5 ms·

I'll bite. How does Spotify benefit from paying $10m to an artist that few people have heard of/listen to?

• johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Easy, by using that engagement to attract 100m more users over 7 years (and I may be conservative here, since apparently they have 600m users in 2024). Which over that time will make them more than $10m, directly and indirectly. It's pretty much the Dead Internet theory fully realized. Also, If this artist was making that much imagine how much Spotify was making on their natural cut.
  • ryhdyrdeyedy 2y ago
    [dead]
  • positr0n 2y ago
    What engagement? The artist and the streams were all faked by one person. That's going to convince 100M more people to sign up?
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Fake engagement attracts real engagement. It's a very classic strategy to "grow quickly", because users see a content creator has, say 1-10k subs and they'll be more inclined to view/listen than to someone with no views/subs. And the algorithm will be more likely to recommend that artist. It's popularity bias. Clearly this artist didn't build that 100m subscriber base by himself over 7 years, but Spotify itself definitely employed this tactic of botting to increase its popularity. Same idea: "wow Spotify has this many people here? I should try it out!".