#026 MIN
Spotify Wrapped: Data Collection Wrapped in Consumption Perversion
How Spotify Wrapped transforms consumption into identity, why the music streaming model is broken, and my attempt to refuse it all.
tech criticismmusiccapitalismsocial media
distortion
/dĭ-stôr′shən/
noun
- 1. “alteration of a signal introduced by the system through which it passes”
- 2. “loss of fidelity between source and perception”
note: distortion increases with scale, speed, and distance
SPOTLIGHT
Spotify Wrapped: Data Collection Wrapped in Consumption Perversion
@doomscroll_forever on Instagram
Having access to nearly every piece of published music at any given time is a serious consumer luxury. It’s also fairly well known that the platforms providing this luxury, especially Spotify, do so while paying artists poorly. This has led to years of public pressure, boycotts, and calls to switch to more “ethical” alternatives like Tidal.
That discourse doesn’t interest me much.
What does interest me is how Spotify has survived all of that pressure not just intact, but...
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