The world is getting more confusing. My wife is 500+ episodes deep in Spotify's AI podcasts and doesn't believe me when I tell her these are neither human voices nor human texts. I can tell by a hundred small tells, but somehow she can't or doesn't want to. I'm sure in five years I will not be able to tell the difference either.

So it becomes profitable to just pump out slop, give it hundreds of variations, and hope some of them rack up >1000 listens to pay out under Spotify's model, which just rewards quantity.

I can't see how tidal can enforce it's quality policy. Who will review and apply it? And even those that pass will be cheap and plentiful to produce. On the other hand I guess they have told themselves that if people can't tell the difference then it doesn't matter - better to be on the bandwagon and unhappy than to be run over by the wagon all others are on. Just basic game theory - everyone blinks and everyone is worse off.

But I'm convinced wthout a change in approach by the main providers, basically audio entertainment and the podcaster and independent musician models (unless they can live off concerts) are dead.