Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

According to that early investigation, Spotify had licensed these tracks directly from production companies for a cheaper royalty rate, and thus would promote them on its relaxing editorial mood playlists (with millions of followers) to protect its bottom line. Spotify for Artists didn’t only chronicle Allen’s playlist hustling, but called his approach “a new set of tricks that every DIY artist should take note of.” And Allen was hardly the only solo entrepreneur being used as an example of the model streaming-era independent artist. The truth is that no technological intervention was ever going to easily solve such a complicated and ever-changing question: not piracy, not downloads, not streaming. The post-platform era has ushered in a wave of interest in the model, including within media organizations, like the local NYC news blog Hell Gate, which launched in 2022 with a worker-owned model.