How To Ditch Spotify and Support Music in the Age of AI Slop

There’s no shortage of reasons to quit Spotify in 2025. Artists and fans have been departing the platform in droves because they’re fed up with the company paying artists virtually nothing, using algorithms that promote AI-generated slop, running recruitment ads for ICE, and investing profits in military drones via its billionaire former CEO, Daniel Ek. Bands like Massive Attack, Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and many others have removed their music from the platform in protest, punching sonic holes in the morally bankrupt music streaming service that promises to have it all.

If you’re ready to stop supporting Spotify, it can be difficult to know what to do next — especially when so many of us have grown used to the convenience of playlists and always-available streaming music. Thankfully, we here at Fight for the Future have put together this guide on how to kick Spotify for good and find a more sustainable way to release, discover, and listen to music.

LEVEL 1 - THE ETHICAL STREAMER

Streaming services have conditioned us to consume music differently, giving less money and control to artists and fans in the name of convenience. But if you’re not ready to ditch streaming altogether, there are easy ways to move to more ethical alternatives.

First, you’ll need to use a service like SongShift, Soundiiz or TuneMyMusic to move all your playlists and content to a new service. Just login to your Spotify account through the website or app, and follow the instructions to port all your data to the service of your choice.

When choosing a new streaming service, there are several good options depending on what features are most important to you. Qobuz (pronounced ‘KO-buzz’) offers lossless quality streaming and costs about the same as other leading services, but pays artists the most per stream — around $18.73 per 1,000 streams, as of last year. That’s orders of magnitude above Spotify’s paltry payouts, and significantly more than its competitors. Qobuz also features human editorial curation over algorithms, and also gives you the option to purchase and download DRM-free digital music files. Subscribers to the higher tier service, Sublime, also receive discounts on digital downloads.

Tidal and Apple Music are bigger commercial services that both offer large libraries, lossless quality streaming, and a mix of algorithmic and human curation. Both pay artists an estimated average of 1 cent per stream — not nearly as much as a smaller service like Qobuz, but still better than Spotify. Also unlike Spotify, Apple has specified that it pays out independent artists and smaller record labels at the same rate as big-name labels.

NOT RECOMMENDED: Amazon and YouTube Music still pay artists only tiny fractions of a penny per stream — only slightly better than Spotify on average — and both companies are infamous for spying on users in all sorts of creepy ways. YouTube still doesn’t even offer true lossless quality audio. Thumbs down all around!

LEVEL 2 – THE HYBRID

Many critics have argued the centralized streaming model is unsustainable for both musicians and fans, challenging the idea that music and art should be an on-demand “utility” like electricity or water. Luckily, there’s a growing number of alternative platforms looking to reimagine how we discover and listen to music, offering a hybrid mix of streaming and downloadable content.

For many artists, Bandcamp’s digital music marketplace remains a platform of choice. The platform takes a modest cut of each sale and waives fees entirely on Bandcamp Fridays, giving artists a lot of control over their work and more options for fans to support them. Labels and musicians can sell physical records and merch, offer pay-what-you want options, give discounted access to entire discographies, or offer yearly subscriptions to their work. Listeners can also stream anything they’ve purchased via the Bandcamp app, though Apple’s tax on in-app purchases still forces you to use the Bandcamp website to buy digital music.

The one major downside is that Bandcamp is no longer independent, and has changed hands multiple times — first being bought by Epic Games, and then sold to an Australian music licensing firm called Songtradr, which promptly laid off half of the platform’s unionized staff following the acquisition. While there haven’t been any major changes so far, the company’s ownership has made many artists worry that one bad investor call could kill the platform they’ve long invested in.

Thankfully, a number of new platforms are trying to build decentralized Bandcamp alternatives that give artists and listeners more control. Resonate is a promising “stream-to-own” hybrid platform that lets fans buy credits and pay as they listen, providing lossless digital files. It uses a co-operative model where both artists and listeners become members and co-owners of the platform. Artists become members by uploading music, while fans become members after making a one-time contribution of $10. Both receive a share of the platform’s profits — 45% for artists and 35% for fans — while the workers building the platform get 20%.

Another co-op music marketplace that’s been getting lots of buzz is Subvert, which launched this month to a limited number of its members, and will be available the public soon. Subvert is collectively owned and controlled — not just by the workers who build the platform, but by the member-artists and labels who use it to sell music and the listeners who support them. The platform’s creators have released a zine extensively detailing how this will work, and provide full transparency over its funding and organizational structure. They have also publicly rejected a funder that demanded changes to the platform’s co-operative vision.

Another music marketplace is Nina Protocol, a decentralized Bandcamp alternative that prides itself on letting artists sell music and keep 100% of the profits. Some critics are suspicious of this platform due to it being built atop blockchain technology. Nina utilizes the Solana blockchain, and distributes music releases as cryptocurrency tokens similar to NFTs. Nina’s creators have said they reject the idea of music as a speculative asset, and have since revamped the platform to de-emphasize the blockchain element. But some artists remain wary in light of the company’s funding structure, which has so far relied on seed funding and selling an 18% stake of the company to investors.

LEVEL 3 – THE DIY DIVA

Finally, if you’re looking to fully control your music listening and don’t mind a little DIY, you can roll your own personal music server. While it’s definitely the most labor-intensive route, there are lots of advantages to this approach over streaming — prime among them being you will never again find yourself supporting a huge corporation that removes or censors content arbitrarily, betrays musicians, or sells your private personal data.

Obviously, this means getting your hands dirty and your brain nerdy. You’ll need to download media center software like Jellyfin, OSMC, or Plex, which can be set up as a cloud service or self-hosted on a machine you control, like a Raspberry Pi (There are detailed instructions on how to do this online).

You can organize your library with a desktop music app like Swinsian — or if you’re nostalgic, Winamp (it *still* really whips the llama’s ass). Alternatively, you can go the iPod route and access music on-the-go by getting a hi-fi Digital Audio Player (DAP) like Surfans or FiiO. Many of these devices can be connected to streaming services like Qobuz and even have web browsing features. But speaking from personal experience, there’s something to be said for having a dumb device that does nothing except play music.

CONCLUSION

Spotify has completely taken over the music industry, but it’s also never been easier to seek greener pastures. If we want a world where art is an expression of human experience and not just content to feed vibe-optimizing algorithms and lure us to disclose intimate personal details that are sold to marketers and data brokers, we need to change how we consume and engage with it. Even if you’re not ready to fully unplug from the streaming machine, getting off Spotify — the system’s worst offender — is a huge first step that can help push us all in a better direction for fans and artists alike.