Spotify is facing questions about whether changes to its search and recommendation systems are affecting legitimate user playlists. 11A founder Austin Staubus says follower growth has slowed across playlists his company monitors, though the cause remains unproven.
What 11A observed
Staubus said follower growth declined across 50 major user-created playlists tracked by 11A. Of those, 22 saw growth reverse or began losing followers. Artist.Tools independently classified all 50 as “Likely Bot-Free.”
In an interview with YouTuber and music marketer Andrew Southworth, Staubus said he had seen evidence that an unnamed Spotify executive confirmed in writing that a spam filter evaluates user playlists and their contents when determining whether to rank or recommend them. He also claimed that many user playlists had become harder to find through search.
Staubus described user playlists as a distinguishing feature of Spotify compared with Apple and Amazon, which he characterized as primarily reliant on pitches. He said user playlists can offer carefully curated listening experiences with strong retention.
What remains unclear
In September, Spotify announced a music spam filter targeting tactics such as mass uploads, duplicate tracks, artificially short recordings and search engine manipulation. The company said flagged material would no longer be recommended and acknowledged the risk of false positives. “We want to be careful to ensure we’re not penalizing the wrong uploaders,” Spotify said, describing a conservative rollout.
Slower follower growth or losses do not establish that the filter caused the changes 11A observed. It is also unclear whether Spotify’s filter for track recommendations is connected to the playlist changes Staubus alleges. He said the potential financial effects on independent labels, artists, publishers and songwriters depend on what Spotify says about the issue.
