Spotify is a company that feels like they want to be a "big tech company" when in reality they do not need to. All they need to do is provide a great service with as much music as possible.
I wonder if adding 'as much music as possible' would drive any growth without the AI music discovery stuff. There has to be a diminishing return to adding new songs - if Spotify adds an artist that only a few thousand people have heard of then that's only going attract a few thousand new customers at most. No one else is going to listen to that artist unless Spotify recommends the songs to people who might like them.
I think Spotify's "moat" is largely the analysis they've done on all the listening data they have, and their ability to provide that to the music industry as a product.
They share rudimentary summaries with customers via stuff like Wrapped but I have to imagine they have much more detailed and robust data products for the industry...
If they're just a giant Dropbox for MP3s with a music player sitting on top, they don't really stand a chance...
The Spotify end of year wrap is amazing marketing for them that people absolutely love and share widely.