Sorry — it’s another post about how Spotify is a garbage company that doesn’t care about users or musicians.

I am often sent Spotify links by friends. I’m fine with this — it’s easy enough to search Apple Music for the thing they sent me, or generate a cross-platform link using something like Tapelink and open the music in my preferred service.

But the other day, a friend sent me a Spotify link to a new Fall Out Boy cover of* It Feels Like Christmas* from The Muppet Christmas Carol. I was extremely excited about this — I listened to a lot of Fall Out Boy growing up, and The Muppet Christmas Carol is my absolute favourite Christmas film.

So I did what I usually do in this situation — searched Apple Music for the track. But it came up empty.

I quickly realised why: this track is a Spotify exclusive.

The rage with which I am filled — about the idea that music should be exclusive to a particular streaming service — is palpable.

I understand that, for other content like movies, TV shows, or games, platform exclusives are an industry standard, and that many households have multiple streaming service subscriptions because the stuff they want to enjoy exists across many platforms.

But this is absolutely* not* the case for music. Until recently, we have lived in a world in which music streaming platforms are largely interchangeable: you can switch from Spotify to another service and find exactly the same content. But almost everyone alive has only one music subscription, and their account contains a carefully curated library of playlists and albums. The idea of having more than one music service — in the same way that I have multiple TV streaming services — is insane to most people.

But Spotify is breaking the one-service paradigm in an effort to get people to stay with Spotify, or switch away from their current service. Music fans lose out because they either need to switch, or have multiple subscriptions. And artists lose out because they can only get the revenue from one service. I would hope they are charging Spotify extra money for the exclusivity, but being beholden to one platform for your revenue is an uncomfortable place for any musician, artist, or content creator.

I want to be very clear:** exclusive music will not make me use Spotify; it will just piss me off and make me* less* likely to support their business.** This is just a big enshittification moment for music streaming services.

I was able to listen to the song my friend sent me, by creating a temporary free Spotify account and using their web player. But I can’t add it to my library, or any of my Christmas playlists. I’ll probably never listen to it again.

In conclusion — and I cannot emphasise this enough — fuck Spotify.