Artists, fans, and everyone in-between are voicing their mounting discontent with Spotify. Since its launch in 2006, the immensely popular platform has changed the way consumers interact with music. Critics cite low royalty payouts, questionable investments, and the growing dominance of algorithmically-generated content as key reasons for their discontent. This growing backlash has gained momentum, particularly following the release of Liz Pelly’s book, “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist,” which critiques Spotify’s impact on the music industry.
When Spotify finally entered Australia in 2012, it had a free, ad-supported alternative. To make matters worse, artists haven’t always been paid fairly for their work. In response, a greater share of them are opting to boycott the platform. High-profile cases have already highlighted the ongoing pain points between musicians and streaming giant Spotify. For instance, in 2014, Taylor Swift created quite a stir when she pulled her entire catalog from the platform. By appealing against the platform’s low royalty rates, Swift struck a chord and a precedent that many artists are now following.
In the wake of this debate heating up, Australian musician Fenn Wilson gave a firsthand account. In fact, since 2019, he’s made a paltry sum of under $200 from Spotify. This experience has inspired Sam and his fellow musicians to advocate against what they call predatory treatment.
The Impact of AI Investments
In June, Spotify’s chief executive, Daniel Ek, made headlines by investing an eye-watering billion dollars into Helsing. This says the unnamed military technology firm from Germany is specializing in advanced AI systems. This decision caught many musicians and supporters flat-footed. In doing so, they challenged the ethics of investing artists’ public dollars in military technology while artists can barely make a living.
Fenn Wilson expressed his frustration over this investment, stating, “If I don’t want to buy a canned beverage because its parent company invests a lot in Israel, why am I paying like $11, $15 so that the CEO can invest that money I paid to a weapons company?” His feelings are not an anomaly, these sentiments are widespread among artists in relation to where their money is going.
We hear from Dr. Sophie Freeman from the University of Melbourne on what this could mean for Australian artists. She asserts that they’re already being underrepresented on streaming platforms. Further, she feels that these investments misdirect essential funds from actually helping the musicians. “We’re at a bit of a tipping point right now,” she noted.
The Quality of Content and Revenue Distribution
Pelly’s book argues that Spotify favors music from major labels in its featured playlists, which prioritizes passive listening over artistic expression. This increasing emphasis on algorithmically-driven content creates a worry about authenticity and quality.
As Dr. Sophie Freeman points out, streaming services upload approximately 100,000 new songs every day. This relentless flow means we are all experiencing content saturation. “If they serve up something that’s a little bit too outside of your taste or too out there, then people might leave and go to another service,” she explained. This saturation not only takes the human artistry out of this discovery process, it robs it as well. It further stifles independent artists’ ability to break through.
Mathematically speaking, Spotify’s unique royalty payout system exacerbates these issues even more. As a result, artists are only beginning to make money once their songs reach 1,000 streams. Too many indie musicians don’t earn enough to cross that threshold. “The narrative that they sold about it being better for independent artists wasn’t true at all,” Amy, a podcast producer who recently canceled her Spotify account after reading Pelly’s book, stated.
Listener Reactions and Future Implications
Readers Legislative listeners are acting on these shocking revelations by canceling their subscriptions. Hiro, a former Spotify Premium subscriber, canceled his subscription after finding out about Ek’s investment. And he said he thought it was pretty screwy that sometimes those payments of his could be going to fund military technology instead of supporting artists. “Hearing that it’s a possibility that you could be duped into listening to something that was created by an algorithm instead of someone’s hard work … and love into the music, I didn’t like that,” Hiro remarked.
The conversation around Spotify has changed a lot in the past few years. Amy noted that features like Spotify Wrapped have lost their appeal: “The discourse around Spotify Wrapped being not as good as previous years,” she explained. She stressed that the platform has done a lot to diversify its platform with podcasts and videos. It’s lost a lot of its cultural cachet in that process.
Artists such as Fenn Wilson have faith that concerted action can achieve real changes. “As individual small artists, it’s hard to … strike a massive blow to a company like Spotify,” he said. He believes that if enough artists choose to leave the platform, it could prompt change: “I think that if a bunch of us are able to get themselves off … then they start to sweat a little.”
