[Contortion]

The arguments in the article seem to basically boil down to 'I stopped using Spotify because I didn't like how I was using it' and 'I stopped using Spotify because I assign value to music outside of listening to it'. In both cases I don't think Spotify is really the issue.

[tekla]

This 100%. I have a stash of Sansa Clips for the end times but I still use Spotify because its easy.

People seem to want to hate Spotify because it makes them feel special

[nimonian]

I get where you're coming from with that last sentence - people do sometimes go against the grain because it's not cool to follow the crowd.

But I am one of those people who have felt a definite shift in their relationship to music because of streaming. I don't feel special and I don't want to hate Spotify - I still have an account and use it daily.

But I am less mindful. I don't build relationships with albums any more. I sometimes don't even know the name and artists of songs I listen to and enjoy dozens of times. I definitely feel like I have lost parts of my relationship to music (I've gained things, too, but I'm still not sure if I'm happy with the trade). It's a quiet loss that I've only started to appreciate in the previous year or two, and not yet salient enough to take the radical step of cancelling, but I really do get where the cancellers are coming from (even if there are some edgelords among them!).