Spotify’s into NFTs, so stop being a hater!
Spotify, the popular music streaming platform, has recently continued its journey into the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In a move that reinforces the fusion of technology and entertainment, they’ve enabled a feature allowing holders of specific NFT collections (most recently, Moonbirds) to access a curated playlist.
Currently, this integration is only available in selected regions such as the US and UK and offers support for Android users only (hmm).
You can then connect with popular wallets such as Metamask, Trust, or Ledger that hold your qualifying NFT. Though this development shows how digital assets are progressively intertwining with popular entertainment mediums, there’s a long way to go to ensure its success. Personally, there’s a lot we could do about it.
Our Thoughts…
Though this is just a pilot program, there are some pretty obvious drawbacks that have resulted in skewed and unfavourable results that could stop the project from moving forward.
Let’s focus on the two obvious sections.
- Access to Fans
- Chosen Communities
Access to Fans
If you’re an Apple-using Canadian like us, we can share in our confusion as to why we’ve been left out of this.
To participate, I need to own a Moonbird (~$2500 CAD or ~$1840 USD), move countries and get an Android?
Our Canadian woes aside, we want to focus on why Apple users are unable to participate. This decision is a direct result of Apple’s barriers to NFT integration but actively sabotages Spotify’s ability to asses how well received their pilot would be. We wonder if it’s even worth it to proceed without an Apple integration and if finding a workaround (such as in-browser authentication) would have made more sense. We know a little more strategy could have alleviated this issue and we’re disappointed that the initiative didn’t receive the proper development to help it succeed.
This decision is a direct result of Apple’s barriers to NFT integration but actively sabotages Spotify’s ability to asses how well received their pilot would be.
Moreover, the lack of UI support to guide those who don’t have access makes me feel like this whole project was an afterthought. More on that later though…
Overall, there’s something to be said about how widespread yet inaccessible this launch has been and how watered down the results will likely be.
Chosen Communities
Spotify has chosen a select few collections to work with on this pilot — Moonbirds is the latest, but Kingship was another one. Moonbirds itself is a much more general collection that isn’t music-specific, but Kingship represents a few Apes that launched a Web3 music label.
The Moonbirds choice feels shallow. The community is too general to curate a meaningful playlist for, especially when playlists aren’t unlocking much value, to begin with. It’s not a surprise that no one is especially concerned with the quality of the playlist, but more about leveraging the Moonbirds audience and numbers to spread the news. This feels unnecessary because Spotify already has a massive reach, so why not use their collaborations to get existing fans really excited about what’s to come? We don’t see the Moonbirds collaboration prompting people to purchase a Moonbirds NFT to check it out and doubt many existing holders have (would love to see the numbers here).
We’d love to see artists with a lot of exclusive content and existing fan bases engage in drops like this to show how much conversion and value it can drive. We imagine that the BeyHive would be Web3 experts if it meant they got unreleased content from the Queen herself, and maybe Ariana Grande’s fans could stop leaking all her music if we could get it released exclusively behind a token-gated playlist. Big artists aside, plenty of small to mid-sized artists will be able to actually benefit from integrations like this, especially if they’re having trouble gathering fan support on different platforms this would be a great aggregator that many listeners already reach to.
The IRL Collective’s thoughts
The state of the market has instilled more than enough confusion and hesitation, and how major companies approach their Web3 strategies will be a huge indicator of how the majority will feel about it. It’s incredible that major companies are continuing to build in the space, but it’s not enough if it’s not done well.
We mentioned this before, but the power is in allowing artists to drop exclusive, unheard content or different versions of songs. Instead of partnering with collections that don’t drive a musical direction or represent a fanbase, let the artists have their moment to shine. Any attempts to please or add value to a large group like Moonbirds holders are incredibly ineffective and wouldn’t be easy to curate for.
Spotify seems to be handling this integration in a very passive way, their lack of attention to detail doesn’t convince me that they’re committed to this project. For example, we may have geographic or device-driven restrictions but imagine how it looks when you go follow a link-in-bio to a “Page Not Found”.Was it a mistake? An oversight? Is the playlist down? Did something bad happen? Oh no, I just have an iPhone. Oh no, I’m just in the barren remote faraway land of Canada. I know it’s not hard to have a landing page that communicates that we don’t have access, and instead collects our interest or emails for when we could. It sounds minor, but it’s the difference between someone never thinking about the integration again versus someone being able to use it as soon as it becomes available to them.
We love having big brands supporting NFT and token integration, it continues to be a positive signal in the industry. However, we can’t overlook how tough it is for some individuals to understand and adapt to these technologies, every small barrier could set them several steps back.
Spotify, you got this, reach out to your community and they’ll tell you how to make this an impactful and worthwhile pilot. For all the artists and fans, don’t sleep on this, big things are happening in the industry!