ESCAPING THE TENDRILS OF MUSIC STREAMING

11/21/25

In our modern world, the task of ridding yourself of streaming is an impossibly hard feat. Streaming is everywhere. You can't gain access to any type of media without having to pay for a subscription. With that being said, I will be rolling out a subscription based model for Cosmic Smell in the coming weeks. Just kidding. Why the hell would you ever pay for this?

Music streaming is now the status quo for listening to music. Spotify and Apple Music dominate the streaming market. As many of you probably already know, Spotify has faced monumental backlash in the last year, with many popular indie artists fleeing the platform. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are arguably the biggest band to bail on what many would say is their main audience. In a statement they posted on Instagram, they pulled their music of Spotify because of the CEO's questionable choices of funding AI weaponry. Several others followed suit, completely removing their discography from the site. 

However, this is not the first time major artists have pulled their music of the platform. In 2022, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled every single song off Spotify in protest of a $250 million contract signed with Joe Rogan. For nearly 10 years before this, Spotify faced criticism from artists and labels on their royalty payout system. Taylor Swift pulled her music in protest of the atrocious payout for smaller artists in 2014. According to Ditto Music, the average payout rate is between $0.003-$0.005 per stream. There are several other factors that contribute to how much artists actually get per stream, but the average is super low. Amazon Music isn't much better, at around $0.004 per stream. YouTube music pays $0.008. Apple Music boats a whole $0.01. You've got to be shitting me. For 10,000 streams on Spotify, which is no small number, artists are only making around $40 depending on what the rate is. The only people who actually benefit from Spotify's payout system are huge artists like Taylor Swift or those dinosaurs in the Rolling Stones. 

The average cost for a music streaming subscription is $10.99 a month. With the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if the price went up soon. There are a lot of people out there who can't afford to pay for subscriptions like Spotify or Apple Music considering that every other luxury service is a subscription plan now too. A lot more goes into this predicament, but the point is that streaming music is expensive and not entirely ethical if you want to support small artists.

Let's look at the solutions: SoundCloud, while it is a subscription based platform, retains a fan-powered royalties model. This, however, does not help because you're still technically streaming songs if you listen on their platform. Bandcamp is another option, and a far better one if you ask me. King Gizzard put all of their albums on the site for "name your price". You can pay and get the album, or they're free if you want them to be. Bandcamp is one of the only platforms that protects the integrity of smaller artists. They don't pay royalties, but operate on a direct sales model. Around 82% of revenue goes to the artist/label and the rest to Bandcamp as a publishing fee. Merch is exempt from this with some minor technicalities. Vinyl, cassette tapes, and CDs are also exempt. All the money for physical goods goes to the artist. Speaking of physical goods...

In my opinion, the best way to get away from music streaming is to ditch the apps and sites (besides Bandcamp) and buy physical copies of albums. Record stores are still everywhere man. You can find CDs, tapes, vinyl, books, 8-tracks, posters, merch, etc. at a record store. Go to the mom-and-pop shops, not the big box stores. Support small businesses and artists directly. People's main concern with going this route is how costly a hobby being an audiophile is. On average, via my independent research and poor math skills, records are around $25. Imported records fetch upwards of $45 or $50. You start buying records and instantly see a massive dent in your bank account. Even more so when you start looking for turntables. And how much is that phono preamp with the fancy VU meter? Buying records and CDs is definitely expensive nowadays, there's no doubt about that. But the payoff of being able to incontinently support artists is great! 

