Why I Finally Quit Spotify (2024)

The other week, I updated the operating system on my Mac laptop after putting the task off for many months. (One intractable flaw of technological devices: they never actually update overnight as promised.) The apps on my computer all upgraded to their latest versions, including Spotify. When I opened it back up, I found a new interface, one that began rolling out to users last year. At first glance, it didn’t look very different, though the usual three windows were more distinct from one another: a library column on the left, a central “home” window in the middle, and a view of whatever music I was currently playing on the right. But in the following days, as I used the updated app, I began to feel as though I were typing on a keyboard in a foreign language. When I tried to pull up Bill Evans Trio albums, for example, I could find only playlists. I saved Charli XCX’s “BRAT” to my library to listen to in full, but then I couldn’t track it down again. When I wanted to view my library as a whole, I couldn’t manage to make it escape the sidebar. As far I can tell, it’s impossible to do so. (The company did not respond to requests for comment for this piece.)

I realize that it sounds curmudgeonly to complain about software updates. Don’t apps provide us with enough miraculous conveniences? Through Spotify, I can browse many decades of published music more or less instantly; I can freely sample the work of new musicians. Yet it has become aggravatingly difficult to find what I want to listen to. The uppermost menu now offers three options, each given equal real estate—Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks—and the Music tab is filled with rows of playlists, autoplay “radio” stations, and algorithmically generated mixes. The only option for browsing full albums is a small item in the lesser Library column, to the right of yet more buttons for Playlists and Podcasts. With the upgrade, it became clearer than ever what the app has been pushing me to do: listen to what it suggests, not choose music on my own. In 2012, Spotify launched its slogan, “Music for everyone.” Now it may as well be “Be grateful for whatever music we give you.”

I’m hardly alone in my souring on Spotify. When I posted about my annoyance with the interface on X, I heard from dozens of other unhappy users. “It’s harder just to enjoy music,” Kyle Austin, a marketing executive in Boston who responded to the post, told me. He’s noticed that the home-page interface emphasizes only what you’ve played recently; if you don’t want to continue listening to the same playlist or set of albums, you have to scroll past rows of recommendations or click out of the Home window. Diving deep into a particular artist’s discography—say, in Austin’s case, that of the prolific singer-songwriter Zach Bryan—requires scrolling through “Popular” tracks, “Artist Picks,” and “Popular Releases.” “It’s teaching you to not do that,” Austin said. Michael Toohey, an accountant in Chicago, told me that on Spotify “the entire concept of an album feels more like a hindrance than anything.” Music on the app is most easily consumed in a disorganized cascade; every song becomes audio “content” separated from a musician’s larger body of work. In short, Spotify does not seem to care about your relationship to “your” music anymore; for long-term users, this has felt like a slow-motion bait and switch.

As I wrote in a 2021 column, software-interface design quietly dictates so many of our online experiences today; it determines not just how we consume culture but what we consume as well. A tweak to an app’s landing page may seem minor; what’s the big deal if it takes an extra click or two to get to your library of albums? But such inconveniences have rippling effects; if albums are harder to get to, then over time they become less important as units of online listening. (The format has been increasingly destabilized for years, and famous musicians are turning more toward sprawling mixtape formats in response to the streaming ecosystem, but the shift is now affecting historical recordings, too.) Jarrett Fuller, a designer and professor at North Carolina State University, told me, “Whatever the designer decides is the default for the majority of users; that is how they will use it.” Fuller is something of a philosopher of digital design; his podcast “Scratching the Surface” canvasses experts in the field. In the past decade, he argues, a “user-centered” approach to design has been replaced by what he has taken to calling a “corporation-centered” approach. Rather than optimizing for the user’s experience, it optimizes for the extraction of profit. If Spotify succeeds at turning us all into passive listeners, then it doesn’t really matter which content the platform licenses. As Fuller put it, “It’s about ‘How do you get through as much music as you can so you keep paying for it?’” The company, which has hiked subscription fees multiple times in the past two years, recently reported that its profit margins are hitting new highs, up to thirty per cent. It is now spending less on licensing podcasts than it was in previous years, and its newest addition, audiobooks, looks to be even cheaper and has been a boon for engagement, according to Daniel Ek, the company’s C.E.O.

The writer Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe the negative consequences of such corporation-centered design. When I spoke with Doctorow the other day, he said that once companies “lock in” their users—by offering an enticing product, such as Spotify’s buffet of music—they can then “exert control over those users.” In essence, the product can afford to become incrementally worse, to test our tolerance for digital discomfort. (“Why not make things as obnoxious as possible?” Doctorow said.) We’ve seen this happen with Facebook, with Google Search, with Uber, and even with dating apps. Doctorow compared Spotify to Walmart, a monopolistic intermediary with little creative input of its own that nevertheless exerts enormous influence on the array of products we can access.

