Spotify: The Environment, The Shady Spending, The Alternatives

Spotify changed how we listen to music forever. But is the convenience we get for $11.99 a month worth funding the further destruction of our planet, and the military industrial complex?

The Cultural Impact of Spotify

Spotify, in an extremely short span of time, has transformed the music industry forever. In 2008, music piracy was at an all-time high. Music was not consolidated in the way it is now and needed to be purchased individually, either through MP3 files or a physical medium. However, this changed when Spotify came onto the scene that same year, taking thousands of hours of music and making it free to listen to behind a monthly paywall. This consolidation ended the era of piracy, as listening to an album on Spotify was considered more convenient than pirating the same album.

Today, Spotify is undoubtedly the most powerful entity in the music industry with 626 million active users, the most of any music streaming service. Spotify has full control over algorithms that can push certain artists to new users, either through discovery playlists or Smart Shuffle. This monopoly has allowed Spotify to get away with paying their artists less and less, with little to no repercussions.

The Damage of Streaming: By The Numbers

It may be difficult to see how streaming could be harmful to our environment, especially in comparison to more tangible forms of media, such as vinyl, CDs, and cassettes. However, streaming has the most detriments on our environment today, due to the amount of energy it takes to store data and to transfer it to you. Every file is stored within one of Spotify’s cooled servers, which are active all twenty-four hours of the day. Additionally, the transfer of data over Wi-Fi costs even more energy.

The average person streams around 5 hours of content daily. While this 5-hour statistic does include video streaming, it does not devalue how large the carbon footprint is. All of this activity results in 0.57 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. To put this in perspective, in 2023 we released around 40 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Just listening to music and watching movies over the internet account for 1.4% of the world's total CO2 emissions. While this number might seem small, it is relatively large considering how little damage people believe streaming does to the environment.

Another great way to put these numbers into perspective is to look at the impact streaming one song has on the environment. Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Driver License” with over 2.3 billion plays on Spotify has had a larger impact on the environment than flying 4000 times from New York to London and back would. Streaming music nowadays has a larger impact on the environment than a century’s worth of physical recorded music.

Spotify and War

As a much less direct detriment to the environment and the world around us, the revenue that Spotify generates has been linked to shady places. The CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, through his investment company, is on record as having donated $114 million to a company named Helsing. This is an AI startup with a large focus on military expenditures. Ek himself has shown no shame in this deal and found the deal to be a worthy investment. Worthy enough to post about on social media claiming the deal to be “ambitious, ethical, & driven by a mission to help build a thriving society”. At the same time, Spotify has faced significant backlash in recent times over the dollar amounts that they are paying their artists. In light of this, it should be questioned why Spotify’s revenue is seemingly inching further and further away from the pocket of the artist and into the hands of militaristic AI companies.

Alternatives

Five hours of streaming is the carbon equivalent of producing one CD case, while 17 hours of streaming is the carbon equivalent of creating one vinyl record. These physical forms of media are the clear alternative to streaming, and avoiding the shady spending of Spotify. Among these, CDs have been seen to be more environmentally friendly than vinyl records, considering the amount of plastic required to produce a single vinyl record. However, as always, there have been efforts to create environmentally friendly vinyl records.

While these forms of physical media have seen a resurgence in recent years, they pale in comparison to the sheer amount of hours people spend streaming; not just on Spotify but on all huge music streaming platforms, including Apple Music. The convenience that you give up in order to transfer to a physical form of media is also not worth it for most people. However, downloading the raw files for your music and saving them could be a move in the right direction. Given that files are purchased from the artist, downloading files could benefit the artist directly. While downloading music onto your system does leave a carbon footprint, in the long run having your library of albums as a collection of WAV files will leave your music listening endeavors greener.

Recap

In a world where around 80% of all music listening is done through a streaming service such as Spotify or Apple Music, real questions arise about the environmental sustainability in streaming itself and the endeavors that Spotify’s subscribers are inadvertently supporting. While convenience may outweigh these downsides for some, the majority are left in the dark regarding this subject. Given an increased awareness of these issues, gathering a hard drive of your favorite songs is becoming more and more worth it as Spotify shows no signs of ceasing future shady spending or making strides to limit its carbon footprint.

Author: Edwin Keefner

Editor: Alexa Segovia

References:

CBC

BBC

inthesetimes