FEATURE:
An Expanding Streaming Market
PHOTO CREDIT: Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
of an old story that The Guardian ran last month. However, I think that it is relevant to bring it in as we head to the new year. I use Spotify all of the time. However, more and more, there is this guilt regarding the very low amount artists earn from streaming. How the algorithm is set up for larger artists and there are plenty of flaws. It seems that Spotify are more concerned with changing their site and adding features and less so without rectifying issues. I don’t think artists will get a noticeably better deal next year. Earlier this year, Massive Attack removed their music from Spotify in protest of Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Elk’s investment in A.I. military. Other artists are following suit. I know people who have stopped using the streaming platform because of this. It adds another layer of complexity and negativity to Spotify. It does get to me. I am not especially beholden to Spotify. I use it because of the access and vast choice of music. I like to make playlists and embed them in features. I find that alternative sites do not offer that function. However, the more options coming onto the market means Spotify may one day be overtaken and replaced. People flocking to their competitors. Nina Protocol, Cantilever and Subvert might seem niche and names you have not heard. However, they are providing alternatives. As Nina Protocol’s Chief Executive Mike Pollard says in the article, the future of music streaming is independent. An experienced that should be above benefiting artists. More curated and fairer:
“The noise around Spotify this year has been louder than ever, from Liz Pelly’s book Mood Machine – a biting indictment of the company and its alleged practices, described as “error-riddled theories” by Spotify itself – to a slew of indie artists leaving the platform due to political and ethical reasons. There was even a recent music forum in California called Death to Spotify.
So the timing is fortuitous for a growing number of independent streaming and music community platforms, such as Nina Protocol, Coda, Subvert, Lissen, Vocana, and just last week a new one launched in the UK: Cantilever. “More people are definitely looking for alternatives,” says Nina Protocol’s chief executive Mike Pollard. “We strongly believe the future of music is independent.”
Each of the new platforms have unique identities. Nina Protocol uses an open public network, where artists set their terms and keep 100% of any revenue from downloads; the collectively owned Subvert is intended to be an alternative to Bandcamp, where music files are bought and sold. Cantilever takes inspiration from curated film streaming platforms such as Mubi, offering a limited and rotating number of albums at a time (currently 10, but up to 30).
IN THIS PHOTO: Author Liz Pelly/PHOTO CREDIT: Felix Walworth/One Signal Publishing
What unites them is curation, a sense of community and an artist-friendly, anti-corporate model. “We think a lot about the dignity of releasing music,” says Pollard. “I don’t think these algorithm-driven reasons for why something’s getting played are very dignified: are you just something that sounds like something they already like? An artist may say, ‘one of my songs did well on Spotify because it was put in the most popular sleep playlist’. But maybe the 500,000 people who listened to that track weren’t even awake! And how many of those people know your name, care about you or would buy a ticket to a show?”
Many of these new services also have written articles and editorial, intending to offer contextual deep dives for a more focused listening experience. “It’s like a music magazine you can listen to,” says Cantilever’s Aaron Skates, an ex-record label worker and music writer who has launched the streaming platform. Skates has managed to pull in an impressive list of independent labels to work with too, such as Warp, Ninja Tune, Domino and Beggars Group labels such as Rough Trade, 4AD and Matador.
By having a smaller roster of artists, it means they receive more money. “The pool is far less diluted,” Skates says. “We’re paying out a maximum of 30 artists for all subscriber revenue, versus the 100m tracks on Spotify. Also, we pay on a user-centric basis, so that means your fee will only ever go towards the music that you actually listen to.” Skates gives me an example: if Cantilever was to get 10,000 subscribers at £4.99 a month, that would result in albums on the service receiving £2,000-3,000 each, which he says is “roughly the equivalent of a million Spotify streams”.
“There’s a growing awareness of how slop-filled everything is getting,” he says. “People are wanting a little more control of what they consume.” He gives the example of users leaving X, formerly Twitter: “They realised, ‘Shit, I don’t need to be here any more.’ Then you understand what it feels like to be more intentional about your choices, instead of just being on everything that you’re told you need to be on to exist. I think people are waking up”.
