Isn't this just like how supermarkets have their "house brands" that compete with name brands? If your consumption of music amounts to "whatever Spotify tells me to listen to" then chances are you were the type of person who used to just have the radio on for background noise anyway.

EDIT: If you think about this "scandal" in reverse, that is that Spotify was started as a background, inert restaurant playlist app that paid session musicians to record 50 songs a day for lo-fi chill ambient jazz playlists, and later tried to expand their reach by allowing musicians to upload their songs, it wouldn't be a scandal at all.