Why Spotify Is A Win For Artists And Listeners

We have been hearing about Spotify and how it’s evil and unfair for a few years now. The thing is, it is the number one used streaming app and my personal belief is that it is simply the best one out there right now. There are a couple of main points that I was to discuss, so let’s get into it.
My personal opinion is that Spotify is a win for listeners and also a win for artists. My reasoning is simple, if you can grow your Spotify following and have success here, you will have success on pretty much every other platform. They are actively making improvements for listeners as well as making improvements to make it easier for unsigned artists to compete in an extremely competitive world. 
Don’t Play This Artist Option (Win For Listeners)
Honestly, I am shocked that they didn’t launch this option a lot earlier. If you browse twitter, you will see people constantly tweeting at them to add a feature like this. I think this is actually a pretty cool feature as you can now block artists that you don’t want to listen to. 
This has come directly at the time of all of the R Kelly stuff coming out, so I find it a perfect time for them to launch something like this. The photo that they use to show the block artists feature is also a picture of him, coincidence? 
How Does This Work
It is very simple. You simply can go under artists now and select, “do not play this artist.” If you are on a playlist and have it on shuffle, it will now skip this artist. The one thing to note here is that if the artist you blocked is featured, but not listed on the certain song, Spotify won’t catch that and will stay play it. For example, you decide to mute Eminem, but he’s featured on a song and now listed. You will still hear the song.
How Will Artists React?
I’m seeing the community already saying they can’t wait to see who the most blocked artists will be. I also wonder, will this change the flow of music in any way if Spotify sees huge blocks on artists they thought people really connected with? 
In a way, I feel bad for artists as I feel like people could be blocking bands that are overplayed, in turn, they’re not liked simply because of that.
Catered Playlists ( Big Win For Listeners)
Spotify specifically caters playlists to your style of music. I have personally found a lot of my favorite bands from these playlists that they make. If you ever in a rut and can’t seem to find bands you dig, try these playlists out. 
You can also search for bands that are smaller and haven’t broken yet on their new playlists. This helps listeners and helps the artists as the artist needs streams and the listener is hungry for new music. 
New Algorithm Changes Designed For Artist Playlisting (Win For Artists)
Spotify recently announced that they have put in place an algorithm the shows how many times each song is saved from playlists and just in general. This allows them to track which songs are connecting with the masses. The higher your download percentage is on a song, the more likely Spotify is to continue feeding it to their radio feature and their playlists. 
I can’t stress the importance of having your friends and families save your songs on Spotify. If you are able to grow organically here, I believe that everything else will fall into place. If you are successful here, labels, producers and anyone else in the industry who matters, will notice.
There are people who watch the playlists and actively look at percent saves on songs. If they see what they like the will continue to follow you as you grow and maybe even start up conversations.
Conclusion
Do I think Spotify is perfect? No. Absolutely not, however, I think they are heading in a good direction and I think there’s only one more thing they can work on and that is royalties. They are making it easier for bands to compete against bigger bands and that is something that is really important.
If they are able to increase their royalties with the music act that passed, I think this would be a win for the industry and artists as artists would come back to the industry.
What are your thoughts on the new Spotify features? Do you think it’s heading in the right direction for artists?