The three or four major media companies/rights holders correspond to roughly 75% of streams on Spotify, and probably the entire catalogue of music pre 2010. Thi

The three or four major media companies/rights holders correspond to roughly 75% of streams on Spotify, and probably the entire catalogue of music pre 2010. This gives them the bargaining power to influence playlists, recommendations, and so on. This is what they mean by payola. They can use this to launch new artists. Independent artists don't like this.