Marketing is indeed a necessity, but Social Media was developed under the premise of providing free "social" marketing for artists that aren't profiting from their work yet... These platforms have undermined that now into requiring absolutely all artists to pay for ads in order to be viewed, which is completely contradicting their original EULAs... Spotify in a way is a social platform, but more-so it is also a marketing platform that despite allowing people to promote, also creates a dynamic where success is tiered and artificially hard-limited by their algorithms.
Content displayed on the front pages of sites like Spotify, YouTube, Reddit (etc.), get the most views and plays. These sites intentionally only have front pages, with pre-designated featured content. That means that only the artists that land there get the lion share of the revenue from those sites... They provide little to no relative potential for success or visibility to the majority of artists that contribute content that they benefit from, and that makes the entire industry a pyramid scheme.
Unknown and unsponsored artists cannot succeed in this model, and even if they do somehow find an opportunity, they are often subject to predatory contracts from record labels and the larger industry as well. It's really insane what goes on behind the curtains.
The ones I've seen get noticed and gain a big audiance have done so by making entertaining music videos that poeple share and post to Reddit and other places. Lil Dicky is a great example of that. He made a mixtape in his bedroom using GarageBand, then made a bunch of videos for YouTube. Many of them went viral... or at least viral enough to fund his Kickstarter for his first full album.
Tom MacDonald is another (without getting into any politics). He makes a ton of videos and his songs have content that makes people want to share them. He had several songs hit the Billboard Hot 100 last year according to Wikipedia. I don't think he was even on steaming until recently due to a collaboration, just YouTube and selling physical CDs himself. He won't sign any of those predatory contracts, so things may be more difficult, but actually owning your music has it's value.
Both of these examples had a mix of hard work, talent, and luck, but that doesn't seem differnet than pre-social media when people were trying to get a record deal. Eminem just happened to hand his CD to a guy who worked with Jimmy Iovine after the Rap Olympics, had he not done that... who knows if we'd know who he is (I think it was the interview with Mike Tyson where he talked about this). If you've watched Jeen-Yuhs on Netflix, it shows no one wanted to give Kanye a chance as a rapper. Even though he was in the business, everyone just saw him as a producer, not a rapper. He had to push hard and keep asking for people to give him shot and got lucky one day when somene let him to a verse (I think Jay-Z). Jay-Z is another... no one would give him a deal, so he started selling his own stuff and made his own label (from what I remember hearing).
Breaking into the music business as a top artist as never been easy. It seems like the differnce now is the barriers are down, so it's more about getting people to listen instead of getting an record executive to like your stuff. It's hard to now if the market is any more crowded or if it's just that the consumers have full access now, instead of having to go through the gatekeepers.
"Social Media was developed under the premise of providing free "social" marketing for artists that aren't profiting from their work yet..."
I don't remember this. It might've been a bullet point in some fantastical interpretation of potential, but you'd have to be naive to think this was how it would play out. Doesn't take much thinking to see that every free platform gets overrun with hopefuls and spam and the platforms need a way to either rank content or monetise it.
Spotify and co provide distribution, not marketing. If it was as trivial as "create social music platform, get coverage for my music", you and every artist could do it, right?
Marketing is indeed a necessity, but Social Media was developed under the premise of providing free "social" marketing for artists that aren't profiting from their work yet... These platforms have undermined that now into requiring absolutely all artists to pay for ads in order to be viewed, which is completely contradicting their original EULAs... Spotify in a way is a social platform, but more-so it is also a marketing platform that despite allowing people to promote, also creates a dynamic where success is tiered and artificially hard-limited by their algorithms.
Content displayed on the front pages of sites like Spotify, YouTube, Reddit (etc.), get the most views and plays. These sites intentionally only have front pages, with pre-designated featured content. That means that only the artists that land there get the lion share of the revenue from those sites... They provide little to no relative potential for success or visibility to the majority of artists that contribute content that they benefit from, and that makes the entire industry a pyramid scheme.
Unknown and unsponsored artists cannot succeed in this model, and even if they do somehow find an opportunity, they are often subject to predatory contracts from record labels and the larger industry as well. It's really insane what goes on behind the curtains.