The real reason to boycott Spotify (and every other streaming service)
I still give a couple hundred bucks to WMFU each year (they are, by far, the best venue for finding new music that has existed in my lifetime). I still spend well over a grand each year on physical media. And, at times, I still pay for direct access to artists’ works through Bandcamp.
I have never paid to subscribe to a streaming service. Even after Apple intentionally made iTunes (now iMusic) unusable. Even while today’s smart devices are intentionally designed to make it as difficult as possible to play saved music from a harddrive. Even as cars stopped including CD players. I will never relent to this bullshit.
Why? Take a look at the top 40 for February of 2022. Compare it to that of January 2012. Sonically, they are practically identical. Everything sounds almost exactly the same as it sounded a decade ago.
Imagine making such a comparison for any other era. Think of how vastly different popular music sounded in 1972 vs. 1962, 1992 vs. 1982. Streaming has not only immiserated artists. It has caused the most enjoyable aspect of our culture to stagnate.
Streaming has removed the human aspect from music curation. All the weirdness and unpredictability has been forcibly removed. There can be no linear progress within genres, let alone any Kuhnian paradigm shifts. Algorithms prize that which resembles those that are already popular. Artists are incentivized to sound as identical as possible to the stuff that already exists and has already demonstrated profitability. Anyone who strays too far from existing frame of popularity might as well not exist. There can be no Next Big Thing, because there’s no longer any humanity at play. Algorithms cannot appreciate stochasticity. They cannot tell, the way humans can (or at least could), when something might have appeal even if it’s not in line with stuff that already has measurable appeal. Algorithms don’t take risks because they are, and always will be, inhuman: incapable of experiencing enjoyment, falling in love, being excited, or desiring change.
Our laziness and disrespect has killed music. It might never come back. I refuse to a be guilty party in its death.
I prefer WKCR but other than that I agree.