I'm in the same boat, making electronic music as a hobby. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting fans of your music, even if you have a day job and h

I'm in the same boat, making electronic music as a hobby. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting fans of your music, even if you have a day job and have no desire to make it a career. As fun as the creative process is, if you're making (good) music there will probably be things about it that you don't enjoy, whether that's sound design, tweaking effects chains to get something to sound right, banging your head trying to figure out why your track doesn't sound like your reference, mixing, mastering, etc. If you're putting in that effort, it is nice to see some validation, even if it's just in the form of "likes." Promotion is a different story, though... I don't think it makes sense to throw real money (aka more than like $20 on Submithub/Labelradar, which I consider more paid feedback than promotion) for a release unless you're planning to get an actual return on investment there. At which point it crosses the line into "hustle," for me.