Dear Spotify, we’re breaking up

I came to the realisation that I don’t love you at all. Our relationship started well. Can we even call it a relationship, wasn’t it a mere business agreement?

You promised a world free of piracy, I saw The Playlist. The kind of place where art is nourished and where artists know I love them each time I press play. So I took you in, made you a part of my life and gave you what you asked for.

Then you began asking for more. All of a sudden I was paying more for the promise of new exciting features. (Some of which I didn’t use or even liked.)

“That’s ok”, I thought it wouldn’t be much of a hassle for the peace of mind of all the music in the world at my disposal. “It’s fair and I know Spotify supports the artists”.

My dear, I started paying more attention when our friend Al Yankovic came to tell me what you were doing. I know he’s a bit weird, but don’t you think it’s weirder to pay an artist 12 USD for 80 million streams? And there’s more, I don’t want to go into it.

Then I started noticing the state of hypnosis you had me in. My day would start simple. Sit in front of the laptop, headphones on, press play, let the algorithm flow. And that was it, play, skip, pause for a video call, play and skip. There was no attention paid to the actual new artist, no recollection of what album that song was from. “Here’s your top artists. Have some of your chill vibes favourites. Would you like relaxing acid jazz for dinner?”

You had me in a daze but I broke free!

But I need to come clean. I was cheating on you this whole time.

I kept having an on-and-off affair with my music collection, my Ex. Yes, the CDs. And I also frolicked with a few MP3 I had met in Apple Music several years ago. No, it wasn’t dirty. It was old love rekindled.

They didn’t judge my music taste at the end of every year. And the songs would not mysteriously disappear to never be heard again. They deserved my love and care.

I found that there were ways to put my Music Collection back in order. Music Brainz is an app that scans audio files and makes sure they are properly named and tagged using the world’s largest public database. With that and my one-time-payment premium account for Plex I can have that music collection streamed to me.

“You will come crawling back”

No, my love. I concede that it is much harder to buy songs online, artists moved to streaming platforms and lost contact with their fanbase. Some are even back to selling vinyl records instead of audio files. Jack White did it in a very innovative way.

On their website, Linkin Park is selling their upcoming album “From Zero” with no option for digital formats.

And remember the Wu-Tang Clan? They have an album called “Once upon a time in Shaolin” of which there is only one vinyl copy. Martin Shkreli¹ bought it for $2m in 2015 and it was later sold for $4.75m. It got complicated when Martin was put on trial for making copies and streaming the album.

Now, every time I come across a song that resonates, I take a few seconds to see if the artist has a website and if I can buy it online. Most of the times I get shown links to play on any streaming platform.

It’s therefore no wonder that piracy is still very much alive. Those with enough technical skill can dive into ways to setup home servers that find and download Music, Movies, and TV Shows. A web search for home lab or servarr can introduce you to a whole community that goes as far as having their own email servers at home because it’s more private than Gmail.

I will never again have all the songs in the world at my fingertips. I can live with that because I gained a journey through my nostalgic music collection and started paying more attention to what I listen to. And whenever I find a song I like, I save it to a note on my phone.

Spotify, If I’m undecided about what to listen to, and Plexamp can’t help me, I pick an artist instead of your Moods. I stopped shuffling and now let the album run its journey. When you weren’t around, some artists had a concept for each album. You’ve never taken me on one of those trips.

“I can’t believe it’s over”

You will find someone else. You have millions of lovers subscribers so don’t lie saying I’m special.

Your artists though, are the ones being left out in the cold. In the triangle of stream platforms, artists, and fans, I don’t know which kind of relationship is best for everyone. But this monogamy wasn’t working for us, Spotify.

I want to see other people, experience the joy of discovering a new band, and the wonder of coming across music that wasn’t composed for your mainstreamed algorithm.

And I’m happier supporting the artists I like directly than finding out you gave Weird Al the equivalent of a good sandwich for all his work during the year.

But I will always love you.

Goodbye, Spotify.