Think Piece | Goodbye, Spotify
I’ve been an active Spotify user for the last eight years. I stuck with Spotify through the release of other music streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Tidal. Early on, there were ethical red flags surrounding how much artists were actually being paid on their platform. According to Business Insider at the time of this writing, estimates for this payout is anywhere between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. I didn’t think the solution to this problem was leaving it behind. I was never a paying subscriber. I put up with the interrupting ads to stream music free of charge. They boast 406,000,000 users with 180,000,000 of those users paying for their monthly service. And it’s understandable why Spotify continues to grow. They have one of the most intuitive interfaces – this is probably the main reason why it took so long for me to leave. I enjoyed the daily curated playlists of music I enjoyed mixed with music that I could potentially like. I also enjoyed following my favorite artists and having my ‘Liked’ songs compiled into a single list. And not to mention their annual Spotify Wrapped that let’s you know what music made up your year. Though, this concept was stolen from an unpaid intern. Despite these two issues, Spotify’s experience felt like it was being crafted around my listening pleasure. The playlists their algorithm created felt natural, if I ran out of my six skips, I would just jump to the next playlist. There was no enough motivating me to leave the platform but also not enough to pour money into what they were offering (although the ads would come at the most inconvenient times). But if 2021 had anything to prove, it was why I needed to leave Spotify behind. The first story to break was the fact that Spotify CEO invested over $100,000,000 into military defense. This double downed on the fact that they are not paying out enough to artists. And… why is a music streaming service investing so much in military technology? So much more could have been done with $100 million. As a user, it was out of place for the company but I wasn’t ready to leave over a questionable investment by the CEO. And at this point, even to myself, it sounds like I’m making a lot of excuses for the streaming platform and I was. Fast forward just a couple months into 2022 and I don’t even have to mention a certain podcaster for you to know who I’m talking about. The lack of action on behalf of Spotify is enough of a statement to make their stance known. I won’t get too deep into this issue because it’s splattered all over the internet. With all of these things considered, I decided to delete my Spotify account. I’ve since switched over to Apple Music. The user interface is going to take some getting used to but I’m willing to do the work if it means not supporting a platform that’s so caught up in their own disservice and politics.
Simplifying my reasons into a list.
Not paying artists enough per stream.
Stolen Spotify Wrapped concept.
Spotify CEO investing $100 million into military defense.
Inaction with misinformation/racial matters.