How Streaming Hurts Music in 2026
Spotify is killing music in 2026
If you are one of Spotify’s 281 million paid users, you just got hit with a price increase in 2026. If each of those people is now paying just $2 more a month, that's over half a billion dollars in new monthly revenue — more than $6 billion a year — on top of what they were already making. And yet, somehow, the people actually making the music are still being paid fractions of a penny per stream.
Streaming was supposed to save the music industry from piracy. Instead, it's turned the whole system into a rigged slot machine. Spotify dangles mass exposure in front of artists, only to funnel money back to itself and push music that isn’t even made by real people anymore. Welcome to the golden age of exploitation.
Spotify Doesn’t Want You to Hear New Sounds
Spotify built its empire on algorithmic convenience. The more familiar the music, the more likely you’ll stick around. So instead of discovery, you get playlists that reinforce what you already like. There’s no room for risk. Experimental, regional, or genre-defying music gets buried. The result? A monoculture. It’s musical fast food — cheap, predictable, and bad for you in the long run.
Want to find something new? You're better off at your local record store or digging through Bandcamp than trusting Spotify's lifeless algorithm.
They're Quietly Replacing Artists With Bots
Spotify now fills playlists with AI-generated music and stock tracks they own, which means they keep 100% of the money when you stream it. That’s not innovation. That’s consolidation. They’re stacking the deck so that even when you think you’re listening to music made by a person, you might not be.
They’ve also launched AI DJs and narration tools, and they’re fully invested in making AI music sound just “real” enough to pass. This isn’t about creativity. It’s about cutting out the people who cost money — musicians.
Artists Don’t Get Paid. Period.
Spotify pays artists between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. That’s not a typo. And in 2024, they changed their policy to not pay at all for any song that gets fewer than 1,000 streams. That wiped out income for most independent musicians overnight.
Also, if you're an artist trying to get seen, Spotify offers "Discovery Mode" — a program that slashes your royalty rate even further in exchange for a better algorithmic ranking. It’s modern-day payola, but worse: you’re paying to be exploited.
Oh, and artists already pay distributors just to get on the platform. So, for many, Spotify is a net loss.
They Profit Off Corruption
Spotify takes a 30% cut of every royalty payment. They also accept money from institutions like ICE and have thrown money at political events (including Trump's inauguration) to secure lobbying power. Meanwhile, Daniel Ek — Spotify’s founder and executive chair — made $345 million last year and is heavily invested in AI military tech through a company called Helsing. That includes autonomous drones.
If you're wondering whether your $10-20/month is subsidizing that kind of future — it is.
Fraud and Fake Streams Are Stealing Real Money
Streaming payouts are based on "streamshare" — a massive pool of money split proportionally based on how many streams each song gets. So when fake songs or bot-generated playlists rack up numbers, they’re stealing from real artists. Multiple lawsuits have already accused Spotify of ignoring fraud because it benefits them. Less money to legit artists = more money for Spotify.
And when AI music floods the system? That’s just more streamshare siphoned off to nobody.
They Market a Lie
Spotify Wrapped is basically propaganda. It’s a flashy marketing campaign built on user data that they don’t pay for, developed (at least originally) by an unpaid intern, and now designed to manufacture FOMO. The stats are questionable, the playlists repetitive, and the whole aesthetic masks a very real problem: your Wrapped is wrapped in corporate greed.
Is Music Really Worth Less Than $20/Month?
Spotify has normalized the idea that you can have 100 years of recorded music — all genres, all countries, all artists — for the price of a sandwich. And because it feels cheap, we’ve started treating the music itself as cheap. Disposable.
But music isn’t content. It’s culture. It’s labor. It’s someone’s soul turned into sound. So why does Spotify think it’s worth less than a pizza?
So What’s the Move?
We get it — streaming is convenient. But if you want to support music as an art form, not a data farm, start looking elsewhere:
Bandcamp lets you buy direct from artists.
TIDAL and Qobuz offer better payouts (and better audio).
Go analog. Buy records and TAPES (obvi). Go to shows. Share local stuff.
Talk to real people about music. Don’t let the algorithm define your taste.
Massive Attack, King Gizzard, and tons of indie artists have already pulled their music from Spotify. The system isn’t sustainable, and more musicians are waking up to that reality. Beyond ethics, its about survival.
Next time you open Spotify and see a playlist filled with generic lo-fi beats or AI-generated ambiance, ask yourself: is this the future you want? And when you're told you need to be on Spotify to be relevant, remember — you’re not a product.
Neither is your art.