Even though Qobuz do not allow users to embed playlists into sites like Squarespace – something that is a huge negative from my perspective -, they are another streaming platforms that could be a viable alternative to Spotify. I do want to come away from Spotify at some point next year. The benefits of the platform is that there is plenty of choice when it comes to new and legacy artists. I do like how you can discover so much through the site. Also, in terms of being able to shares mixes, playlists and albums, it is very convenient and easy. However, I do realise that there are ethical and moral reasons to boycott Spotify. Also, one can use Spotify and another platform. I think all of the alternatives have their drawbacks, though with time, you feel like there will be other sites that offer everything. I can understand why people are leaving Spotify. Artists are getting a raw deal. In a feature from earlier this year, the BBC reported ow Spotify paid a record £7.7 bn in royalty to artists. However, we are still hearing about how little that amounts to for smaller or independent acts:
“Spotify said more than two-thirds of all music revenue goes "straight to the recording and publishing rights-holders", and added that, like other streamers, Spotify does not pay on a per-stream basis.
The annual figures were published in Spotify's Loud and Clear report - part of the company's aim to provide transparency on how it pays the music industry.
The amount Spotify paid this year was an increase on the more than $9bn (£7bn) it handed over in 2023.
The report highlighted that the number of artists generating annual royalties between $1,000 (£770) and $10m had tripled since 2017.
Taylor Swift was named Spotify's top artist globally with more than 26 billion streams, in the year she released her double-length album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology”.
Whilst it may not be ideal for people like me – journalists who rely on affordability and include a lot of music in my features – to rely purely on physical music, there are people finding it quite freeing. This article is quite illuminating. Criticism against Spotify including a lot of A.I. music on its site. Audiobooks taking money away from artists. Artists still not able to earn anything substantial from streaming revenues.
I am going to end with this feature from The Guardian from October. How a new wave of boycott means that others will rethink their connection with Spotify. It is quite hard to detach from the platform and completely switch off. However, as there are alternatives coming through that have a different business model, it may make things easier next year. For me, if artists were played more and no functionality was lost coming off Spotify, it may be worth the switch:
“Artists have long complained about paltry payouts, but this summer the criticism became personal, targeting Spotify’s billionaire co-founder Daniel Ek for his investment in Helsing, a German firm developing AI for military tech. Groups including Massive Attack, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deerhoof and Hotline TNT pulled their music from the service in protest. (Spotify has stressed that “Spotify and Helsing are two separate companies”.)
In Oakland, California, Stephanie Dukich read Mood Machine, heard about the boycotts, and was inspired.
Dukich, who investigates complaints against the city’s police, was part of a reading group about digital media at Bathers library. Though she is not a musician, Dukich describes herself, along with her friend and art gallery worker Manasa Karthikeyan, as “really into sound”.
She and Karthikeyan decided to start similar conversations. “Spotify is enmeshed in how we engage with music,” Dukich says. “We thought it would be great to talk about our relationship to streaming – what it means to actually take our files off and learn how to do that together.” Death to Spotify was born.
The goal, in short, was “down with algorithmic listening, down with royalty theft, down with AI-generated music”.
Karthikeyan says the responsibility of quitting Spotify lies as much with listeners as artists. “You have to accept that you won’t have instant access to everything,” she says. “That makes you think harder about what you support.”
But will either musicians or listeners actually have the nerve to actually boycott the app longterm?
Several famous musicians have pulled their catalogues from Spotify with big, headline-grabbing announcements over the years, only to quietly come crawling back to the platform after some time. One of the app’s most popular artists, Taylor Swift, boycotted the service for three years in protest of its unfair payment practices but returned in 2017. Radiohead’s frontman. Thom Yorke, removed some his solo projects for the same reason in 2013, calling Spotify “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse”; he later put them back.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell left the app in 2022, citing the company’s exclusive deal with anti-vax podcast host Joe Rogan; both Canadian singer-songwriters contracted polio as children in the 1950s. They, too, later restored their catalogues on Spotify”.
I use Spotify a lot and know how handy it is for what I do. At the back of my mind, there is this conflict. Whether it is right of justifiable using the platform in 2025. I will have to have a think as we head our way into 2026. I am looking at the options out there and seeing if any provide everything I need. Otherwise, I will have to subscribe to more than one streaming platform. Whereas in the past the only other options were there massive sites like Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal or Apple, there are these upcoming and independent platforms that are growing. It is encouraging knowing that there…
ARE alternatives around.