The Spotify Lesson: Don’t Give Customers An Out

I deleted Spotify. More accurately, I finally deleted Spotify. It was a long time coming.

I had been paying Spotify monthly for about eight years until, in the wake of the Joe Rogan controversy, I stopped paying. But this isn’t about Joe Rogan.

I knew Spotify was paying Joe Rogan millions for years. I also already knew that Joe Rogan had been racist and gross and spread vaccine misinformation. To be blunt, it didn’t impact me because I was too lazy to do anything about it.

Likewise, I knew Spotify was troublesome when it came to properly paying artists for playing their music. I’d read multiple stories featuring bands and singers complaining about the ridiculously low amount of money Spotify paid in royalties to play their music. It annoyed me. I thought twice about whether I should keep Spotify. To be blunt, it didn’t affect me because I was too lazy to do anything about it.

That’s the thing with subscriptions and routine. I had my favorite albums saved. I had discovered new bands through Spotify’s algorithm. I had my work playlists, my work-out playlists, and my writing playlists. I even had a playlist with 3-minute songs so I could shadow box in my apartment during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. It felt like too much work to upend all that for a different music service.