I knew it was trouble when my “Taylor Swift” Spotify search pulled up surprisingly few results.

One of my roommates and I had just been talking about how hard it was to find Swift’s new album, “1989,” anywhere on the Internet. Many of the lyric videos of Swift’s new songs have been removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement.  Then there was the Wall Street Journal op-ed in July where she said, “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.”

The moment I knew I could no longer find any of Swift’s songs on Spotify, I had a feeling they wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon.

Sure enough, on Monday Spotify announced that Swift had cut ties from the popular music-streaming service, taking all of her music down from the site.

I agree that artists deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. But in this day and age, with so many ways for people to download music, it is not that simple. It is not realistic to expect all users to pay for all the music they listen to.

Before the Internet revolutionized music-sharing, people did not have the luxury of having multiple ways to share music files. While people could listen to music on the radio, via music videos on MTV or on a CD player, the only way for people to transfer music was though a physical medium, such as a CD.

Now, through the rise of music-streaming sites such as Spotify, YouTube, Rhapsody and Beats Music, everything has changed. Songs can be played instantaneously, and more frequently than ever before. Before she pulled her music from Spotify, 16 million users had listened to Swift’s songs in the last 30 days. 

Should Swift be paid the same amount for each of these unique listens as she would be if someone forked over the $1.29 to buy the song on iTunes? I don’t think so. Artists may create music, but they still need mediums for people to be able to listen and share their music. If these mediums can be more cheaply and easily produced than they were in the past, and they are part of the process that gets the art to the consumer, then shouldn’t the price of music be cheaper?

Taylor Swift also is not some indie artist who needs every penny she can get just to be able to continue to make music. It’s curious as to why Swift decided now was the time to cut ties with Spotify.

 “Shake it Off” was released on Spotify shortly after the single was released at the end of August. If this was something that Swift firmly believed in, why did she continue to support Spotify just a few short months ago?

Rolling Stone hinted at the possibility that the decision, which was made by Swift’s record label, Big Machine Music, had something to do with the fact that the label is about to potentially be sold, based on information from an inside source. The label’s founder, Scott Borchetta, could be pulling Swift’s music from Spotify to sell more albums, and thus increase the label’s value before the sale. If this is true, Big Machine Music is trying to get more money, but it has nothing to do with supporting all artists.

Swift is trying to launch a noble crusade, but in reality, she is only doing something that really, only a superstar like herself can do. With music becoming increasingly easier to stream, getting paid for every single listen is something that is just not possible in today’s world.

Rather than shut out Spotify completely, if Swift truly cares about all artists being paid for her work, she should work harder to work with, and not against Spotify. Music-streaming services are not going anywhere anytime soon, so I don’t think that Swift will be saying “we are never, ever getting back together” to Spotify.