these days it usually means it's an early project being given away for free to build hype (not that the 'free' part means a lot in the modern streaming era), or the label doesn't want to give it the same sort of promotional budget, or it's a more casual stopgap release not intended to be the 'proper' follow-up release. rare for any of these to get a physical release
here it seems it's more like the third? it's kinda silly to make the distinction at all these days really
― ufo, Monday, 24 January 2022 03:48 (two years ago) link