Because they have the space. It’s hard for us Europeans to understand. In places where they don’t, they certainly go below ground - look at Microsoft’s parking garage in Redmond.
Not a lot. Yes you can see what they are playing and they use it to make recommendations for you.
I think the primary motivator for Spotify is just data scraping. Everybody wants to know your circle of friends in order to advertise better towards you.
You are forgetting a cardinal rule: When something is likely to affect the press, the press affords it more attention.
So the writers, editors, graphic designers etc of the press are likely to be very affected by generative AI. So they worry about it. So they write about it.
I’m also in a line of work that will see substantial changes … so I understand their plight. But I think a large part of the reason the press write about the use of genAI to make “art output” is that they worry about genAI will make their “art output” soon.