Spotify, the world’s leading music streaming platform, is facing intense criticism and boycott calls following CEO Daniel Ek’s announcement of a €600m ($702m) investment in Helsing, a German defence startup specialising in AI-powered combat drones and military software.
The move, announced on 17 June, has sparked widespread outrage from musicians, activists and social media users who accuse Ek of funnelling profits from music streaming into the military industry.
Many have started calling on users to cancel their subscriptions to the service.
“Finally cancelling my Spotify subscription – why am I paying for a fuckass app that works worse than it did 10 years ago, while their CEO spends all my money on technofascist military fantasies?” said one user on X.
All those musicians singing about love and peace are indirectly supporting the war. How fucked up is that?
Favorite spotify alternatives?
Qobuz is a good one!
shouldve boycotted the moment they housed joe rogan on the platform.
How about just boycott it because it’s terrible for artists? It pays four tenths of a tenth of a cent per stream ($0.004), while raking in billions of profit each year.
Spotify’s whole business model is exploitation.
Listen to music on whatever service, then if you like the artists music - buy the album, or the track / single. Sure, you may support fewer artists this way, but each artist gets paid literally 2500 times as much (album averages 9.99).
It pays four tenths of a tenth of a cent per stream ($0.004), while raking in billions of profit each year.
I think you’re confusing Spotify with Apple or Google, just last year:
Spotify Just Turned an Annual Profit for the First Time Ever
This is the same year it paid out
its collective payments to the music industry for 2024 totaled $10 billion.
10 billion in a single year, not bad for a business model that’s “exploitation”
One of the things people struggle to understand is that it’s not the 70’s anymore, there is more music being uploaded every minute that you can listen to in a year, this has a diluting effect on the value of the thing being uploaded
On top of this piracy which is what Spotify is competing against, like the true cheapskates who don’t care about artists at all and simply rip youtube videos don’t pay artists a cent (or $15 a month, 70% of which goes to the music industry)
Listen to music on whatever service, then if you like the artists music - buy the album, or the track / single. Sure, you may support fewer artists this way, but each artist gets paid literally 2500 times as much (album averages 9.99).
I do agree with this though
Didn’t confuse them with anyone, they put out a quarterly report as all publicly-traded companies do, and they’re on track to do over $2 billion in profit this year ($17b revenue).
What I didn’t go into depths to describe is that the vast majority of their money goes to big labels and several big artists they have less-favourable (to Spotify) contracts with, because those big labels and artists know they can pressure Spotify to get a bigger slice.
So, they continue to give most artists, especially small/new artists next to nothing, exploiting them.
Nothing I said is innacurate IMO.
Quarterly earnings and projections for 2025: https://musically.com/2025/04/29/spotify-q1-2025-financial-results-reveal-it-now-has-268m-paid-subscribers/ (And as you said they already turned a profit last year, which was over a billion).
What I didn’t go into depths to describe is that the vast majority of their money goes to big labels and several big artists
Yes, that’s how the algo works, unfortunately most people have no taste in music, if the people suddenly decide that avant garde orchestral metal is popular, then those artists will make more money as their plays and share of the pie goes up
So, they continue to give most artists, especially small/new artists next to nothing, exploiting them.
Welcome to the music industry ;)
Published June 14, 2000 7:02PM (EDT)
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
That said this is a very specific argument to make, you said
Spotify’s whole business model is exploitation.
Now you’re saying, yes many people make lots of money and I saw no disagreement that the music industry raking in 10 billion in a year benefits from Spotify BUT new and non-popular artists find it tough to make money and that’s exploitation
In 2024, More Music Is Released in a Single Day Now Than in All of 1989
The algorithm is simple, the more listens you get, the bigger the pie you have, the more you get paid.
The reality is that small/new artists are now competing in a field that is flooded, it’s hard to complain of exploitation if you are simply trying to swim in an ocean and finding it difficult
It sucks but this is life in the 21st century with computers, it’s also not going to get better with AI allowing people who can’t work photoshop to make pictures and people who can’t work logic pro to make music
I also give Spotify credit for music discovery: https://aussie.zone/post/19441027/16055498
It has never been easier for people to go outside the box and discover new music, it’s just a shame most people don’t
said one user on X.
The irony.
At least it’s German… I guess. Any alternatives that I can download onto my Xbox?
Idk about Xbox but deezer works in a browser
Similar interface? Any ads or anything (don’t have premium so that’s an upgrade)? Easy enough to use? Can I make a 6k song playlist?
Its pretty much a clone, but faster / more responsive. Good dynamic playlists. Free version has ads. https://www.deezer.com/en/offers/free
You can make and migrate your playlists, but you have to use their cross sign in api. I would prefer CSV or json export import myself.
Oh it also has lyrics in most apps. I actually like it better and wish I had signed up sooner instead of fucking with Pandora for so long
@cm0002 enshittify
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