I used to work in the music industry until a few months back when I quit for mental health reasons. At the time, I was speaking daily with the type of people which create these playlists.

Spotify serves as the primary source of revenue for most artists. And so they’re always coming up with new ways to game the platform.

More often than not, the playlist owners charge a fee of several hundred dollars to be featured in high-traction playlists such as the ones you just mentioned.

So artists looking to get Spotify streams (to establish credibility on the platform) are able to boost their numbers quickly without having to worry about the quality of their music. Meanwhile, it serves as a business for the playlist owner.

Although I believe it’s against the T&C’s of Spotify, action against such playlist owners is rarely enforced. I’m totally against the practice, as it creates confusion for the listener, and is pretty unethical.