The practice described in TFA aligns with their union busting and they are fundamentally a politically activist organisation rather than a business trying to serve a market. Piratbyrån, which started the Pirate Bay, was a rather socialist project, and Spotify did basically the same thing but as reactionary activism that subsequently was accepted by the entertainment industry elites.
If you enjoy background noise, just go for some web radio, there are tens of thousands of channels, many ad free. When you hear an artist you like there's a good chance they're on Bandcamp so you go there and give them ten bucks. Try Transistor in F-Droid for example.
Unless, of course, you support the politics Spotify represent. Then your monthly fee is a more direct donation than going through a political party that will then use state bureaucracy and so on to funnel money and power from work to owners.