Content Hangover No. 9 by: Garrett Crusan

We Can Leave Whenever We Want: The World of “Dead Spotify”

I. Introducing “Dead Spotify”

I’m quite susceptible to conspiracy and too easily convinced by synchronicity, so I keep myself free from far-reaching online theories about cryptid sightings or lizard-politicians. It takes a lot to break through my evasion, and recently there’s been a resurgence of a decade-old conspiracy that’s near-impossible to avoid because of its semi-prophetic nature. The “dead internet theory”, coined by an insular crew of Redditors around 2016, set out to convince the public (or themselves) that the internet was almost entirely devoid of human users; that the amount of bot traffic on websites, message boards, and social media platforms heavily outweighed the amount of real users; that most “human” interaction one thought they had in any given comment section was actually rapport with a robot. 

However outlandish an idea this might’ve been in 2016, one would be remiss to deny that with the exponential rise of powerful AI agents, the “dead internet theory” was more of a crystal ball than we could’ve anticipated a decade ago. The term has, in recent years, escaped the constraints of “conspiracy” and entered the colloquial canon as a sort of blanket term for the oversaturation of generative AI content across the internet. Rightfully so, considering the term “AI influencer” exists (Afshar 2026). There isn’t yet a quantifiable amount of AI profiles across social media sites, so we can’t say for certain what the human-to-bot ratio is at this point, but one can assume that it will grow proportionately to the breakneck pace of the technology’s development. 

This oversaturation has escaped its confines of the comment section, and secured itself deeply into the music industry as well, especially in the world of streaming. When Tyga’s most recent project $TARFACE hit the shelves a few months ago, it was rightfully slandered all the way around because of its blatant employment of generative music software (Millard 2026). However, we as listeners were lucky enough to at least have a face behind the name. The reality is much more faceless: industry reports show that, as of mid-2026, the streaming service Deezer had up to 50% of its daily uploads (Wendel 2026) come from AI “artists”, and generative “hits” have been infiltrating Spotify’s “Viral 50” playlist since this time last year (Down 2025). 

As we’re bombarded by AI-fearmongering in our 24-hour news cycle, it could be safe to assume that, like the current state of social media and like the prophetic keyboard warriors of Reddit conspired a decade ago, Spotify and its competitors may one day be more bot than human—if the rate remains as exponential as it’s been, we might reach, sooner rather than later, a “Dead Spotify”.

II. The Dilution of Taste

I might just live in an echo chamber of techno-skeptics, but I like to believe that at least a portion of the current generation of music listeners these days are well aware of the dangers that streaming services like Spotify pose to musicians and the industry as a whole—most notably by shifting emphasis on artist success toward virality and playlist placement rather than physical record sales. Additionally, as outlined in a fantastic essay by my bandmate, Spotify’s focus on listener metrics and streaming statistics turn the act of creating and sharing music into a numbers game that, in a sense, pits artists against each other (Records 2026). A musician could have a dedicated local following in a scene (most easily described as a collective of like-minded artists with definitive shared values, both ethical and artistic; a backbone of musical tradition that we can’t afford to lose) but only 15 “monthly listeners”—to most consumers, booking agents, or even other artists, only the latter metric, the most immediately visible one, is taken into account most of the time. Spotify has also encouraged a world of passive listening, one where you can press play on the perfect algorithmic playlist and have it continue infinitely. This design, dangerous to both artist and listener, is intentional—so that you, the listener, will keep using Spotify and earn the company more money, while the music, once a medium of art consumed wholly and intentionally, becomes a disjointed collage of muzak in the background while you cook dinner.

In the same way that a platform like Facebook has become a laughing stock oversaturated by slop content (Instagram is getting there, too), what if Spotify followed a similar trajectory? What if every other song on the platform was “Gobble Glitch” or “Powdered Dreams”? Mirroring the fall of Facebook, a large part of the current generation might simply up and leave; maybe we’d find new ways to stream music more ethically, and without worry of AI content (Qobuz is an alternative that has the potential to head in this direction), or maybe we’d all flock to Bandcamp (a platform that has a complete ban on AI content) and start curating our digital libraries again like it was 2010. Just as likely of a scenario is that live and recorded music could, once again, return to being a more intentional, community-based medium of expression, and it would be only that.

III. The Essential Act of Intentionality

Active and deep listening—described by Pauline Oliveros’ Center for Deep Listening as the distinction between listening involuntarily (i.e. hearing a song over the speakers at a Whole Foods) and consciously and intentionally listening (i.e. saying, “I’m going to listen to this whole record that I picked up from a local band”)—is Spotify’s worst enemy (Oliveros 2021). Because the platform incentivizes diluting personal taste, the act of utilizing physical media has the potential to be an essential antidote. In a world of Dead Spotify (or “dead streaming” generally), there may be no other way to listen to music besides an MP3 player, a digital library (both of which are also curated and intentional) or through CD, vinyl, or tape. The act of active listening isn’t limited to music, either—the concept is transferable to “active viewing” or “active reading”—and this practice is one of the most important ways that we can interact with art and support the things we love most. 

In a world of “Dead Spotify”, maybe we wouldn’t say, “Oh, this sounds like that one song I heard on my Daily Mix last week”. Instead, one might compliment or observe a track as wholly independent from information consumed prior, without the temptation to cross-reference pieces they’ve digested passively. Maybe the world of bands emptily saying “sick set, bro” after the opening act—a tale older than time—might turn into “your lyrics are really impactful, and the bridge of that last song really made me feel [xyz]”. Understanding each other’s tastes, especially artist-to-artist, is how we feel seen, cared for, and most importantly, how we learn to push our own tastes forward and reclaim our love and curiosity for the art form. 

