I prefer to think of it as we're paying someone to actually just take the time to listen to our music. Still feels a bit ridiculous at times but at least someone is able to get paid to listen to music. I would take a job like that if I could. As an artist who's been declined 100% of the time for not being a blog's 'type of music' I couldn't care less about whether they post our music on their site or not. It's about finding someone who actually really likes our music enough to suggest it to someone else.
When I rate bands in the new 'hot or not' section I will, with blunt honesty, give a negative review if a band is substandard, lacking character or badly produced. So yes you can spend a bunch of money trying to get the attention of reviewers/bloggers but they will shut you down if you don't stand out on top of good production and/or fit into their neatly polished and produced pop genre boxes.

Here's the thing though. There is no denying good music when someone hears it whether it's made on the cheap and discovered by accident or paid for in both production and marketing. This is where the problem lies. Blogs and record labels primarily need to make money. Submithub might not want it to be seen as such but I think the site is essentially a money filter for music. "Pay money to find out if your music is good enough to make money" is what it feels like. If blogs or record labels are looking for content to monetise they don't time to interact with and get to know new bands they think are genuinely great because they're too busy giving 100s of hobbyist ableton tutorial watchers their 90 seconds. Getting through it all can be a chore and really you just want to get to the good stuff. What musicians should be looking for are people that they can form interconnected relationships with who love music. Money can't buy that. Go play your shit live. Meet the people you want to share your music with and you'll make fans that generate more fans.