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Artists had been sold the idea that streaming was the ultimate meritocracy—that the best would rise to the top because users voted by listening. But the PFC program undermined all this. PFC was not the only way in which Spotify deliberately and covertly manipulated programming to favor content that improved its margins, but it was the most immediately galling. Nor was the problem simply a matter of “authenticity” in music. It was a matter of survival for actual artists, of musicians having the ability to earn a living on one of the largest platforms for music. PFC was irrefutable proof that Spotify rigged its system against musicians who knew their worth. In 2023, on a summer afternoon in Brooklyn, I met up with a jazz musician in a park. We talked about the recent shows we had seen, our favorite and least favorite venues, the respective pockets of the New York music scene we moved through. He spoke passionately about his friends’ music and his most cherished performance spaces