In the first half of 2025, a topic that is very dear to me, as it is to the rest of GOLEM's contributors and friends and, I hope, to whoever is reading these lines, came forcefully back into the spotlight. In the wake of a renewed interest in the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israeli entities and those complicit in the genocide underway since October 2023, more and more users – labels, musicians, listeners – have decided to close their Spotify accounts, abandoning one of the most contested and, in its own way, revolutionary platforms of the twenty-first century. Besides the notorious reluctance of Daniel Ek and company to pay artists fairly – with royalties reduced to fractions of a cent and a model that favors only the big catalogs of the majors – the Swedish company has come under fire time and again for its political and financial management. Among the gravest criticisms are those of Zionism and of censorship against Palestinian artists or anyone who takes a stand against Israeli policy, in a context where the platform does not limit itself to being a neutral intermediary, but chooses which voices to make visible and which to marginalize. To this is added an even more disturbing aspect: the growing investments of Spotify's main shareholders in the war industry, a sector that has seen an explosion of profits since the start of the war in Ukraine and that, with the conflicts in the Middle East, promises even greater earnings. In other words, while artists are paid paltry sums, the money generated by streaming ends up feeding a financial circuit that thrives on the destruction of human lives.
For most insiders this is hardly a surprise. Spotify has never been an "ethical solution" to piracy, but a technological and financial giant that has bent music to the logic of the market and speculation, without the slightest concern for the well-being of cultural workers. It is no wonder, then, that in recent years movements such as UMAW (United Musicians and Allied Workers) have emerged, demanding a radical downsizing of the music industry, a real redistribution of resources and the introduction of solidary and democratic processes to counter dynamics of exploitation, racism and precarity. Opposition to Spotify, then, is no longer just a question of payments, but becomes a battle against a model that concentrates economic power, feeds destructive sectors such as the military, and reproduces structural inequalities on a global scale.
Many, therefore, rejoiced at the news that a large group of users, including some not particularly versed in these issues, had decided to question Spotify's (quasi-)monopoly over the musical world. It seemed a sign that something was moving, that people were beginning to recognize the contradictions and injustices of the model. But a new problem immediately arose: for very many, this boycott impulse did not translate into real awareness or a search for radically different alternatives, but simply into moving the subscription from Spotify to another streaming giant, like Tidal or Apple Music. A switch that risks being little more than a pose. But is anyone really sure that this is a solution?
Spotify is the most visible symbol of a system, but certainly not the only one. Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music – all these colossi operate with the same logic: exploiting artists, concentrating profits in the hands of a few and reducing music to pure content to be dispensed according to algorithms. Sure, some platforms try to sell themselves as "more ethical" or "more respectful," perhaps with a slightly higher percentage going to musicians or with marketing operations that talk about audio quality and attention to the artist. But on closer inspection, the heart of the problem remains intact: a model that makes creative work precarious, cheapens the value of music and subordinates it to the logic of market and finance.
And so one has to wonder: is boycotting Spotify to take refuge in Tidal really a victory, or just a change of label that leaves the substance untouched? If we do not question the entire streaming system as it exists today, we risk falling into a trap: thinking we are "on the right side" just because we have changed the logo on our app icon.
To frame the problem better, it may be useful to take a quick look at the history of the record industry and its relationship with the free circulation of works. Over the last hundred years, music has gone through a path that, step by step, has transformed it from a communal, shared experience into a good to be owned, all the way to the current streaming model in which nothing tangible remains, not even the idea of ownership. The record industry of the twentieth century was the first great revolution: from the gramophone to 78 rpm records, up to LPs and CDs, every medium became an opportunity to generate a new multibillion-dollar market. It is no coincidence that already at the beginning of the last century it was said that Enrico Caruso's recording of the aria 'Vesti la giubba' – from Leoncavallo's opera "Pagliacci" – had sold a million copies: myth or reality, it was certainly a clear signal. Listening at home was no longer made of little scores and libretti printed more or less freely to be played together on social occasions, or of melodies handed down, but of objects to buy and collect. Popular musicians became icons, and their art a packaged product.
Music, in short, became the private property of the record companies, and its free circulation was progressively marginalized. What first chipped away at that monopoly was analog piracy: copied cassettes, burned CDs, concert bootlegs that circulated among friends or in informal markets. These "illegal" circuits not only allowed more people to access music, but often brought it to places that the official channels did not reach. Hybrid and vibrant scenes were born this way: hip hop in African suburbs, baile funk in Brazilian favelas, rock and metal contaminations in countries subject to censorship. Where the market closed, piracy opened up spaces of freedom, creativity and subversion.
With the arrival of the Internet and the first peer-to-peer platforms, this tension exploded. In the late 1990s, Napster made it possible for millions of people to download and share MP3 files with an ease never seen before. The novelty was not piracy itself, but its scale: a global music archive, accessible at no cost, where music went back to circulating as a common good. For a moment, the promise of a real democratization seemed within reach. The majors and the best-selling artists reacted with legal violence, obtaining Napster's shutdown in 2001, but a Pandora's box had by then been opened: listeners had tasted the idea that music could exist outside the control of corporations.
It was precisely to channel that demand that Apple launched iTunes: no longer CDs, but digital files to be bought individually. A compromise that sanctioned the dematerialization of the medium, but left the idea of ownership intact. It was only an intermediate stage, however: with Spotify, born in the mid-2000s in Sweden, music stopped being "something one has" and became "something one accesses." No property, no collection: only the temporary right to listen, within a catalog controlled and managed by a platform that in exchange obtained the complicity of the majors and the power to govern global musical flows.
Dematerialization, then, has not meant liberation, but loss: loss of ownership for listeners, loss of value for artists, loss of cultural autonomy in favor of new monopolies. Where analog and digital piracy had opened spaces of free and creative circulation, streaming has closed those breaches, bringing music back inside the harshest and most opaque logic of the market.
What might the possible solutions to this problem be, then? It is hard to imagine, today, a new market model that could by itself regulate the entire music industry: and, to be honest, I don't think it is even a topic of great interest for GOLEM's audience, which does not spend its days chasing previews of Drake's or Taylor Swift's new records. In part, some alternatives are well known and were discussed, among other places, in an episode of "Chiacchiere," GOLEM's monthly podcast on the frequencies of Fango Radio. Besides Bandcamp, which in recent years has undergone a couple of questionable changes of ownership, other platforms such as Nina Protocol or Subvert are coming to light, guaranteeing even more horizontality in the relationship between listeners and artists.
A concrete option, for those who do not want to give up playlists and shuffle even away from home, is to build a small personal server: upload your own collection there and use it as a private streaming platform. It can become a living archive shared with friends and fellow listeners, growing from time to time with new physical or digital purchases, exchanges between enthusiasts and – why not – with that pinch of ethical piracy that has always fueled the circulation of music and ideas.
But it is not enough to think in terms of individual solutions: in the current economic and social landscape, these questions must be tackled with a militant spirit. It means abandoning corrupt systems and convincing those around us to do the same; it means promoting and supporting alternatives, spreading knowledge and files, making room for marginalized scenes and for music ignored by algorithms, organizing new situations in one's own city to propose different visions.
Because the point is clear: boycotting Spotify alone is not enough. What is needed is to imagine – and above all to put into practice – a different way of understanding the relationship between musicians and listeners: democratic, horizontal, solidary. Only then can music become once again an instrument of community and liberation, instead of fuel for speculation and politics.
English translation of the Italian original. Read the original →