Spotify's biggest sin? Its algos pushed artists to make joyless, toothless music

It sounds like that is what people are listening to, and Spotify is capable of recognising that demand and creating an efficient enough market that the market can respond to that demand. The old way was that consumer demand was filtered through the suits at the big music labels: if they didn't want to push musicians to make a particular kind of music, it wouldn't get made and published in a way accessible to the people that desired it, no matter how much they did.

This gets painted as a bad thing but maybe it isn't? It isn't like there is no good music. There is just more of it, and much of it is pretty boring. If a large contingent of people want boring music, it seems like they've got what they want. And I can keep listening to good music. Win win?

The author also confuses what the market encourages producers to create with what artists actually create:

>The fact that no money is paid out if a song is listened to for less than 30 seconds has come close to killing the idea of a slow-burning intro (if they were modern creations, there would be no hope for such songs as David Bowie’s Sound and Vision, or the Temptations’ Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone).

I don't think David Bowie would have not made his music if it has been bad for the "format". This is like saying that Pink Floyd wouldn't have made 20-minute-long tracks in the 70s because they couldn't have sold them as singles. Except they did! Artists create what they want to create not just what market forces encourage them to create. That is part of what makes art art.