Apple Music vs. Spotify. Let’s talk about it.

This isn’t about which interface is nicer or which platform has better audio quality. It’s about politics. Over the past few weeks, Spotify has been running ICE recruitment ads across its platform, promoting a $50,000 signing bonus.

A few weeks ago, my graduate studio class at Parsons School of Design began a project to add a feature to an existing app. I chose Apple Music because it’s my most-used application. To start, we needed to audit the market and competitors, and for me, this involved auditing Spotify, Tidal and YouTube. Most of the people I interviewed are Spotify users.

At the beginning of this project, you would’ve heard me say things like, “I definitely see why Spotify is a great application,” or, “I can see why so many people choose Spotify over Apple Music.” But now, I’m telling my friends and interviewees to switch over to Apple Music.

Three weeks ago, I stumbled upon a thread in the Spotify Community, where users were responding to a post questioning ICE recruitment ads. The top comment was, “Is Spotify running advertising for ICE or Border Patrol recruitment? If I see one ad for such nonsense, I will be cancelling my Spotify accounts and will encourage all others to do the same.” I was shocked and disappointed to discover this. I was so shaken that I asked all my friends if they knew about this. They were aware, but haven’t heard any ads themselves, because they’re premium subscribers. As someone who views music as paramount, I would never have thought that a space meant for comfort and escape, and that is purportedly the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service, would turn into something unsettling and compromised.

A close friend recently sent me a TikTok video showing images of masked ICE agents arresting people projected onto Spotify’s office buildings in Los Angeles, with calls to “Cancel Spotify: Tell Spotify, Get ICE Ads OFF THE AIR” and “Cancel Spotify: Spotify, Don’t Stream Fascism.”

The backlash hasn’t just come from users. A few artists and record labels have also taken a stand against the ads. Epitaph Records, an independent punk and alternative label, and Thursday, a New Jersey-based post-hardcore band, called on Spotify to remove ICE ads from its platform in separate Instagram posts. Indivisible, a national progressive grassroots organization, also launched a campaign urging people to cancel their subscriptions to Spotify until ICE ads stopped airing. Even New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has weighed in, sending a formal letter to Spotify’s CEO warning that the ICE ads could pose reputational and financial risks for shareholders, which include the city’s pension funds as institutional investors.

Music is supposed to bring people together, not fund the systems that tear them apart.

Spotify would seem to agree, according to one statement of its values. It reads: “Inclusion and amplifying diverse voices is at the heart of everything we do—both within Spotify and in the communities where we live, work, and play. No matter where you come from, or what’s playing in your headphones, we want to create a place where you belong.” (The italics are mine.) According to Spotify’s advertising policies, the company prohibits ads that incite violence, that harass or attack marginalized communities, and that put people at risk of harm.

Claiming that it amplifies diverse voices while profiting from ICE recruitment ads is the type of hypocrisy that tech and media monopolies have normalized. As an opinion piece in The Guardian argues, big tech talks about ethics in public while benefiting from the opposite in private. Apple criticizes data-hungry platforms yet still accepts billions of dollars from Google to make it the default search engine for Apple computers. Spotify fits right into that pattern. Inclusive messaging on the front end, profit-first decisions on the back end.

As a communication designer, I believe that features, algorithms and ads are all design choices, and these communicate values.

Social media has the power to shape how we see and hear each other. It can reinforce marginalization, but it is also a perfect tool for challenging it. For example, algorithms decide whose voices get amplified and whose fade into the background. This means visibility isn’t neutral. We have seen this before with movements like #MeToo, where social platforms helped people share their stories and raise awareness, while also revealing how much control these systems have over who gets heard.

The Spotify forum is an example of how companies dodge accountability in quieter ways. A few users said that when they contacted customer support about the ICE ads, their chats were suddenly cut off or their emails were never answered. So while Spotify isn’t censoring public posts or hiding criticism through an algorithm, these private dismissals show how difficult it can be for users to get answers when their concerns challenge a company’s profits.

One user wrote, “It’s become painfully clear that Spotify doesn’t care about subscriber feedback on ethical matters like this. They care about ad revenue, and they are choosing to prioritize that revenue over the values of their users…Spotify has made their choice. Now it’s time to make ours.” Across Reddit and TikTok, I’ve seen people echo this same frustration by canceling their subscriptions and turning to other platforms whose values align better with their own.

I know many people avoid Apple Music because it’s tied to macOS, but when I tell people to switch over, I am not really talking about apps, but about awareness. It’s less about literally joining Apple Music and more about questioning the platforms we support and the systems they uphold.

A friend has described the ads as “an invasion of space.” And she is right. When our shared spaces become invaded and echo harmful messages, we have to ask who is designing them, and why. Because someone, somewhere, decided that recruiting more ICE officers was more important than respecting listeners who see the agents as hostile assailants.

Apple Music isn’t perfect. But if one app profits off oppression while the other just plays my music, the choice feels easy. As designers, we decide what values we amplify, and as listeners, we should too.