I Deleted Spotify and Time-Traveled to 2005

If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d be downloading music again and organizing playlists like it was 2005, I’d have laughed and asked if my Myspace profile was still up too.
And yet, here I am in 2025, holding a refurbished iPod like it’s a holy relic. It’s got a new battery, its storage runs on an SD card instead of a hard drive, and it’s not even running Apple software anymore. Nope. It’s using an open-source program called Rockbox that cuts every last tie to iTunes or Apple. I can buy music online, drag it into folders, and boom, it’s on my iPod. No cloud, no subscription, no algorithm.

Why? Oh, I’ve got my reasons.

1. Spotify broke my brain.
It gave me endless music, but somehow I stopped really listening. I was always chasing something new, skipping around from one “related artist” to another like a caffeinated goldfish. Songs I loved just floated by, liked, saved, forgotten. Nothing stuck. But when I listen to music I own, on a device that’s not connected to the internet, I have to live with it. Sit in it. Really enjoy it.

2. I hate being spied on.
Every app these days wants to know everything, where you are, what you’re doing, what you had for breakfast, and who you DM’d about it. And yes, I know how that sounds, like I’m one tin-foil accessory away from a conspiracy convention, but it’s still true. Companies track everything. Spotify’s no different. My iPod, though? It doesn’t even know the internet exists. It’s gloriously off-grid. Just me and my music.

3. It’s just cool.
There’s something about scrolling that click wheel, hearing the tiny “tck-tck-tck” of navigation, plugging in wired headphones, and hearing your music the way you chose it. It’s tactile, deliberate, satisfying.

But here’s the thing, it didn’t have to turn out like this. I remember when Facebook, Netflix, and Spotify felt exciting, full of promise. Facebook was supposed to be our digital scrapbook. Netflix, the endless movie library. Spotify, the great music archive.

Instead, we got… ads, subscriptions, and tracking. Facebook turned into a junkyard of clickbait and chaos. Netflix got swallowed by a dozen streaming clones, all charging twenty bucks a month. Spotify built an empire and somehow forgot to pay the artists fairly. The bright digital future we were promised ended up feeling more like a Black Mirror rerun.

So, I’m stepping off the ride. I’m building my own little media world again. Buying music. Buying DVDs. Real books, not Kindle files. And instead of living on social media, I’m posting my work and thoughts here, on my own site, no algorithms attached.

Maybe it’s old-fashioned. Maybe it’s weird. But it feels good. Real. Mine.

So if you need me, I’ll be at my desk, putting together another playlist, wired headphones in, world tuned out, and completely content.

Till next time… keep it analog, my friends.