My understanding was the vast majority of listens come from popular artists, and those listening to niche artists (of which there are tens of thousands) are the minority (~10%).

But on researching this comment it would seem I may be way off base https://insights.spotify.com/no/2017/11/02/listening-diversi....

I really hope that is the case. I have more than a hundred artists in my saved list and a huge spread of genres and styles. I enjoy Spotify constantly for giving me some of these insights. I am just as likely to get a suggestion for an artist with 1000 followers versus someone with 500,000 thousand. The algorithm doesn't seem to give much weight to popularity and I love that. Popularity just isn't a strong indicator for quality music and people have been musing over that point for centuries.

I think for many, music is just background noise or social fodder. Used solely for those ends then popularity matters. Otherwise, it's a useless metric and you are just as likely to find a genius with 200 followers as you are a vapid repeater box with 500,000. The hurdles serve as enough of a barrier for people posting just garbage to the platform, but they don't seem to hinder those who are creative but unpopular.