Of all the top music streaming services, Spotify is the only one to offer insight into its payouts through its annual Loud and Clear report, and in 2025 it paid out a record $11 billion to the industry.
That’s about 70% of Spotify’s annual revenue, with the rest going toward improving the Spotify experience. There’s no denying that Spotify is always looking for ways to improve music discovery and accommodate new personalization tools, but for me there are other areas that need to be prioritized.
Ultimately, Spotify generates more annual revenue than in previous years, leaving the company with more remaining funds to invest – not only in the company itself – but also in external areas, where it has an obligation to offer support. After all, it’s the leading music streaming platform, so it should lead by example.
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Declutter your interface
This is one of my biggest dislikes for the platform, and it’s a sentiment shared by many other subscribers as well. Unlike services like Apple Music, which emphasize simplicity, Spotify’s interface is omnipresent. This is especially true for its Library tab, which seems to get more and more complicated every time I create a new playlist, save a new album, or follow an artist.
While you can filter your library by playlist, album, and artist, it’s quite complicated and not the prettiest to look at, whereas Apple Music’s library looks much cleaner. And while Spotify is the winner in terms of features – for example, there are six different ways to create a playlist – many of them will go unused by the average user. Going forward, Spotify should think twice before investing in a new product feature if it doesn’t add value to the overall user experience – keeping things simple goes a long way.
Deploy labels for fully AI-generated music
Criticism of Spotify’s tolerance of entirely AI-generated music will never die down – unless Spotify starts being more transparent with users. AI tags are the next step.
Its competitors are already starting to tackle this problem, for example Deezer has developed its own AI detection tool and Apple is testing “transparency tags”. The debate over “what constitutes AI-generated music” is still a hot topic at Spotify. It appears that the platform is unsure about flagging songs where only a tiny component is AI-generated. But while many users may enjoy it, it’s the many songs created entirely using AI that get them hooked more than anything.
Invest directly in local sites
In Spotify’s Loud and Clear report, the platform said it generated $1.5 billion in concert ticket revenue, thanks to its integration of live event listings that take you directly to ticket sales sites. On the one hand, it’s a useful way to raise awareness of artists touring in your area and get more music fans to attend concerts at popular venues. But Spotify has enough profit to invest directly in these spaces.
That’s not to say Spotify hasn’t contributed. In 2024, Spotify partnered with UK-based organization Youth Music to create a fund to support 15 music venues at risk of closure. The partnership was an extension of Spotify’s Creator Equity Fund program and extended its commitment to helping communities through 2026.
Although Spotify has these initiatives in place, the platform has been criticized by organizations such as Music Venue Trust (MVT) for not investing directly in these venues. In 2022, Spotify came under fire for its colossal $235 million deal with FC Barcelona, with MVT claiming those funds could have been used to prevent hundreds of music venues from closing. Spotify’s intentions with Youth Music appear to be the right ones, but the company definitely needs to rethink its investment approaches.
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