How To Ditch Spotify & Have No Regrets

New year, new you! Here’s some fresh guidance on how to ditch the big green dread machine

There’s an ever-increasing list of reasons that fans and artists are turning away from the streaming giant Spotify — political, moral/ethical, aesthetic and beyond. But we know you’ve got sunken costs. Here’s some guidance on getting yourself into a new streaming service. 

You Have Reasons

If we are to be honest, Spotify has been giving so many of us the ick for one reason or another for such a long time, it’s a wonder any of us still use it at all. This article presumes you have at least one of those icks, so we will not rehash the entire list and their various backstories. But for context, let us just say this:

Maybe you don’t like how Spotify treats artists. Maybe you don’t like AI music (or, for that matter, AI weapons). Maybe your Spotify Wrapped creeped you out at Christmas! Maybe you are craving better sound quality. Perhaps you simply want your podcasts and your music in separate apps. (For a much deeper dive on all the above, check out Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.)

So let’s do this: Put aside an hour or two of weeknight time that you would ordinarily reserve for unfettered brainrot, and liberate yourself by choosing your new streaming lifestyle, lest the current one continue to choose and subtly punish you! 

But Wait: You Have Sunken Costs Aka Playlists

Years of them. And this — along with a very human aversion to UI/UX switchover in apps and products of all kinds — is the inertia that is most likely keeping you in a loveless relationship with Spotify. You probably know what the human version of this is like; the good news is that breaking up with an app is even easier!

When you choose your new streaming service (more on this in a moment), you’ll need that reclaimed brainrot hour I just mentioned to set up your computer to migrate your playlists — and there’s a handful of services now that will do that for you. There’s Tune My Music, Soundiiz, Free Your Music, and others. (We’ve had the best results with Tune My Music, which is also the one Tidal recommends during their onboarding process.) Once you’ve chosen and logged in, even if you have a lot of playlists, it’s generally a set-it-and-forget-it process — set your laptop out overnight and just let those playlists fly over into your new service.

A note about playlist migration: Though it is an extra step, and you may even wish to start fresh, it’s worth it when changing platforms to either migrate a few of your most beloved playlists, or immediately create new ones on your new service — it’s a good way to teach the algorithm what you’re into. 

So Which Streaming Service To Choose?

As the World Cafe team recently illustrated, there’s a plethora of other, non-algorithm-based music streaming alternatives, but for our purposes today, we’re going to focus on larger services (main squeezes, if you will) that do indeed offer both lots of musical choices and algorithm-based playlists and suggestions. 

To this writer, the conversation at this point really becomes about three services we like: Apple Music, Tidal, and Qobuz. All of these services pay a much higher royalty rate to artists than Spotify does, and all three also offer far better sound quality. (Additionally, all three feature no Joe Rogan whatsoever.) We could debate endlessly about which of these three are better, but here’s the TLDR on the pros and cons of each:

Apple Music has an easy, welcoming interface, and high-quality audio options. It’s also seamless integrated (and usually pre-loaded into) your Apple devices, and has a lot of branded features such as exclusive performances and, recently, a Shazam integration. And at a $10.99 individual/$16.99 family plan price point, it’s affordable, and completely non-wonky in terms of user experience. 

Tidal can claim much of the same as above in terms of audio quality and user experience. It also seems to place an especial premium on making sure you get HQ audio, and several daily auto-generated playlists a la golden age Spotify. There’s also a healthy offering of deep dive playlists tied to artists and eras, plus a fair amount of editorial content and — get this! — music videos, right in the app.

Another added benefit, which is overlooked but kind of crucial for the friend chat, is this: All Tidal song share links offer the receiver the chance to listen to the track not just on Tidal, but all the major platforms. Same price rates exactly as Apple Music. 

Qobuz is very much identified as the audiophile’s streaming service of choice, and with good reason: Its native streaming service plays the highest quality stream available of whatever you’re listening to, and it also has a proper download store though which you can digitally purchase albums in lossless CD or Hi-Res quality and enjoy them forever.

There’s also the usual produced playlists and editorial content, delivered in a UI that people generally either love or loathe. But as these services go, it offers the best HQ audio options around without question, and it’s priced slightly less than Apple or Tidal, depending on your plan. 

What You Get In Return 

A fresh new dive on music streaming! A slightly, almost microscopically cleaner conscience (maybe)! But far and away, the biggest reward is, without question, better audio quality and the knowledge the artists you support/treasure are seeing a better royalty rate every time you stream them. Happy streaming, everybody!