Self promotion on social media apps like reddit is discouraged and banned likely in support of an underbelly of grifting

[circuitbored]

Self promotion (by musicians and entertainers unless they're already famous) is looked down upon and even banned on pretty much most popular web spots where it would thrive with a bit of proper moderation, and I think it's mind boggling, how every other subreddit allows users to post their self/company generated content, but when it comes to music, there's a mysteriously difficult post ban/post rules/gatekeeping environment made for profit/benefit by platforms and mods.

This happens I think because there is such a huge underground network of individuals and companies that feed/profit off of grifting aspiring musicians and entertainers for post visibility. We really don't discuss why someone can gain financial wealth off of simply adding music that others made to a playlist on Spotify, it's really not valuable work that should generate a lot of profit to be honest; as many (who are actual musicians) do it for free, but somehow playlisting music on sites like Spotify has become a profitable practice, where very little labor and value is applied. Playlisting or endorsement (inversely, for some new strange reason) has somehow become the only viable gateway to being discovered or heard for pretty much every new musician on modern-day social and music platforms to my great dismay.

I think the majority of producers and forum mods are using alias and throw away accounts to post their own stuff undercover at most times, which only serves to make us all feel less connected with music and it encourages tons of other deception like musicians faking their stats and social media support.

This is why platforms have seen increasing revenue from personal promotion (also known as post boosting) as they decrease organic (free) post visibility for all users (unless they post something of no business or personal value). Social platforms manually pick accounts/posts at times to make it seem as if certain accounts know how to make going viral work, but a lot of the top posts we see on social apps now (like TikTok) look viral because they are promotional content paid for my the posting account (without proper advertising disclosure).

This "underbelly" of taxing (specifically) aspiring musicians and entertainers that are not yet making profit off of their work prior to even gaining a measurable audience is creating a wealth gap for success on platforms, and it is creating an illusion of what is actually favorable as content.

Most musicians are working daily without any profit/supporter growth/reward altogether, the most talented ones rarely post on social media at all any more because freely shared music (and actually being human) is so devalued on social media now, most DJs/Playlist/radio stations work on a payola basis now...

I don't think anything will get better for people working to be independently successful as these platforms grow more and more greedy for profit. Authentic art will suffer deeply too until sites and radio start picking up independent minded DJs and curators that don't tax the musicians they play music from... These types of (human/talented) curators are out there, but the industry and listeners ignore them completely in favor of what's pushed out by the big industry machine.

I curate and post (free and independent) music in addition to my own music on my own label web site. It is quite active all day/nigh long, and its far better than social media, because my posts don't disappear to everyone 5 seconds after they're made. Worst comes to worst, my personal library is full of what I really like, without the corruption of people paying to be played before everything else. SOURCE: http://www.ruffandtuffrecordings.com/SELECTIONS

As musicians and entertainers, people work furiously to have a legacy. They create and consume the very personal content that is posted on social media platforms. Social media platforms (most of them) started as free services... It's unfathomable how we've gotten to a point where an aspiring guitar player would register for a a site that collects all of their personal information and their personal contributed content and music videos and then then charge them for each person that subsequently views those videos... It's akin to being told you can get a free a cup of coffee, but unless you want to carry the hot coffee poured in your hands, you also have to pay a rising convenience cost for each cup you use, and also a fee for each sip of the coffee you now drink.

I think there's a whole grift economy being built under social media, as we've seen with the crash of many prominent crypto exchanges, and with rising cases of online fraud otherwise... It's an unpopular opinion in my opinion, because it's so well embedded in how many of these platforms work.