I’m growing sick and tired of Spotify’s music-consuming model. There are many compelling and sometimes conflicting reasons, most perfectly outlined in The day I canceled my Spotify subscription on Raed’s blog.
I used to cherish music, I used to religiously collect, catalog and enjoy every album on my iPod. I could navigate the endless folders and find that exact song that I needed for that precise moment. Spotify killed that, I listen to what it suggests and just accept that it will go away when it decides to rotate it out. Spotify trained me not to look too hard, to let the flow be, and if that awesome song is gone or removed, don’t worry, we still have a million more.
And also:
The main screen is littered with podcasts I don’t care about, nor have I ever listened to. It keeps pushing playlists that feel generic, bland, more based on demographics than my years of consistent listening history. And there is nothing I can do about it.
I can’t cancel my subscription yet, as I would risk being lynched (we’re on the family plan), so I’m experimenting with digital purchases of selected music that I know I want to keep for the long run and that I deem worth sustaining directly. The current plan is to buy it on Bandcamp, immediately download it, and then listen to it, probably on Doppler. I will also drop a quick review on my website (if it is not exciting enough to share here, it’s probably not worth buying in the first place.) I’ve been gathering old-style music sources lately (I primarily follow music critics and websites I respect and listen to live stations like NTS, Radio Paradise, and Bandcamp Radio). For the time being, Spotify will stay and serve as a secondary discovery agent.
Yes, I will spend more on music, and it’s okay. I won’t buy everything I listen to anyway; the idea is to only invest in the true gems. In a way, this all looks like going back to old and brick-and-mortar music shop days but actualized, and I like it a lot.