spotify’s always used algorithms to break down a song - its key, energy, tempo, mood - and match it to playlists. But now, more curation is being shifted to AI systems. At the same time, many AI music tools are trained on the same dataset Spotify’s algorithm uses: the most streamed, most “successful” tracks.

So when AI generates a song, it often looks perfect to "Spotify’s AI". On paper it hits every box. That means some AI tracks may actually get better placement chances than human-made music - even if they carry no story, no soul.

So I ask again: is Spotify helping artists, or quietly reshaping who wins?

My take: use Spotify for discovery, but don’t build your career on it. Build on what you own - your fans, your shows, your community. Streams can get you heard. Only you can make people stay.