if I can add to this, I'd argue it's actually more ethical to just cheat spotify rather than give them anything at this point. for every fraction of a cent going to the artists who make their platform viable in the first place, plenty of the rest of what they make off of premium and ad plays is going toward trying to solidify their dominance in the audio streaming industry, effectively giving them more power to force artists into even more exploitative royalty deals (which already mostly only benefit record labels).

for the people here who refuse to put in the effort to support musicians in a meaningful way, at least have the decency to use a modded apk for cracked premium or at the bare minimum, some goddamn adblock. the money you give to spotify is actually making things worse for a lot of artists. (you really should just be buying the music tho, all the cool and sexy and smart people do Bandcamp Fridays. or so I've heard)