The DIY Boycott of Spotify: How Independent Artists Are Challenging Streaming’s Dominance

In the summer and autumn of 2025, a distinct and self-initiated movement began to ripple through the independent music community. Musicians are quietly but intentionally withdrawing their catalogues from the streaming giant Spotify, not as part of some corporate-mandated initiative, but as a grassroots, self-organised protest. The reasons are two-fold: longstanding dissatisfaction with streaming economics and a rising ethical unease with the platform’s leadership and algorithmic ecosystem.

One of the earliest well-documented departures came from the San Francisco indie rock band Deerhoof. The group announced that they would remove their entire catalogue from Spotify, citing ethical concerns over the platform’s CEO, Daniel Ek, and his investment in the defence-technology company Helsing, which develops AI systems and drones for military applications. The band framed the decision as a moral stance, not merely a business negotiation. In the same wake, the British electronic and trip-hop veteran collective Massive Attack announced their intention to pull their work from Spotify, aligning also with concerns about Ek’s defence investments as well as broader cultural boycotts.

Spotify (Image source: Instagram)

But the boycott trend did not remain confined to high-profile acts. In cities like Seattle, a coalition of local musicians, DJs and independent labels signed an open letter pledging to remove their music from Spotify. They cited the platform’s embrace of AI-generated “ghost” artists, the dominance of algorithmic playlists, and what they described as a pricing model that undervalues creators. In Oakland, California, a gathering titled “Death to Spotify” brought artists and listeners together to interrogate not only streaming payouts but the influence of algorithms and digital consumption on culture.

At the heart of this DIY movement lie several overlapping grievances. First, the issue of payout. While Spotify has repeatedly emphasised that independent artists earned more on its platform in recent years, critics point to the basic economics of streaming: for many smaller acts, each stream yields mere fractions of a cent. For independent musicians, the calculus is increasingly this: does the exposure gained on Spotify outweigh the financial and ethical trade-offs?

Second, the ethical dimension. The platform’s business decisions, especially involving its founder’s venture investments, have become lightning rods for artist dissatisfaction. When Ek’s venture-capital firm, Prima Materia, led a multi-hundred-million-euro funding round for Helsing, many saw this as a tipping point linking streaming profits to militarised AI systems. The responded-to behaviour is less about one album or one payout than about what music participation enables in the larger system.

Third, for many artists the algorithmic exposure model is part of the problem. A key critique emerging from Seattle was that Spotify’s system rewards passive listening, “mood music” background content, and AI-generated artists, rather than sustained creative engagement. Some say the platform’s focus on constant new-content churn works against the cultural value of music as art.

The implications for the industry are significant, even if the overall market share of these DIY boycotting artists remains small. From a business vantage point, the movement signals a growing readiness among artists to reclaim distribution control and redirect listeners toward more transparent or artist-friendly platforms such as Bandcamp or physical-only releases. For instance, one act cited turning to Bandcamp and a Twitch-stream direct-sale event instead of relying on Spotify streaming.

On the consumer side, this movement invites a reconsideration of what “access” means in the streaming era. For decades, the value proposition of Spotify has hinged on unlimited access to millions of tracks for a flat fee. But for some creators and listeners, the very meaning of access is being renegotiated: is unlimited consumption sustainable culture? Or does it flatten meaningful artistic engagement? The DIY boycott suggests that some creators are willing to sacrifice reach for integrity and agency.

Of course, Spotify remains dominant in global streaming, and for many major-label artists the platform still represents a core distribution channel. Historically, other boycotts have often ended in return: for example, several artists previously withdrew content only to return later under new terms. The question now is whether this latest wave differs materially: are independent creators collectively shifting their distribution models, or is this still a symbolic gesture?

What sets this movement apart is its decentralised nature and emphasis on DIY control. Rather than a single large-scale coordinated campaign, the boycott is spreading horizontally among smaller, independent artists who band together informally and deploy self-organised tactics: pulling releases, geo-blocking territories, incentivising direct sales, and engaging listeners beyond algorithms. In the words of one local organiser, it’s an attempt “to learn how to take our files off and re-learn how to listen.”

As the music streaming economy matures, the DIY Spotify boycott underscores a realignment in power dynamics. Artists are signalling they will tolerate less than the standard “streaming exposure in exchange for minimal payout” narrative. They are also saying that platforms and their founders do not exist in a moral vacuum. For the listener, it means rethinking how we access, pay for and value music. It remains to be seen whether this movement will scale sufficiently to challenge Spotify’s dominance — but for now, it represents a distinct and meaningful shift in the culture of streaming.