The enshittification of Spotify has been gradual. Doug Ford, who was the company’s head of editorial and music culture between 2013 and 2018, told me that in his early years there he cultivated a partnership between the engineering side of the business and the curatorial side, hiring staff to build playlists and to take charge of how particular musical genres were represented in Spotify’s catalogue. Over time, though, Ford saw the emphasis changing toward algorithmic recommendations. “Everything becomes more about personalization and lean-back listening,” he said. He continued, “I’m not anti-algorithm or A.I.; I think there needs to be a balance.” (He is currently working on a new music startup to enable playlist creation and sharing.) Issues with the listening technology create issues with the music itself; bombarded by generic suggestions and repeats of recent listening, listeners are being conditioned to rely on what Spotify feeds them rather than on what they seek out for themselves. “You’re giving them everything they think they love and it’s all homogenized,” Ford said, pointing to the algorithmic playlists that reorder tracklists, automatically play on shuffle, and add in new, similar songs. Listeners become alienated from their own tastes; when you never encounter things you don’t like, it’s harder to know what you really do.

Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t need to stream music from an app that clearly was no longer thoughtfully designed for that purpose. Instead, in mid-July, I deleted the Spotify app from my laptop. Of course, there aren’t many alternatives for a comprehensive music-streaming service. It’s a choice between technology conglomerates; YouTube, which runs YouTube Music, is owned by Google, and even the lesser-known Tidal is majority-owned by the payment-processing company Square. I decided to subscribe to Apple Music. It doesn’t solve every problem—there are still plenty of recommendations and algorithmic playlists on offer there—but it makes it easier to access a traditional view of my music library, and it doesn’t shoehorn in other types of content in a desperate bid to capture my attention. It’s cleaner, calmer, and a better listening experience. I was able to make replicas of my Spotify playlists on Apple by downloading a simple third-party app, though there were a few songs in my library, mostly vintage jazz recordings, that Spotify licenses and Apple does not. If I truly want to hold on to those tracks and make them easily accessible, I should really download them for myself and listen to them using an open-source MP3 player.♦

Why I Finally Quit Spotify (2024)

FAQs

What happens when you quit Spotify? ›

Your Premium stays until your next billing date, then your account switches to free. You keep your playlists and saved music when your account is free. You can also still log in and play with ads.

Why is just a waste off Spotify? ›

On July 2nd, the song was released on Spotify among other tracks such as Passion and Pain. However, this track specifically was deleted off music platforms on September 2021, because of copyright issues.

Why is Spotify kicking me out? ›

This may be a problem with your phone overworked, so I would recommend checking storage and deleting any apps or photos you don't need. Clearing up space, and restarting your phone again may help.

Why does Spotify randomly quit? ›

You might have forgotten to log out on a different device and a friend or family member is unknowingly listening using your account. This can be solved easily with the following two steps: Change your Spotify password, which you can do here. Log your account out from all devices it's logged into, you can do this here.

Will I lose my library if I cancel Spotify? ›

If you cancel your subscription, you won't lose any of your saved content (playlists, Liked Songs, followed artists, followers, etc.). You'll only lose your downloads since this is a Premium feature. You can obtain more info about the differences between the free and the Premium service here.

Is Spotify hard to cancel? ›

Cancel your Premium plan any time on your account page. Go to your account page. Under Manage your plan, click Change plan. Scroll to Cancel Spotify, and click Cancel Premium.

Why is everyone leaving Spotify? ›

Issues with the listening technology create issues with the music itself; bombarded by generic suggestions and repeats of recent listening, listeners are being conditioned to rely on what Spotify feeds them rather than on what they seek out for themselves.

Why has Spotify become so bad? ›

Spotify faces particular scrutiny due to its free service tier, which allows users to listen free with advertisements between tracks. The tier has led to a variety of major album releases being delayed or withdrawn from the service.

Why is everyone boycotting Spotify? ›

Young's boycott was unusual: political in a very practical way, and so personal, given his childhood polio experience. The many artists who have previously stood up to the platform have mostly done so to protest poor financial remuneration for artists: a Spotify stream is worth less than $US0.

Why is Spotify closing out? ›

Either an operating system version or a device driver version that is incompatible with Spotify can cause Spotify to crash. # Hardware Issues: Sometimes Spotify crashes may be caused by hardware issues such as a damaged storage device or memory problems.

Is there a problem with Spotify? ›

User reports indicate no current problems at Spotify

Spotify is an online music streaming service.

Does Spotify family check if you live together? ›

We ask members to verify that they live with the plan manager by providing their full address: When they join. When the manager changes address. If we can't confirm their address.

Why is Spotify not working? ›

Check the Google Play Store for pending updates and install them. Restart your Android device. Go to Settings > Apps > Spotify to clear the app cache and data. If the previous options fail, uninstall the app, reboot your phone, and reinstall the app.

Why does my Spotify keep disconnecting me? ›

It might be that your Internet connection is too slow and doesn't have enough bandwidth for audio streaming, or that the connection is flaky and experiencing excessive “packets loss.”

Will I lose anything if I delete Spotify? ›

You will still be able to listen to music in shuffle mode, with ads. Note: You'll lose access to any purchased audiobooks or live tickets for future events if you close your account and delete your data.

Will I lose everything if I switch to Spotify free? ›

Tip: You keep all your playlists, saved music, and settings no matter which plan you switch to or from.

Does Spotify delete your account if you don't pay? ›

If a monthly payment fails, you won't immediately lose your Premium. We'll try to take the payment again over the next few days.

Does Spotify delete downloaded songs after subscription ends? ›

Nope, unfortunately your offline songs will be removed from your device after your subscription ends. You can always subscribe to Spotify Premium again to save your songs offline again and enjoy on-demand, ad-free listening!

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