Is there an (academic / journalistic) area/body of research about the pricing/recommendation/other influential algorithms of various products? I have conspirac

Is there an (academic / journalistic) area/body of research about the pricing/recommendation/other influential algorithms of various products? I have conspiracy theories about Spotify autoplay (wouldn't it seem smart to prioritize songs with lower licensing cost?) and would like to see them checked. Surely I can't be the only person interested in the specific ways products used by hundreds of millions of people actually work? There's a lot of superstition and anecdotal evidence in this area and it would be great to see a reliable source of actual research.