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     You may have noticed a little banner at the bottom of our articles letting you know that we do not link to Spotify. This is not because we don't enjoy the user experience that Spotify offers, it is also not because we believe that by suggesting alternatives we are somehow better than you. Spotify is a fantastic music discovery tool that offers useful features for artists and listeners alike, along with valuable demographic insights. Unfortunately though, it was built with intentions that differ from our own, and operates in a way that is detrimental to the artists we love. The following is a list of reasons that we choose to turn our business elsewhere, in the hopes of promoting a more fair art economy.

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Spotify's goal has always been to drive advertising revenue, music was just the driving force.

     Spotify's Co-Founder Martin Lorentzon stated that in the beginning he didn't set out to make a music listening app, just that he wanted to sell ad space and music was a prime subject to take advantage of.

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Artist's revenue share decreases.

     Year over year artists complain about low per-stream payouts while the CEO "hundreds of millions" from equity, despite disguising this fact behind the facade of opting out of his yearly salary.

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Spotify CEO uses wealth to invest in international conflict.

     Spotify's CEO invests 600Million Euros in A.I. military drone company.

Read more about this story on The Fader.

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Spotify disguises royalty theft as paid promotion.

     Spotify has introduced "marketing tools" such as "Discovery Mode" which is effectively a legal loophole to bleed artists dry of their own profits, something that was made illegal in 1960 under the name of payola. Discovery Mode is an opt-in service for musicians that promises their music will be recommended to a wider audience with the tradeoff being Spotify gets to take a larger cut of their streaming royalties. This only ends one way: anyone not using the tool will receive reduced visibility, while the pool of artists using the tool will only become more and more muddied, prompting Spotify to introduce a higher tier that takes even more revenue from artists, until every artist is simply generating free revenue for Spotify and battling for attention while doing it.

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"Payola was officially outlawed in 1960 when Congress amended the Federal Communications Act to outlaw “under-the-table payments and require broadcasters to disclose if airplay for a song has been purchased.”" - Vice

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Discovery Mode acts in the exact same way as payola, but is currently unregulated and heavily marketed towards indie artists of all sizes.

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Conclusion

     In conclusion, it is clear that the goals of Spotify as a platform do not serve the interest of Artists, but instead use this false motivation as a facade for a massive global advertising platform that earns money not only from listeners but also steals revenue from artists to turn record breaking profits year in and year out. This type of company strategy does not align with our values as artists and human rights advocates. While we do not blame you for using the most popular music streaming platform in the world, we will continue to advocate for alternatives in the space.