they get paid by Labels to promote certain songs and artists, similar to how labels pay radio to play only certain songs. Everything, from Amazon, to Spotify, to the Google Play Store wants you to click on promoted bullshit, not search for what you actually want. Welcome to the internet in 2023.
Guess for a lot of us spotify users that'd mean stop paying for their service? am pretty close to doing so after almost a decade of paying for spotify.
Additionally, artists can sign up to get prioritization in the radio and recommendation algorithms... at the cost of some of their royalties. You're likely already missing out on artists who don't pay the troll toll if you rely heavily on Spotify's recommendations.