Today, we received a generic email from Spotify, addressed to all users of "Spotify for Podcasters," where we also host our podcast "Indie Hour."

In this email, Spotify informs us that the "Music + Talk" feature will no longer be available. This means that we won't be able to use songs from Spotify and thus bring in some additional streams for the artists.

So, we contacted Spotify support via a chatbox. It was a real ordeal because every time we sent a message, we got a red message below saying "Unable to deliver." We then realized that we could send attachments. So, we communicated by sending screenshots of our messages.

The exchange, tedious, about royalties, the end of "Music + Talk" podcasts and the way editorial playlists are encouraged by the algorithm more than curators playlists lasted over 3 hours. But their final response about the podcast amazed us:

"If you want to retain a similar offering to listeners, you can create playlists on Spotify with both podcast episodes and music tracks; however, we recognize this experience is less seamless than the Music + Talk offering."

Indeed, seamless! Because it means we would have to record each spoken intervention and publish it as an episode. We speak about 10 times per podcast, so that's 10 episodes to publish and then mix with songs in a playlist. What a mess!

So, we replied that this method was truly medieval, and their response was:

"We’re refocusing our attention and resources from some of our legacy tooling to building more ways for you to reach and engage larger, more global audiences. The team behind Spotify for Podcasters is always working on improving and building new features and tools for you to use."

A pre-written response, which doesn't address the problem. So, we replied (still sending screenshots of our messages since our written messages don't go through!) that we were going to delete our playlists and podcasts. The response? Here it is:

"If you want to retain a similar offering to listeners, you can create playlists on Spotify with both podcast episodes and music tracks; however, we recognize this experience is less seamless than the Music + Talk offering."

Yes, at Spotify, you talk to humans who use canned phrases. So, we replied, "You already said that," and we got a red warning, "Something went wrong. Refresh the page or try again later."

We gave up. And we're giving up on Spotify. Whether for our podcast, which will remain hosted in mixed form here on Indie Music Center, or our playlists, which we have decided to delete.

A few weeks ago, through our discussions with some fellow curators and bloggers, we discovered that Spotify's algorithm now favors editorial playlists, and curator playlists like ours won't be visible anymore, even for some curators who spend $1500 a month on Facebook ads to promote their playlists.

Add to that the eternal problem of unfair artist remuneration (but coming from Spotify, a company that still isn't profitable after 17 years, it's not surprising). From our humble point of view, what we perceive is that the company partners with different brands, buys up services left and right, and doesn't really know where it's going. Meanwhile, indie artists continue to struggle with their streams and have to paddle to get 100K streams that will earn them $440, which doesn't even cover a recording studio session, mixing, and mastering. Enough. It has to stop.

I'm tired of all these "AI" and "algorithmic" things, which is why from now on, there will be no mention of Spotify on the Indie Music Center website, podcasts, articles, or Instagram.

It's high time to find a fair model for artists who deserve much better than $440 for their hard work. In the meantime, we continue to host our own podcasts on Indie Music Center. By the way, they average 1000 streams per week, whereas on Spotify, it was only a few dozen. We're not losing anything. We will continue to include music from artists in our articles, reviews, but will no longer use Spotify to do so, but rather alternative platforms (Soundcloud, YouTube, BandCamp).

By the way, did you know that every first Friday of the month, BandCamp gives artists 100% of their sales? Now you know where to find music while supporting your favorite artists.

I also made another decision. A bigger one that will change how IMC operates in the future. And I will tell you more about it very soon.

Thank you for your attention. And thank you for supporting indie artists.

Much love. Niko.