I’m becoming increasingly reluctant to renew my Spotify Premium subscription for another year. They paid out $10 billion in 2024, but only the biggest artists and record companies benefit from Spotify’s streamshare model.

Only 0,4% of all artists on Spotify earn more than €10.000. On average, artists receive just €0,003 per stream—and songs with fewer than 1.000 annual streams aren’t even counted. Of course, this isn’t news; it’s been going on for years. Spotify has simply refined its algorithm over time to distribute payments to even fewer artists and distributors.

I’ve always been reluctant to use music streaming services—and, in hindsight, rightly so. But after years of getting used to having nearly every song and album instantly available, how do I achieve independence again? How do I “go back”?

Availability isn’t the issue—there are plenty of alternatives for buying music. Bandcamp, 7Digital, and even Apple Music still offer downloadable AAC files without DRM. The real problem is the cost: replacing my current Spotify library with purchased tracks would be expensive. I often listen to playlists with 50, 100, or even 250 tracks. That adds up to hundreds, if not thousands, of euros.

I don’t have a perfect solution yet. I think I’ll start by cataloguing my old MP3 and FLAC library, checking what I already own, and begin pruning my Spotify collection. I’ll sort out which playlists, albums, and songs are essential, and which are just nice to have. Then I’ll retrieve the tracks I want to keep, build a local database, and add information like purchase links and costs per song. After that, I’ll set a monthly budget and begin buying—album by album, song by song.

This will take a while. I need to do some research, and I’m not the fastest coder (plus I have a day job and a life). Timing isn’t on my side—my subscription renews in August. But I’m determined to remove my dependency on Spotify in 2026.