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
•
Ethical & Equitable Alternatives
Streaming: @qobuz @tidal @deezer @codamusicapp
Transfer music: @soundiizofficial
Purchase: @subvertworld @bandcamp
Audiobooks: @librofm
•
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 (2)
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?
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.