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you missed what the article was talking about yeah, they're available by search if you know what to look for; that's the same as asking the store employee if t

you missed what the article was talking about yeah, they're available by search if you know what to look for; that's the same as asking the store employee if they carry X, as opposed to seeing it as you browse the aisle > A more apt analogy is a grocery store with a dedicated section for store-brand goods only No, that's not the right analogy and not what Spotify is doing. That would be like having a section for "undiscovered artists" on the front page where you can browse through them, alongside another section for "Spotify-sponsored artists" which you can also browse through. The point of the article's argument is that unless you know you want Artist X and search for them, you're not going to come across them because they're not being added to Spotify playlists and content discovery mechanisms (obviously you can add them to your own playlist manually). You'll instead come across the content that Spotify owns, allowing it to keep a greater share of revenue and pay less to artists trying to distribute their music through its platform.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
> yeah, they're available by search if you know what to look for; that's the same as asking the store employee if they carry X, as opposed to seeing it as you browse the aisle Most people aren't browsing Spotify as if they were browsing the store. They're browsing the promotional magazine of the store - and that one is very selective indeed, focusing on what the store wants to promote at any given moment. Which is OK, too - promotional magazine is where the best deals are anyway. The problem is people confusing promotion with discovery. Advertising and promotional materials are stupid way of doing discovery. They're literally meant to do the opposite of giving you a broad and clear picture of things. (It's the same thing like if you browse for stuff on Amazon and think you're doing discovery. You're not, you're just setting yourself up for wasting money.)
crazygringo 2y ago
> The point of the article's argument is that unless you know you want Artist X and search for them, you're not going to come across them because they're not being added to Spotify playlists and content discovery mechanisms No, that's not the point of the article because the article doesn't say that and that's not what's happening. Real artists are still being added to all those things. Probably 99.99+% of Spotify playlists and content discovery is for real artists. This is about a couple of very specific genres of background music where they've specifically sourced their own music for their own playlists. That's all.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> yeah, they're available by search if you know what to look for; that's the same as asking the store employee if they carry X, as opposed to seeing it as you browse the aisle Most people aren't browsing Spotify as if they were browsing the store. They're browsing the promotional magazine of the store - and that one is very selective indeed, focusing on what the store wants to promote at any given moment. Which is OK, too - promotional magazine is where the best deals are anyway. The problem is people confusing promotion with discovery. Advertising and promotional materials are stupid way of doing discovery. They're literally meant to do the opposite of giving you a broad and clear picture of things. (It's the same thing like if you browse for stuff on Amazon and think you're doing discovery. You're not, you're just setting yourself up for wasting money.)

crazygringo 2y ago

> The point of the article's argument is that unless you know you want Artist X and search for them, you're not going to come across them because they're not being added to Spotify playlists and content discovery mechanisms No, that's not the point of the article because the article doesn't say that and that's not what's happening. Real artists are still being added to all those things. Probably 99.99+% of Spotify playlists and content discovery is for real artists. This is about a couple of very specific genres of background music where they've specifically sourced their own music for their own playlists. That's all.