The current Spotify boycott has something to offer everyone.

For fans wanting to support independent artists, Spotify doesn’t pay them fair compensation. For audiophiles, the sound quality seriously lacks in comparison to other streaming contemporaries. And anyone with a sound moral compass should be alarmed by Spotify’s corporate actions.

Over the last six months, major artists such as King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu and Hotline TNT have led the mass exodus from Spotify. The plethora of reasons for their departures vary, but the main impetus was CEO Daniel Ek’s investments in military technology.

In June, Ek came under fire when he led a $694 million investment in the German startup Helsing, which uses artificial intelligence to develop military defense. But this wasn’t his first time in the headlines: He infamously cashed out hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks while the artist payout per stream on Spotify remained incredibly low.

Rates per stream have consistently declined throughout the last few years, despite global streaming revenue increasing, and Spotify has continued to lag behind the averages of other major streaming platforms. According to Duetti’s 2024 Music Economics report, Spotify paid artists just $3 per 1,000 streams, while YouTube Music offered $4.8 and Amazon Music paid out $8.8 — numbers that make Spotify’s rates look indefensible.

These monetary payouts rely on a variety of factors, such as whether the listener has a paid subscription or not. But Spotify’s catering toward non-paying listeners with the announcement of now being able to play songs on demand without Spotify Premium is a step in the wrong direction for artist support.

Despite being the largest music streaming platform in the world, the quality of Spotify’s services have also been substantially lacking. Just in October, Spotify introduced “lossless” streaming, meaning that song quality is not compressed by the platform — a feature Apple Music has had since 2021.

Even with the belated introduction of “lossless,” Spotify doesn’t offer features like Apple’s spatial audio and doesn’t hold a candle to the sound quality of Tidal, which offers up to 192 kHz of “lossless” audio compared to Spotify’s 44.1 kHz –– a substantial difference that can be heard on everything from budget earbuds to studio-quality headphones.

Spotify has made it clear that these issues aren’t exactly priorities for them, as it has focused on introducing AI-generated playlists and user messaging systems instead.

The platform’s obsession with AI doesn’t stop there, however, as there has been a largely unchecked endemic of entirely computer-generated music and fake artists on the platform. “Bands” like The Velvet Sundown garnered millions of streams before it was revealed that their music, images and backstory were entirely generated by AI.

For a company claiming to champion independent artists, promoting music made by AI and allowing major label releases to be playlisted nearly 15 times as often as independent releases seems subversive.

Like many other billionaire CEOs, Ek has also pandered to the Trump administration by allowing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement advertisements to run on the platform. As the company was already in hot water with its users, Spotify’s failure to denounce ICE only added fuel to the fire.

With apps like Playlisty, switching streaming platforms –– while keeping all the music in your library –– is easier than ever. But simply choosing between the lesser of the evils that are streaming platforms doesn’t reverse the damage that streaming has done to the music industry.

Platforms such as Bandcamp still promote artist-first consumption of music, whether it be by directly purchasing digital downloads or buying physical merchandise and releases. And yes, it’s still legal to go to your local record store and buy CDs or vinyls to actually spin them on a record player, not just trendily display them in your living room.

Since turning a profit in 2024, Spotify might be considered to have sustainable business practices, but its treatment of music as a commodity is anything but sustainable for artists.

The convenience of streaming has made universally exploited musical artists of all kinds and normalized listeners to an unfair system of consumption. Music being more readily accessible has created more and more fans, but true fans of music shouldn’t settle for convenience — they should take the extra step to support the artists who make the entire industry possible.