I noticed these accounts are following a lot of ppl on Spotify including me nd it doesn’t seem like I’m the only one from looking on social media. Does anyone have an answer to this? Bots maybe, ppl spam following?
Not a lot. Yes you can see what they are playing and they use it to make recommendations for you.
I think the primary motivator for Spotify is just data scraping. Everybody wants to know your circle of friends in order to advertise better towards you.
For me, I follow several artists and it gives updates on when they uploaded a new album etc
etc
And I follow my siblings and could see what they're listening to, live, if I activated the sidebar but I'm just here to listen to music
That first part works without following personal accounts too. I don't follow anyone but I get notified when the bands I listen to release new albums. Besides that, I use the release radar playlist.