Spotify sucks in a million ways. They wedged themselves into the music industry and are making it so that no one can get paid properly with the worst possible version of streaming, an excellent concept that was gonna be the future of music either way. Their CEO is a slimy human being who openly wants musicians to become overworked "content" machines. He's like the Bobby Kotick of music. The service keeps people at a distance from ever actually owning the music they listen to. And not a lot of listeners know this, but you actually have to pay to be on Spotify and a lot of the distributors are subscription-based. So musicians are paying monthly to be on the relevant platform because people look at you crazy if they can't find you on there. YouTube, Soundcloud, Bandcamp etc. just involve free uploading, so why wouldn't Spotify be the same way, right? Between this and it becoming increasingly impossible to tour, musicians are kind of getting starved out of all the ways they're supposed to make a profit.
On top of all of this, a former employee says she invented the Wrapped concept as an intern and they took it without giving her credit: https://says.com/my/tech/spotify-wrapped-story-intern-idea-no-credit
But whether that's true or not, it's funny that Spotify Wrapped has become such a big moment of the year for them and their relevance, so much that they also need us to care about it. This year, we were asked to create exclusive video clips that would be sent to our top listeners. All these apps want me to take on a part-time job within a vertical video, and I'm not having it.
However, I do care about my listeners a lot, and there are a few reasons I enjoy seeing Wrapped posts. Spotify may suck but they are trendy and their presentation is pretty impressive (to me), if not exactly my style. No other music app/platform really brings the visuals like they do or the "cool" feeling to being a listener, and that's a huge shame. Because the app is so ubiquitous and trendy, seeing these posts gives me insight into how my not-incredibly-online listeners interact with and use my music. I've had a lot of people follow me just today on platforms because I guess Wrapped prompts them to find me and share with me. There's also THE DATA that I get from watching my OWN Wrapped and learning which of my songs/albums were the most popular and how many people listened for how long. From seeing which artists I am most commonly appearing next to, or seeing what kinds of people are in my top 1% of listeners (obviously the best kind of people).
Bandcamp is how I make most of my money off music releases. Spotify pays out less over time, Bandcamp pays out a huge amount in the first few months after a release. However, Bandcamp is the mustiest, dustiest website and app I can imagine being financially dependent on in 2022 and I have a fear that new generations will not embrace it and that will leave me in trouble. Because why would they, it's gross and it's always felt like you're encouraged to use it sitting at a computer and downloading album .zips over anything else. (I love album .zips and think more people should have album .zips)
I would love for something like Bandcamp to be cooler, for Wrapped to have any competition at all. It wouldn't have to be much, it'd be enough to have some smaller indie alternative for your die-hards to talk about. I hope that Spotify can be pushed to treat us better in the new year, and it will no longer be just this ugly wedge between me and the listeners I really do want to hear from.



