17 Sept 2025

It’s been an eye-opener, in the best of ways. The veil of the omnipresent ‘algo’ has finally been lifted. 

7 min read

After years of talking about it, I’ve actually gone and done it.

I’ve left Spotify.

I’ll admit, it probably took me too long to get here. The term ‘Spotify’ has become interchangeable with ‘streaming’ and it continues to dominate, despite the growing list of charges against it.

First, there is the undeniable fact that Spotify undermines artists by paying them sweet FA for their work (and much less than Amazon and Apple Music).

Then there was the Joe Rogan saga in 2022, when the post-truth era was suddenly playing out on a music streaming platform with no editorial oversight. I genuinely considered moving at that point, but selfishly, it all felt too hard.

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

My tipping point was the terrifying news in June that Spotify’s co-founder, Daniel Ek, has invested $600 million in the warfare tech startup Helsing. I’m not proud of it, but the truth is it took the prospect of AI military tech that essentially turns warfare into a video game for me to realise just how far Spotify had crossed the line. 

And I’m not alone.

In recent months, there’s been a steady flow of smaller artists removing themselves from Spotify. It’s the first real coordinated action against the platform we’ve seen, and it feels like the start of a broader shift. 

While there are lots of streaming alternatives, if you are in the Apple ecosystem, it’s an easy option. So exactly six years after moving to Spotify and letting my iTunes Match subscription lapse, I signed up for Apple Music – met with a slight twinge of nostalgia for the old days of plugging in my iPod to load up songs.

If you are considering the move yourself, here are my 7 key takeaways from the process. 

1. The hardest part is making the decision to move

After years of weighing up the move, the switching process itself was easy.  

Just a matter of starting my subscription via my Apple account, and cancelling Spotify. It’s worth noting that on most subscription plans, Apple Music is actually cheaper than Spotify.

I fired up the Apple Music app and was surprised by all my old iTunes purchases still in my library.

In my weird archive of randomly purchased tracks of yesteryear (aka early 2000s) I was happy to see my last iTunes purchase was Jack White’s 2012 LP Blunderbuss. By coincidence, this discovery was delightfully well timed with Jack’s tirade on Instagram in the direction of the POTUS.

Now I know what you are thinking at this point. And yes, it was worrying me too. 

But the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.  

Photo by David Pupăză on Unsplash

2. Yes, you can bring your playlists with you

If I’m honest, being forced to leave all my Spotify playlists behind was the number one reason I hadn’t moved sooner.

I couldn’t face starting again.

While third-party plugins like TuneMyMusic had started to make this easier, it was only with the August update that you could bring your playlists across within the Apple Music app itself.

And when I say importing your playlists is easy, I mean ‘one-click’ easy.

When I signed in to Apple Music on my phone after starting my subscription, a screen appeared asking whether I wanted to import playlists from another app, including Spotify.

I had to connect my Spotify account by signing in to a pop-up model, then select the playlists I wanted to transfer – and it was done!

Photo by Patrik Michalicka on Unsplash

Now, my biggest piece of advice in the whole process is this –  do not ‘Import all’!

Selecting ‘Import all’ brings every playlist across – even the Spotify-curated ones that are massive.

I also had a lot of old playlists that I no longer actually use. So in hindsight, I really should have just checked the six or so I use regularly and let the rest go.

Instead, they were all imported across and just dumped into my Apple Music playlist folder. In Spotify, they had been displayed in order of last listen. Once in Apple Music, with no ‘last played’ data available, they were one big mess. I’ve had to tidy up manually, and it’s annoying and time-consuming. 

So consider the import process a good time to do some spring cleaning  – and then rejoice in the ease of bringing those beloved playlists with you!

3. The app is different… and there is a learning curve

Spotify is an incredibly sophisticated digital product designed to keep you engaged in the app, with a seamless UX and an algorithm supercharged for discovery. 

So one of the first things you’ll notice with Apple Music is that it is not that.

At all. 

A seamless UX is the kind of thing you don’t really notice until it’s gone.

After Spotify, Apple Music feels more like an old-school digital music player – in fact, it feels like it hasn’t changed that much from the old iTunes interface. 

This has led to a few weird moments while using the app. More than once, I’ve opened a playlist or an album and clicked on a song – and it only plays that one song. Or I’ve interrupted the queue and struggled to get it back on track, resorting to clearing the whole thing and starting again.

But these niggly problems pale in comparison to the one massive benefit – freedom from the Spotify algorithm. 

Spotify (via Stylecaster.com)

4. Beyond Spotify’s algorithm lies freedom

For the first few days, it’s weird not being dragged around by the algorithm.

That is, when you open the app, you have to actually CHOOSE what you want to listen to! Wild right? 

The Spotify algorithm has become a safety blanket for users, disguising promotion and product as discovery and convenience.  For me, once you are out of its clutches, the sense of freedom is palpable. 

Moving to Apple Music, and it’s much less sophisticated ‘New Releases’ home page suggestions, you realise you’ve spent the last few years at the behest of the almighty ‘algo’. 

5. The album is back!

Without the constant push for ‘discovery’ – and its bedfellow ‘shiny object syndrome’ – I’ve noticed a strange and very welcome side effect.

I’m listening to albums again. 

Last week, I went on a run and listened to “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” in its entirety, remembering just how much I loved it. Not as an algorithmic collection of songs, but as an ALBUM. 

A note here that, while all your playlists come across, your favourited artists and albums don’t. So it’s worth dedicating a little time to add albums to your Apple Music library and ‘star’ artists as favourites. 

6. The joy of purchased music alongside streamed tracks

Another huge shift is that with an Apple Music subscription, you can also listen to your own, purchased music and even sync it across devices. 

While this is a far cry from the old days of ‘ripping’ your CD collection to iTunes and loading it onto your iPod, it does mean you can support your favourite artists by purchasing directly from them. 

When you buy music as a ‘digital download’ from platforms like Bandcamp, you can then load it into Apple Music for listening alongside streamed music. This is a huge change from Spotify, where any music not streamed directly from the platform essentially ceases to exist for users. 

And this is huge news for independant artists.

7. It’s a start, if not an entire solution

In many ways, switching from Spotify to Apple Music still seems a little like swapping one evil for another. 

In this era of fast-evolving technology, the way we consume art is in a constant state of flux. And yes, in my definition, art includes music, TV and movies… after all, if they are made by artists, they are art.  

There is no doubt that the streaming model inherently devalues music, but this is a genie that will be hard to put back in the bottle. I mean, it’s incredibly convenient to have every album ever recorded at your fingertips. 

But maybe this choice is the first step in where music is headed. An important reminder that there is always more we can be doing as active consumers. The best thing we can do is remember that listening to a streamed track is just the start of our relationship with an artist. 

Buying merchandise (or, in my case, vinyl) and getting out to see live shows still remains the best way to support the artists you love. 

And maybe buying a digital copy of their album is the least we can do.