Sounds like many big YouTubers. The difference is they usually do find an audience and then they can cool off with the bots. The intent is there but in the end the corporation ends up benefiting from the fraud.
Also, If this artist was making that much imagine how much Spotify was making on their natural cut.
That's going to convince 100M more people to sign up?
Clearly this artist didn't build that 100m subscriber base by himself over 7 years, but Spotify itself definitely employed this tactic of botting to increase its popularity. Same idea: "wow Spotify has this many people here? I should try it out!".