I get new artists recommended to me all the time. Every one of my discover weekly playlists has a song from someone with under 5k listeners.

You are obviously trolling since there is not way you could know I’m “factual wrong” since neither of us have facts on the Spotify algo and you clearly have no idea how the world works.

Maybe your friend who is a “small artist” should leave Spotify and return once they have listeners or make music people enjoy.