Buh-bye, Spotify

I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving them my money ever since they had no trouble finding $250 million for the sham supplement salesman and douchebag magnet Joe Rogan, despite their inability to promote or pay the vast majority of the musicians who are the heart and soul of their service. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was learning that not only does Spotify go out of its way to commission cheap stock music to give priority placement on playlists (so as to further avoid putting money in the pockets of genuine artists), but its CEO, Daniel Ek, whose company only just now had its first profitable year since its founding in 2006, is worth four times more than the most financially successful musician in the history of the world. The eternally failing marriage of art and commerce is my life’s central bugbear, and this particular expression of it is truly grotesque.

For now, I have no plans to replace Spotify with another streaming service, partly because even the least odious of them doesn’t pay anyone but the very biggest artists any real money, and partly because I want to detach myself from the easy allure of dehumanizing recommendation algorithms. Time to get back to being more engaged and intentional about how I find music, doubling down on music journalism and Wikipedia rabbit holes, paying close attention to local venues and promoters, and expanding my budget and being less restrictive about buying virtually any record I intend to listen to more than once. Who knows, maybe I’ll even actually get into vinyl and become a crate digger.

I don’t feel good about most of what’s ahead in 2025, but this overdue gesture is an notable exception, and I’m glad to be just this little bit less a part of the problem.