I think listening to an entire song of some unknown artist is a great sign that more tracks should be queued up.
Essentially, that artist generated traffic for Spotify, and Spotify channels that traffic to more known tracks that are more likely to generate conversions to paying customers.
I understand the criticism that it's hard for you to get an audience to notice you. But once somebody has listened to a tune of yours and then doesn't actively seek out more of it ... could it be that they just prefer to listen to something else instead? Competition is toughand it may feel easy to blame it on big tech, but sometimes peoples taste is just not something you can legislate..