NFT

As Spotify continues to add bells and whistles to the streaming service’s artist profiles like the ability to buy concert tickets and merch, they’re beginning to test out NFTs, too. As Music Ally and Billboard report, artists like Steve Aoki and The Wombats present two of the early test cases, where artists can promote their NFT’s on their profiles and people can click through to purchase them on NFT marketplaces. The test is currently available to select US users via Spotify’s the Android app.

At first glance, this does seem like a slippery slope of sorts, as artists have turned to NFTs as a way to control 100% of the net proceeds from the sale of their music and publishing rights. Considering Spotify pays artists a paltry sum that lies somewhere between $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, it’s understandable to think that there might be an ulterior motive at play from the Swedish streaming giant.

“Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles,” a spokesperson from Spotify told Music Ally. “We routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve artist and fan experiences. Some of those tests end up paving the way for a broader experience and others serve only as an important learning.”

Music Ally also reported that Spotify isn’t taking a cut of any NFT sales in this test. But one has to wonder if they’ll take a cut of whatever the NFT marketplace makes? Or if when the testing period is over and the feature is fully implemented, that they’ll indeed work their way into taking a cut of the direct sale of the NFT. Promoting an NFT on Spotify does not seem like a good proposition for smaller artists who count on the sale of their NFTs as a main source of income. But for artists like Aoki, or The Wombats, who have a comfortable pipeline of income sources and are looking to spread the word about their new blockchain ventures, then this might make sense.

The responses from people on social media have shown the inherent distrust that Spotify has built among users and non-users alike. “Just feels like they’ll find a way take the power from artist’s again,” one Twitter user said. “Work on your established problems first,” another user suggested, while another user issued the ultimatum that, “If Spotify goes in this direction im gonna cancel my subscription.”