Ordering records or shopping in stores supports the artist/label with little to no cut to a middle man or streaming jockey. Keep the money in artist's hands. Additionally, if you don't want to feed the beast of Spotify but have a tight budget, used records are the more economical way of buying physical copies.  An issue I find is that there is a somewhat large gap between you and the artist. Let me paint you a picture: A record store bought the album from the manufacturer, someone bought the record from said store 25-30 years ago, maybe sold it to another record store and changed hands a few times, then ends up at the record store you buy it at. That's a pretty significant disconnect from you and the artist. However, I want you to think about the journey that album took to get into your hands. Isn't that the coolest thing ever? Some random person you'll probably never meet listened to that record doing god knows what and now you own it. I have a great original copy of Meet The Beatles that has writing all over the cover. A Beatlemaniac drew hearts around her favorite Beatle and probably played the record over and over until her parents started banging on the door to tell her to keep the racket down. There's something special about having a physical collection of your favorite albums. Being able to feel the cover, hear the crinkle of the inner sleeve, and see the grooves that make you groove. Think of the stories that album could share. Your new ones are thanking you for bringing them home so they can start to develop their own narrative.

I'm more partial to buying (both new and used) vinyl, but I drive a car that's older than I am so I buy CDs for it. Utterly insane, I know. Maybe spending what little money I have on "useless" albums isn't the smartest thing I've ever done. But, it's a definitive part of my life. It sounds better I swear! One day I'll have wall to wall shelves full of LPs. Real, dark stained oak shelves. 5,000 records to each shelf with overflow spilling onto the floor and the coffee table. A dimly lit room with knickknacks on the wall and additional shelving...sorry. Got a little carried away. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Now, you might be saying, "how do I listen to music on the go if I only buy physical copies?" Well, you could get a Walkman and look cool as f**k. The cassette ones are cooler, but to each their own. If you only buy vinyl it's a bit harder. In most of the new records I've bought in the last 6 or so years of collecting vinyl, there has been a coupon card that lets you download the record in a digital format for free. Boom. There's your music. The one caveat to this is that not every album has a download card. A terrible tragedy. Bandcamp kind of saves the cake on this one. Buy an album direct and download the music. Does anybody still use iTunes? I guess you could record your LP to a cassette tape and burn that to a CD and then digitize it. Too much work. I actually don't recommend doing that.

Despite owning a substantial collection, I still find myself streaming music daily. It's almost inescapable at this point. The ease of access, playlists of 1500 songs at your fingertips, and global access to millions of tracks makes streaming a sensible option for so many. Being one of those people who listens to music from the instant I open my eyes to the last flutter of my eyelids before I go to sleep, makes this convenience frustratingly intriguing. I've fallen into it. I'm seriously trying to find a way out. I think this post was a message to myself saying, "TURN OFF YOUR PHONE. BUY MORE RECORDS. DIG MUSIC."

It's turning into an attempt to destabilize our "relationships" with big tech companies and pry free of the firm handshake they gave us and never let go. We have to actively push away in order to fully distance ourselves. However, man and machine are sliding closer and closer to becoming one. If there's a way to make that come to a grinding halt, we'd better find it. Regression is progression. Find it in you to start to distance yourself from technology. Make it a goal. I'm not telling you to go to the absolute extreme and throw your computer from your 5th floor window into the hustle and bustle of people below. Start small. Offload apps you never use. Stop watching videos on Instagram. Cut your screentime down. Put pen to paper. Take some time and stare at a wall. Think about how ironic it is for me to be writing about taking time out from screens and staring at the words being typed out on one. Restrict your dependence on social media and the internet (except reading Cosmic Smell . Com). Or...f**k it. Throw your computer from the top of your apartment building. Anything counts. 

I actually wasn't sure if I was going to get a post done this week. Thankfully, because of my stellar ability not to procrastinate which--to my parents' surprise--I developed in the last few years, I was able to get it done the day before the deadline. In my consistently short-circuiting head, I thought that I had a lot more stuff to do this week. Turns out I was able to pull it off.

I've given you some things to think about here. Sit with the ethics of streaming music. Weigh it against it's convenience. Heed my message. Thank you to Grandma O. for the inspiration for the topic.

"Rain, I don't mind." See you next week...

Cheers,

Jack

P.S. I might be posting twice next week. Allocate some extra time away from your screen so you can read both posts.