To be clear, this is not Spotify blocking small artists without a label getting on Spotify. This is about bands not being able to upload directly, requiring them to use any of the cheaply available distributors instead. This is mostly likely an anti-fraud / anti-copyright infringement / QA move.

There are still several services that "automagically" publish your music to several platforms at once.

Some are pretty affordable, like DITTOMUSIC

https://www.dittomusic.com/pricing

Thank you.

Any good alternatives?

Distrokid - https://distrokid.com

Have used it for over a year, works well, simple upload process, gets out to all the stores quickly, and annual fees are very reasonable.

And distrokid.com, not affiliated.

That's OK, they don't pay the small artists more than a pittance anyway. I canceled my subscription a while ago and started pirating music again. When I want to support a small artist, I buy their music on Bandcamp.

Why did you go back to pirating, instead of paying for albums? Could it be that you were only willing to give a pittance to begin with?

In the Spotify payment model, some artists make non-trivial amounts of money, and most make effectively no money. The listener doesn't choose which artists fall into which category.

I prefer to choose. If some artists that I listen to will be paid out of my $10/month contribution, I'd rather control that distribution of my $10 directly.

Spotify and the like generate pennies for artists because the record compnies part own it and have price fixed it to hell and back. The only significant profit comes from touring and merch sales. As a starving artist, pirate my shit, see my show. Nobody cares about plays except for getting distribution deals.

Why don't your support big artists as well?

I don't listen to them that much, and they don't need my support.