These 2 posts are just a tiny slice of what I've seen on my Instagram feed just within the past few days. Each post is getting huge engagement and gives some details as to what is going on. A quick read of the comments indicates artists are starting to focus more on sharing music from and driving traffic to their own websites, Bandcamp (which has remained a champion of indie musicians consistently for 17 years now), and other artist-friendly platforms.
Spotify Is Wrapped:
1 Promote ICE recruitment ads and defended their position
2 CEO invested hundreds of millions into AI war technology through Helsing
3 Terms/conditions allow Spotify to use music and content to train internal AI
4 Major labels own >7% of Spotify, account for 80-90% of editorial playlists, but only take up ~40% of total catalog
5 Actively push AI artists and music
6 Royalty rate one of the lowest of all streaming platforms and refuse to pay artists with <1,000 streams
7 Payola with their Discovery Mode, 30% less royalties for being bumped in recommendations
8 Buy stock music and push these songs and artists in playlists and search cues to dilute royalty pool
9 Streaming quality is worse than top ethical and equitable alternatives
10 Price increases in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia with plans for 2026 in US and Canada
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Ethical & Equitable Alternatives
Streaming: @qobuz @tidal @deezer @codamusicapp
Transfer music: @soundiizofficial
Purchase: @subvertworld @bandcamp
Audiobooks: @librofm
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Sources:
1 https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/letter-to-spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-re-u-s-customs-and-immigration-enforcement-advertisements/
2 https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-leads-690m-funding-round-for-ai-drone-manufacturer-helsing/
3 https://musictechpolicy.com/2025/09/02/ai-implications-of-spotifys-updated-terms-of-use-your-data-is-their-new-oil/
4 https://www.music-tomorrow.com/blog/is-spotify-editorial-playlist-landscape-fair-to-emerging-artists
5 https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001639920/6b71c48f-22b3-4c46-a206-5eb425d05e63.pdf
6 https://royaltyexchange.com/blog/how-music-streaming-platforms-calculate-payouts-per-stream-2025 and https://artists.spotify.com/en/blog/modernizing-our-royalty-system
7 https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/files/2025/11/GENEVIEVE-CAPOLONGO-v-SPOTIFY.pdf
8 https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/
9 https://www.whathifi.com/advice/hi-res-music-streaming-services-compared
10 https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-raises-uk-and-switzerland-premium-prices-again-as-analysts-see-us-hike-by-early-2026/
Top comments (8)
I'm trying to take my music off Spotify as well but they don't make it easy! I need to go through my distributor who is not very good at responding to emails...
In my opinion demonetizing indie artists, the addition of AI music, payola for playlist additions are all main factors for me. This doesn't even take into account the CEO's investment in AI military tech or the ICE recruitment ads but those are great reasons to leave also.
Anyone have any good Spotify alternatives they use?
Out of interest, why 'were' you on Spotify in the first place? What were your expectations?
Just trying to understand because I think the 'leaving in droves' is more a sign that Spotify was not a good fit as a business model for individuals (not that Spotify is a bad service necessarily).
My take is Spotify is not paying well because subscribers themselves don't want to pay full fare for convenience.
As a musician, I was hoping it could pan out in terms of fair royalty payments to artists, as the business and the revenue grew, maybe with some tweaking along the way. But it's turned out to be the opposite. Paying independent musicians and labels fairly has not only been the least of their concerns it seems over the past decade, but they seem to be doing the opposite. They're in bed with the major labels with very suspect and deceptive practices that funnel revenue back to themselves and the major labels through back-end deals while penalising and minimising revenue for independent artists every chance they get.
Some musicians have been successful in using it as a gateway for finding new, real fans who will then buy their merch, buy their music on Bandcamp, go to their shows, etc., and that is valid. Other musicians have been against the entire concept of low revenue streaming platforms since the get go. I was always on the side of optimism, thinking it could work out, but the bad ethical practices have just been piling up. Including basically encouraging AI music and allegedly creating their own AI music in order to cut in on the revenue themselves, while coming across as being "fair", all while issuing statements about how they plan to remove "AI Slop".
As a listener, Spotify has no doubt been one of the better platforms, with a lot of features to make finding, playing and discovering music easy and fun (as long as you're a paid subscriber; free accounts with ads are terrible and you're better off going with YouTube Music). But there have also been far reaching issues with this as well. Discovering music via "algorithms" is proving to be a net negative on the music community as a whole.
My current situation is that I have left Spotify as a listener, but my music remains on the platform. Partly because I've just been busy, but I also wanted to give it some more thought - and now, I plan to keep my music there, but in the future, only release "edits" (like 3 minute radio edits of say a 5 minute song) and full versions will be available on Bandcamp. Still thinking it through, but something like that.
I do agree that a different business model could work for music streaming. I've always thought something more like Audible - more expensive, but you also "own" purchases. But Bandcamp is the strongest contender still for something like this. And Bandcamp has officially banned AI music from its platform altogether.
I haven't left Spotify (yet) either. There are of course all the other streaming platforms, Apple, Amazon, Tidal etc., which don't have quite as bad of a rep.
But I'm keeping an eye on SoundCloud actually, to see if it gets some legs (again). It actually has a tool to import your entire library from Spotify, all your liked tracks & playlists and organize accordingly, if the songs are available on SoundCloud. And then there's the always great Bandcamp, which just launched a "Playlist" feature, which I haven't' really checked out, but looks interesting.
It seems some major changes to the music industry, particularly with streaming, are underway! It may prove to be a long overdue good thing!
As for Spotify, there's also apparently accusations of them willfully ignoring billions (BILLIONS!) of bot streams for major label artists, while penalizing indie artists when they get added to botted playlists (at no fault of their own!), and there is a lawsuit regarding this against them.
Still haven't removed my music from Spotify... but I have unsubscribed as a listener. I did create the DEV community Music Monday playlist that uses the Spotify API, just cause it's an easy API... and for the community, I don't want to force my views or get political on people here over what they listen to music on.
Of course, it's a much bigger issue than what individual people subscribe to. It's hard to blame folks since Spotify admittedly does have way better social features.
Tidal seems like a good option. It pays artists more and the subscription price is the same for listeners I think.
Better streaming quality too!