The first quarter of 2024 will see Spotify no longer paying streaming royalties to artists who don’t hit above 1,000 annual streams. While this is a totally doable number to reach for indie artists, it does start to feel like a telemarketing job instead of a passion. It definitely doesn’t make artists feel like artists. 

Spotify users are reaching beyond 570 million users, and the company’s making 13.56 billion dollars as of 2023. It’s a monster of an outlet. Other platforms, however, like Apple Music and TIDAL, pay more and are included in any list of platforms a distributor will put your music on. 

A lot of artists get caught spinning on Spotify’s hamster wheel, spending extra money on promotion and list inclusion—Why?

Because there are a lot of advertising dollars going into small companies who let artists buy streams by the bucketloads, and it does kick up the algorithm. The bad side of this is that once the money runs out, so do the streams. You have to do the math. How much do you pay one of these companies in order to get enough streams to make x-amount of dollars in royalties?

And now there’s something new Spotify is offering you. They’re called “Superfan Clubs”, and they’re going to be an option this year—but only for Europe. The reason behind this Superfan idea is the EU’s digital markets act (DMA) striking down restrictions Apple places on apps like Spotify. Apple requires a 30% tax on the platform for the ability to send messages to its users about promotions and offerings (a plethora of ads, basically). The strike down happens on the 7th of March 2024. The US, however, will still be imposing that tax, so Spotify won’t be adding the Superfan package option for US artists. There are rumors floating about the grapevine that the US Department of Justice and/or Congress will fix that, though.

Meanwhile, if you’re an indie artist in the US and you want constant, rising stream counts to make your page look better, you can buy them (as long as you can keep paying).