Our content is certainly good and worth discovering.
There's a common misconception that most people actually select the music that they want to hear. Often, you select a specific track, and then the music continues on its own for hours.
We have figures. I can only provide the data for the United States, because we don't have any other data. According to these figures, 80% of the viewing time on YouTube is related to the recommendation engine. This comes right from the mouths of the YouTube representatives, who have said so publicly. According to the Pew Research Center, 64% of the videos recommended by YouTube's algorithm already have over one million views, and 5% of them have accumulated fewer than 50,000 views.
To be really recommended, you need one million views. Unfortunately, not many tracks by Quebec artists reach this level. It's important to understand that the recommendation tools of these platforms aren't set up for a market like ours. The platforms simply aren't motivated to take a greater interest in our market than necessary, because our market is too small.
Financial interests are also at stake when it comes to playing one type of content more than another. We have a number of reasons to believe that large companies, such as multinationals with larger repertoires and therefore greater bargaining power, negotiate preferential treatment to feature their own repertoires. This applies both to marketing in general and to algorithmic recommendation tools. These companies reportedly even pay advances.
Online music services have an interest in getting their repertoires played before ours.