IV. Curiosity as the Genesis of Taste

During the mid-2000s, on a shoddy swing-set in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, I remember discovering what a "language" was. I was maybe five years old, and my older cousin who was living with my family at the time was drilling herself with homework from German 101, counting from one to ten, stopping, and starting over again. I asked her what she was saying, and she laughingly explained that she was practicing a different language. When I mentioned that I didn’t exactly know what a language was, she simplified it by saying, "It's like a different code of words for people who don't speak English, which is the language we speak. They mean the same things, but just sound different." Spellbound by this new concept, I asked her to teach me and she did, reluctantly at first. For quite some time afterward, I would habitually count to ten over and over again in broken, Americanized German; this was, in my eyes, fluency.

While I don't quite remember a lick of the language itself anymore, later in life, I continued to appease that younger part of myself by nourishing more abstracted curiosities: "Why do I like this book?" "Am I supposed to understand poetry?" And, most essentially: "Why do I like this song?"

The question's open-endedness left me at a dead end for a while until I started going to shows and collecting music more forensically. Ultimately, I decided that the answer to that last question is taste, that confounding "third thing" that can force even the best philosophers to surrender to semantics. We understand what taste is in a sort of communicative unconscious; words often don't do it justice, but we know exactly what it means. 

Having no room for curiosity or questions before being force-fed something, as is the case with Spotify’s endless algorithm, is what inevitably leads to music’s de-evolution to muzak, which creates a vicious cycle of passivity. Having an initial curiosity, as I did with the German language, inevitably leads to a desire to learn or experience the thing, and once you learn or experience it, you can decide whether or not it's something that resonates with you. When it does, you affix it to the cork-board in your brain full of stuff you like, and when it doesn't, you toss it in the bin. This effectively means that the genesis of taste could very well be curiosity.

In a world of Dead Spotify, the act of active listening would not only help artists understand each other, but in consequence foster a genuine thirst for knowledge would help all of us understand each other, artist or not. That reclamation of curiosity and mutual support through active listening is essential to forming genuine connections and building community and scenes, something that the age of streaming has been trying hard to dismantle. How do we learn if we don’t ask questions?

V. Positive Cannibalization and the “Mythic” Scene

I once overheard a quote that I’ve since been able to weasel my way into any discussion surrounding music: “A ‘scene’ is not mythic; it’s just the same ten people who show up every time.” In the world of Dead Spotify, intentional curiosity leads to artists learning about each other and themselves; this leads to effort to intentionally interact with the artform; that intentionality leads to showing up and watching live music; the act of showing up leads to support through physical media; that leads to active listening, ad infinitum. The snake eats itself: it’s a feedback loop of support that, when enacted, can strip music and performance back to its most essential roots: community, love, creation, and being a conduit for something greater than yourself—your taste. This is what creates a scene.

The idea of a “scene” is one of the oldest and most concrete examples of how artists can support each other to whatever “success” means to them. Cities like New York certainly have retained this essential spirit in the relative underground, but once the mobility begins to creep upward, things can begin to splinter, and ego arrives to dismantle connection. It feels to me that musical ego has reached a critical peak in part because of the metrics-based nature of Spotify and social media platforms—new followers are dopamine hits, Spotify playlist placements are a mainline of serotonin for some. The world of Dead Spotify could take away the pressure to market ourselves relentlessly and create a “perfect” product that surpasses the stream-counts of everyone else and instead encourage us to embrace the imperfect, create for the sake of creation alone, and more effectively communicate honest ideas and passions to one another. 

That kind of creation is much more affecting to an audience—it’s also immediately palpable. Inspiration hits quicker when the inciting incident is honest, raw, and completely singular (even if it falls in a specific lineage of songwriting tradition). A world of Dead Spotify could encourage this kind of honest creation en masse, which would lead to more immediate affection artist-to-artist, which would lead to… You know what I’m going to say.

VI. Why Not Now?

Alright, back to Earth—maybe I’m being overzealous in my prediction of a Dead Spotify at all, or too optimistic as to what a world of Dead Spotify could lead to. There’s a pretty strong chance that a lot of people would freak the fuck out if Spotify died and, when faced with no other option to consume music, might ditch it entirely and surrender their lives to overhearing radio country at Goodwill as their sole interaction with the medium. There’s also a real possibility that musicians would struggle—some who are intrinsically tied to the platform and social media might, for better or worse, lose their sense of identity and purpose; additionally, pressing CDs or tapes isn’t free, and booking a show in this day and age with no quantifiable metrics presents a pretty intimidating challenge that most agents might not fly with. That’s the anti-zealous prediction, but we’d probably land somewhere in between: Spotify’s disappearance probably wouldn’t eliminate ego, immediately make people more active listeners, or make people more intentional with their music consumption, certainly not overnight and probably not over the course of even decades. It would, however, dismantle the very thing that’s perpetuating the absence of those musically-utopian ideals outlined here. 

Ultimately, though, we don’t have to sit around and wait for streaming services to be overrun by Suno to abandon them. We can leave whenever we want. One by one, scene by scene, and eventually city by city, we could create a world of Dead Spotify for ourselves. Some people are already doing this. Why not join them? Why not experiment with an alternative method of sharing art? Why not see what it could do for you and your artistic process? If you're an artist, do you think you’d be more honest to yourself knowing that metrics aren’t a part of your portrait as a creator? 

It’ll take a while, but I hold out hope that maybe someday we’ll reach a world of Dead Spotify, whatever that means, hyper-local or worldwide. Then, and only then, will major car manufacturers be forced to include CD players in their media consoles again.

Notes: