So when is it actually beneficial to use fake Spotify Stream Bots or plays? I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate today, guys, and show you that every strategy has its place. For independent artists, you should definitely never use fake Spotify Stream Bot or plays. But again, let me tell you when possibly you could use it and when people clearly do use it. 

You guys probably missed my live class and my accelerator yesterday talking about how to properly scale Spotify accounts, Apple Music growth, Amazon music, Tidal, you name it. Right? But Spotify has been in the news lately because it's one of the only Streaming platforms where we can create a free account. And of course, hackers have figured it out. They created millions of free accounts and they provide bot streams - fake streams, essentially.

But it's also getting a lot of independent artists kicked off of Spotify. There are numerous reasons I have talked about why independent artists specifically are unfortunately targeted specifically through platforms like DistroKid. DistroKid is not the only platform you can get shut down from Spotify streams.

But let's talk about if ever it's useful to use fake bot streams, when is it used? This is what major labels do and yes, they get away with it. I want to explain to you why from a software development analytical standpoint.

So think of it this way, let's say Beyoncé and Taylor Swift come out with a song on a Friday, both two major songs. And over the weekend, they're probably each going to get, I don't know, 20 to 50 million streams organically from their real fan base across all different streaming platforms. They're essentially competing for the top spot for the next week's chart position so they can get a lot of free press. Everybody can talk about and tell us in terms of who won for the week. I think by this way, if you get fifty million streams. Fifty million and you sprinkle 20 percent of bullshit streams, fake streams, bot streams or plays on, let's say, a YouTube video. It was 20 percent of 50 million. That's 10 million. That's a substantial number, but it's still only 20 percent of the entire chunk. So this right here is your 10 extra million bot streams, not real straight up fake IP addresses. So for the Spotify & YouTube algorithm, because they are getting so much real engagement, It's not easy to detect, especially if it's done properly and is running at the same time of how much bot streams are happening. So they can get away with it. And if Beyoncé beats out Taylor Swift by 10 million streams for the whole week, now she's getting a lot more free press. She won. She probably has the top number one song in the top 100 charts, top billboard R&B and pop charts, whatever the charts they're going for. And she's probably going to win, but that's substantial. That makes a difference. Let's say this is just Spotify alone. Or whatever other platform.

Look, famously, we know that Tekashi's 69 and that song with Nicki Minaj, they got caught up for getting 50 to 100 million streams on their video. But they were getting greedy too early. They were premature because their video only had about one hundred and some million streams to begin with and they want to top it off. And if you remember, fortunate for them, they didn't get shut down from YouTube. But they did get a huge reduction in overall play, that dropped by like 60 million or whatever, you can go ahead and research it. Also, they got greedy and got detected again because they didn't do it gradually, properly. 

They added too much more than 20 percent. I'm not saying that I know for a fact that it's the 20 percent ratio that does it, but I know from software development I developed applications that had APIs connected to Spotify and other platforms. So I know sort of how they work.

So there's a certain threshold that when the detection happens, you get penalized for and you get booted off again. Why? Because Spotify has to pay off for every single stream and they're barely profitable every quarter and they do not want to pay for fake streams.

Why would any company want to pay for fake work? Imagine hiring an employee. They come in, they perform 10 fake hours. You're going to pay for 10 fake hours? Probably not.

So let's talk about what happens with independent artists. Because this is an independent artist. This is 10 percent, let's say, I don't know, let's say you got on the playlist, third party bullshit playlist and you go one hundred and ten thousand streams, your problem is that you're one hundred thousand streams came from Spotify Stream Bots and they're fake. They're not real people.

So first of all, you're not growing your fan base. And if 10 percent of those came organically because you had a fan base or somehow that playlist was trying to be smart and they were 50 percent real followers, but real low quality because the concentration of people to their playlist sucked to begin with or they were 50 percent fake bots.

The problem is that 90 percent of those streams were detected to be fake and Bots whereas 10 percent of streams were not. And that's why it's not ever beneficial for independent artists to use fake bot streams, whatever. Not only does it scrub with the algorithm which impedes your further growth of your brand, on top of that, it's not allowed legally by the terms and conditions of Spotify, Apple music, Amazon music, & all these different platforms.

So why can labels get away with it most of the time? And if you're not smart as a label, pay attention. This is for you, the major labels. There is a way to do it properly. They're doing it. It's well known. It's OK. It's software. That's the way life works. But I would just want to explain to you why this happens. But you really should check out my full live class on how we grow Spotify properly, how we do not ever any more use bullshit third party playlist. Again don't get me wrong, there are real curated playlists or very few third party playlists that are also very hard to get on. But they exist. You know what I'm saying.

But just want to break this down. Hopefully this kind of explains to you guys why major labels can get away with it and why the artists almost on any level, can't get away with it. Because I know that if you're getting two thousand streams organically, 20 percent of that, is what, two hundred streams are you going to get on the playlist? This is going to give you two hundred extra fake bot streams.

Too many of you guys want to make it too fast. It's unfortunate. And you wouldn't be comfortable or happy with just getting two hundred streams on top of your two thousand organic or two thousand generated real streams through marketing. 

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