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Why I Quit Spotify in 2025
Listening to music ethically, rebuilding my CD collection, and bringing the human element back to music
When I opened my Spotify Wrapped at the end of last year, I was disappointed but not surprised. I’d had the same top artist and album for five years running: its fast-paced 8-bit beats fueling my grad school years and beyond. As my Student Plan ran out and Spotify kept raising prices without compensating its artists, I started to question why I was paying $11.84 every month for an album I didn’t even own.
Spotify had become a corporation that I no longer wanted to support, especially in a time where corporate powers wield as much—if not more—power as politicians. Streaming has dramatically changed both the and , and even though our access to music now may seem limitless, it’s becoming harder and harder for indie artists to gain traction. Spotify pays artists between $0.003 — $0.005 per stream on average and most small artists are swallowed by the company’s algorithm anyway. I would need to stream a song around 500 times from an artist to equal purchasing a single album.
It also became harder for me to find new artists on Spotify. Shuffling playlists kept bringing the same tried-and-true songs to the top of my queue. The…
