How To Break Up With Spotify

Let me begin by saying that I have no desire to argue with you about whether you should cancel your Spotify premium membership. You are free to make your own decisions. I have made mine and have zero interest in convincing you to do anything.

If you have already decided it's time to cut Spotify loose, you've come to the right place. Let's begin!

Find Your Alternative

If you listen to music as much as I do, then quitting cold turkey isn't going to work. Instead, you'll need to take some time to decide which alternative is right for you.

Music

Over the past few weeks, these are the top options people have shared that they now use:

• YouTube Music (Premium Membership) -$9.99 to $11.99 per month
• Amazon Music (Prime Membership) - $6.49 to $12.99 per month
• Tidal - $4.99 to $29.99 per month
• Apple Music - $2.99 to $8.99 per month

There are pros and cons to each one besides just cost. Some people, for instance, might not care to support Bezos via Amazon. However, if you have a Prime membership, you're already paying for it anyway.

Podcasts

If you signed up for Spotify because you love podcasts, you can find a lot of paid and free alternatives online:

• Google Podcasts (available for Apple users too) - FREE
• Apple Podcasts - Priced per podcast subscription
• Stitcher (Premium)- $4.99 per month
• Audible - $1.95 to $14.95 per month
• TuneIn (Premium) - $9.99
• RadioPublic - FREE

As fair warning, Amazon owns Audible. So, if you're trying to avoid paying for Bezos's superyacht, that would be the one to skip.

Cancel Your Spotify Membership

I have the Android version of Spotify and couldn't find a way to cancel via the app. If you have a similar problem, you'll need to visit the website. Hopefully, you remember your password after years of not manually signing in:

1. Click on Profile next to your profile picture and choose Account from the dropdown menu.
2. Navigate to Your Plan and choose CHANGE PLAN.
3. Choose Cancel Spotify and then CANCEL PREMIUM.

From there, Spotify will ask you ten million times if you're sure you want to cancel. You've already come this far. Stand firm and make your way out.

Train Your New Music Platform

There are quite a few websites online claiming that they can help you import your Spotify playlist to another platform. I chose not to try any of them, so I can't recommend one. Instead, I decided to train the platform I chose from scratch.

YouTube Premium was my choice and the algorithm is remarkably intuitive. Whether you choose this platform or something else, here's how to enjoy the music you love and discover amazing new music along the way:

1. Listen to all your favorite musicians and upvote them or like their music by whatever medium the platform offers.
2. If the platform allows it, download or save the albums you'd like to have offline access to because it will realize those are really important to you.
3. Listen to some of the playlists it suggests for you and take the time to like or upvote and dislike or downvote the music it suggests.
4. Begin to rebuild some of your playlists with the old and new music the platform starts to suggest.

Mourn Your Loss

I've come to love YouTube Music a heck of a lot more than Spotify. The Spotify algorithm hadn't been doing a good job of connecting me with new music lately and I was getting so burned out on my old music that sometimes I didn't really want to listen to anything. This is the main reason I chose not to import my playlists.

Even so, there is comfort in familiarity and retraining a new platform is hard work. I had my Spotify Premium membership with no breaks from March 2016. I'm going to miss Spotify, but I will enjoy saving the $119.88 I paid per year for a service already bundled into other products I had been paying for.

If you are also mourning the loss, take heart. You're not alone. There are other options out there that work as well - and better - than Spotify Premium. You just have to find them and put in a little bit of work.

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