Sustainable Substitutes for Amazon Music

A music streaming service and digital music store with non-transparent algorithms.

amazon-music logo

Reasons to avoid Amazon Music

Avoid Amazon Music due to its invasive data collection, which tracks user listening habits, location and personal information for targeted advertising in Amazon’s broader ecosystem, as user data is often shared across services without transparent consent.

Amazon Music contributes to market monopolisation. It lacks transparency in its integration of AI generated music in its algorithms. Amazon's history of exploitative labour practices, tax avoidance and environmental harm from excessive packaging and e-waste make its music service an unethical choice.

To be fair, Amazon has better than average payout rates for artists, paying out twice as much as Spotify or YouTube Music according to reports.

Ethical and Sustainable Amazon Music Alternatives

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  • Feasibility: How easily can the average user switch to this substitute? Higher feasibility results in a higher ranking.
  • Editor's Rating: How sustainable is the substitute? The more sustainability attributes it fulfils, the higher it is ranked.

Qobuz

A French high-resolution, human-first music streaming service.

Qobuz offers an ad-free experience, providing a clean listening experience.
Qobuz is the first streaming service to publicly disclose and verify its average payout per stream, ensuring artists receive fair compensation.
Qobuz is based in France, ensuring compliance with GDPR and strong European privacy laws.
Qobuz actively labels and removes AI-generated and fraudulent tracks, protecting artists and the integrity of the platform.
Website

Ampwall

A platform for independent music by a public benefit company.

Ampwall does not welcome AI generated images and music on its platform. It will remove such content as soon as it's detected.
Artists only have to pay a yearly fee of $10, while 5% of all sales go to the payment processor (which is PayPal unfortunately).
Users don't have to pay to listen to music on Ampwall.
No registration is needed to listen to music on Ampwall.
Website

Deezer

A popular French music streaming service with a stance against AI generated music.

Deezer offers an ad-free experience for premium users, providing a clean listening experience.
Deezer actively labels and removes AI-generated and fraudulent tracks, protecting artists and the integrity of the platform.
Deezer is based in France, ensuring compliance with GDPR and strong European privacy laws.
Deezer offers a free, ad-supported tier, making music streaming accessible to all users.
Website

The 6 main issues with Amazon Music

Monopoly - Market dominance that stifles competition and limits user choice.

Using Amazon Music increases the vendor lock-in, making it harder to migrate away from Amazon's ecosystem.

Lack of Transparency - Opacity in operations, data handling, or supply chains, making it difficult for users to understand practices.

Amazon Music lacks transparency in the way its algorithms promote songs that might benefit the company's financials. Amazon generally has a questionable relationship with AI-generated music and copyrights.Sources:Heise: Streaming study: Remuneration models favor major artists (2025)The Verge: Amazon is blundering into an AI copyright nightmare (2025)

Big Tech - Big Tech companies do not nourish people and planet. This is especially true in times of political tension.

Amazon Music belongs to one of the largest tech companies, contributing to market monopolisation and wealth accumulation of oligarchs. NPR: How 5 Tech Giants Have Become More Like Governments Than Companies (2017)

Privacy Concerns - User data is likely to be stored and used against users' best interest.

Amazon collects vast amounts of user data, including listening habits, throughout its ecosystem and uses it for targeted advertisement. Recent data breaches amplify the concerns.Source: Heise: GDPR infringement: Luxembourg court confirms record fine for Amazon (2025)

Tax Avoidance - Aggressive strategies are being deployed to avoid paying taxes.

Amazon's tax strategies have been widely criticised for aggressive tax avoidance practices.Source:Wikipedia: Amazon tax avoidance

Support of Authoritarian Regimes - Companies actively supporting, financing and legitimising regimes and unethical policies.

Amazon and Jeff Bezos support Donald Trump's agenda.Source: EthicalConsumer.org: The relationship between Amazon and Trump: profiting from power (2025)

Suggestions and Feedback

If you have suggestions for more alternatives or general feedback, please contact me via email or create an issue over on Codeberg. Suggest Substitute on Codeberg Write an Email