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As the year comes to a close and holiday memorabilia begins to speckle storefronts and front lawns, there is one thing uniting 713 million people across the globe, regardless of their celebrative preference: the highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped. There is nothing like an intensive assortment of music data to base my personality on for the last few weeks of the year, and millions of others feel the exact same way. The 2025 Spotify Wrapped broke records, with the streaming platform attracting roughly 250 million engaged users in less than three days; for reference, that took over a week to accomplish in 2024. And what do people do after being psycho-analyzed by a major data company? Share their results online, of course. Posts regarding Spotify Wrapped were shared over 500 million times in 2025, 41% higher than last year. From an approximated “listening age” to personalized playlist “files,” users across the globe exchanged their listening habits with friends and strangers alike, flooding Instagram and Snapchat with endless stories of their “Top 5 Artists” and “Top 5 Songs,” which absolutely no one but themselves truly cared about. But I can’t blame them. I think it’s hilarious Spotify filed my music taste under “angst relay, playlist mosaic,” whatever that means.

But these are just engagement statistics. They don’t reflect user satisfaction.

The Wrapped brings the same discourse every year: thousands of people taking to social media not just to share their results, but to complain about the disappointing inaccuracy. And in-app data discrepancies have been an ongoing issue for the platform for years. I remember the golden age of Spotify–flawlessly curated playlists, an accurate Release Radar, a true shuffle. These were the things that attracted me to the app and convinced me to pay for music I could listen to for free elsewhere. And the Wrapped? Well, that was almost as fun as Christmas. The app had so much to offer, and it was centered around user personalization. Analyzing our specific music interests and listening habits to create a fully customizable experience that separates the platform from its competitors. I mean, it’s the top music app in the world for a reason.

But now the app is just riddled with flaws. The Wrapped itself is skewed because the app’s method of collecting data is skewed. The Spotify algorithm is too precise for its own good. Say a user listens to a song for about 30 seconds and decides to skip it. That gets logged into their Spotify data. Or say a random artist plays twice in their Release Radar–a playlist made by Spotify, not the user. That artist gets logged into the user’s data. If a song grazes your listening activity, it gets recorded and remembered. That random artist now has an entire playlist inspired by their music, and that song the user skipped will plague their suggestions for months. Me, for example? Well, I’m a bit of a metalhead, but alternative music is mainly my scene. I made the mistake of listening to 1 (count it, ONE) Big Time Rush song out of pure nostalgia. Now, Spotify has crafted a playlist inspired by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Justin Bieber–none of whom I have listened to once–because the app thinks I like a side of upbeat pop with my hardcore screamo music.

And this flawed data seeps its way into the Spotify Wrapped records. The app thinks the user likes this music and shuffles it in, and anyone who knows Spotify knows their shuffle is inauthentic. For one, the platform shuffles music almost in the same order every time; I’m actually able to predict which song is going to play next, just the same as if I had the shuffle off. And two, Spotify is so eager to give you what it thinks you want that it will just play songs you listen to more often. I’ve noticed the same song plays two or three times before the playlist has even concluded. The app thinks I want to hear that song because I don’t skip it fast enough, and it infiltrates my data; of course, that wouldn’t matter much anyway because Spotify doesn’t really track skips.

It’s really just a snake eating its own tail at this point. The platform is recording data that it is pushing in front of the user. To an extent, yes, some of the information comes from us. I did listen to “Nothing Even Matters” by BTR; that does not mean I want twelve Taylor Swift songs shoved down my throat. Spotify is feeding users content that they don’t even want and demanding praise for the meal. I was discussing this with an Apple Music user, and they told me, “Well, just don’t listen to the playlists Spotify makes you.” Sure, but why do I have to avoid content that an app centered around user personalization makes for me?

These inaccuracies aren’t enough of a deterrent to drive users away, of course. I’m still here, and so are over 700 million others. I’m still going to be counting down the days until the Wrapped release like my room is Times Square on New Year's Eve. It would just be nice to go into the event trusting my data instead of having to defend the curveballs in my slideshow to my friends. Accuracy is the promise, but fallacies are the deliverables. So, it’s time to wrap it up, Spotify. I shouldn’t have to pay for the sin of listening to a boy band once.