Spotify dosen't care about artists.

Now everyone will say, I just told you that one. In reality, it is several people speaking to me on the same subject, but it comes down to one thing many artists see Spotify like a promo channel and it's not.

The truth is that Spotify actually makes it hard to promote to them on purpose. Their goal is to get songs to grow organically. In real life songs that people really like will be surfing up in their system.
Of course, the record labels always think that their stuff is the best so they try to influence Spotify to get them to get their own songs a better chance. Still, much of the information that Spotify goes on is actually information that comes from other sources. Remember they have bought up a bunch of companies that collected data to tell which artist gonna be the next thing. Of course, Spotify goes on that as well.

So there is no "I just speak to this person and you will be on all the playlists on Spotify". We just found out that they will stop making favors for the major companies as well and the lowest start for a campaign is 50 000 Swedish crowns so that also won't contain a shortcut. Pay to get on strange playlists is a certain way to kill your Spotify chances.

Having Spotify as your target is by that totally stupid. Spotify comes when you deserve it. When your fans start to go into Spotify and search for your name and REALLY listen to your songs, the system will bring your songs to the top. The problem usually is that you are not doing that great song and don't spend the time to get people to listen to it, to learn what they really like.

The playlists are like empty streams. It's just numbers and the industry just starts taking them as just numbers nothing to be so excited about if they come from added playlists. I would be rather excited with high numbers and no adds on playlists.

It's not like radio in the old days when you actually talked to someone and they took a chance and played the song. In Spotify, they have algorithms and statistics what people really like, and what they really listen to. So the best is to get back to your fans and present good music and communicate with them. These are the people, the users, Spotify cares about, not artists.