There’s a lot to the features that Spotify provides. First, there’s the social side: collaborative playlists, “jam sessions” that let your friends add songs to the queue, Spotify wrapped, etc.; then there’s the functionality side: I can play a song on my laptop and pick up right where I left off on my phone, or even switch to my phone while it’s still playing, the recommendations are great and, increasingly, people are turning to Spotify-curated playlists rather than making their own or selecting songs individually. All of those are things you can’t replicate easily outside of Spotify, with the exception of recommendations.

And remember, music is incredibly present in people’s lives. It’s almost always in the background, people use it to study, to drive, to cook, to work, to party, to hang out with friends, to destress, and for a myriad other reasons. Not everybody’s a music enthusiast, per se, but people listen to a lotttt of music.

I’m not saying you should use Spotify, but if Spotify and its competitors just disappeared, a lot of people’s lives would be worse for it