u/DaRawb74

And there is it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNTgDY1V0pg

I appreciate Andrew asking the question that has for months consumed many conversations and speculations here and elsewhere. Those massive algorithmic drops back in March/April and in July that artists using AI have noticed: Spotify was indeed "optimizing the algorithm to favor human artists".

Translation: AI assisted music was flagged and suppressed, without announcement.

This is NOT about AI. This is about the ethical treatment of all, at all times, at all sizes, whether indie or signed, and irrespective of what tools are used: whatever the rules are, they MUST be transparent, for all.

In this example, regardless what you think about AI, real people spent real time and real people spent real money driving listeners to Spotify, believing they were playing on a level field and had equal access to algorithmic recommendation surfaces. Yet, many saw their algorithmic exposure collapse, and wasted hours reaching out to Spotify support, only to be told that "nothing was wrong" and that Spotify does not target their music. All of that could have been avoided had Spotify publicly announced it would suppress AI discovery PRIOR to doing so.

Spotify spent the last year rolling out AI "transparency" initiatives: AI credits, SongDNA, etc. The hypocrisy was demanding transparency from artists while not extending that same transparency back to the artists.

Changing the playing field in secret for any class, status, or size (AI or not), while publicly denying it, is unethical. Spotify denied for many the ability to make informed business decisions by keeping them in the dark.

Trust has been damaged.

My understanding is that the Monthly Listener (ML) count (which shows prominently on our artist profile page) is a rolling 28-day count. It counts absolute unique listeners over the prior 28 days.

Since about mid-June, I've been watching my ML count shrink, by over half (it was at 16k), steadily day-over-day, like a deflating air mattress.

It's now at the lowest number since February.

What's odd (I keep detailed daily stats), is by every other metric, my catalog is much stronger today than it was back in February.

When you total the daily listener count for each 28-day period, in February it totaled 12,000, and in July it totaled 20,000, yet Spotify is reporting the same Monthly Listener count.

I also compared my Monthly Active Listeners (MAL), Super Listeners (SL), and my Meta Ad spending over each 28-day period.

Since February, after releasing 5 new tracks (one a month), doubling the Meta Ad spend (my creatives average about .19 CPC), tripling my MAL and 4x my SL, I've netted... 50 monthly listeners? Something doesn't add up.