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.
Been thinking of booting them for a whilst. Just cancelled. Better late than never.
Yeah - been talking about doing so for quite a long time, and then signing up to a Qobuz family plan, downloading all their apps, and cancelling everything Spotify has taken all of five minutes. Hardly even interrupted the album we were listening to via Chromecast. There’s a lesson to be learned somewhere.
Qobuz’ recommendations and albums-of-the-week actually look good, too. Like an actual music enthusiast has picked things out, rather than Spotify’s slop.
Same story here. I cancelled Spotify after the whole Trump thing and switched to Qobuz; the whole thing was pretty seamless. I’ve got to say, the increased quality is actually noticeable and, as you said, the curated selections actually seem to be, well, curated. Also, if you’ve got a load of playlists on Spotify you want to keep, Qobuz actually provides subscribers with free access to a migartion service that did a superb job.
I switched to Tidal and love it.
I think that’s the worry. Do I have to start again. Will my stuff be disrupted. Spotify has counted on me sleepwalking though with them and not moving because of this fear. They have had enough of my money.
I had to laugh at the leaving page “if you leave me now you’ll take away the biggest part of me”. Spotify is not a human and I’ll take my money. They need to get lost with the emotive marketing, Spotify and the CEOs actions speak louder.
My hard earned money and who I spend it with is one of my biggest voices in my world.
it will always be and has always been about money
Spotify CEO also donated millions to trump campaign.
Out of every company I would have never expected Spotify to be one of the ones to want that
“Said one user on X.”
I’m doing my part!
I boycotted them a long time ago when I found out they donated to Trump’s campaign, despite being a Swedish company.
Been off Spotify since they have Rogan his platform, which contributed to Trump also.
Wow didn’t know that.
I also newly started boycotting them for the same reasons. Plus they don’t give enough to the musicians, and support AI music.
Not to mention giving 100s of millions of dollars to fund Joe Rogan and his extreme right-wing propaganda.
Highly illegal.
It’s legal through a US subsidiary if the funds come from US operations. The morality is questionable though
when due process is completely ignored, then you can be pretty sure that “legal” has no meaning anymore. especially seeing as how the people who are supposed to be enforcing these “laws” are the ones who are ignoring them
Honey this is America, anything is legal if you got the money
thats when i cancelled as well. this guy seems like such a fucknut
Same, took some legwork to get files for my 700-song library, but we did it. Fuck 'em.
Always worth keeping in mind that these fuckers are selling snake oil to one another under the guise of national security.
This technology is dangerous not because it works as advertised but because it creates a vacuum of responsibility for when the very manual killing starts
Israel’s Lavender AI is a great example of this in action. It doesn’t work in any meaningful way. All it does is label casualties in a bombing run as “terrorists” after the fact.
“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.
You shouldn’t be “paying for a fuckass app that works worse than it did 10 years ago” regardless of anything an executive has done. Be less lazy and cancel subscriptions to shitty services.
Also, if a CEO doing a bad thing is a dealbreaker for them, why the fuck are they on twitter?.
I think one of the most toxic things on Lemmy is the prevalence of judging normies for using incredibly popular services and ascribing it to a character defect instead of life just being too complex for most people to be able to prioritize exploring more ethical technology choices.
😎 If you’re not compiling your own kernel 🏋🏼♂️ you’re missing out on substantial gains 💪🏼. Just drink a little Nix shake in the morning 🤙🏼, then hit your favorite systemd alternative GitHub pages and pull the nightly 🤘🏼. You’ll be so swole bro, you’ll be Godify. 🎶
No… It’s just laziness let’s not sugar coat it. You have the wealth of human knowledge in your pocket, knowledge of how to do absolutely anything and everything for free on a silver platter, all you have to do is prioritize exploring ethical technology choices. Complexity of the problem itself is not a good excuse to not learning to solve it as it continues to become a bigger problem.
You’re not wrong. There are lots of holier-than-thou types around here.
Agreed, most comments are miserable, toxic, old man yells at cloud, energy. More and more, so.
I get where you’re coming from, but it’s not like there aren’t multiple obvious alternatives (and not just on the fediverse). And someone being clued in enough to boycott Spotify should have no trouble finding those alternatives. Additionally, the platform being owned by an outright Nazi should give even the most out of touch people pause.
But agreed that people could stand to be a bit more tactful about it and not immediately go on the attack.
So what is there for normies? YouTube which is also owned by a fascist company. Deezer which is shit. Apple which is another fascist company that supports trump. Tidal which has also had its fair share of controversy ( not paying artists), shit ui etc.
And if you mention the fediverse people will look at you like you speak an alien language.
Additionally, the platform being owned by an outright Nazi should give even the most out of touch people pause.
How is Daniel Ek a nazi? That’s a wild take if I’ve ever heard one.
Be less lazy
“Damn this sucks, I’m doing the thing”
“Hey you lazy stupid fuck, go back in time and do it sooner”
Why is the Internet like this?
Dude, you should have stopped using Spotify when they let Joe Rogan on their platform… or when they started hosting fake music.
Or because they pay artist way less than any one else, while having lower quality audio.
I’m learning more and more everyday, that essentially all companies worldwide are evil. Because profit and money are what is most important to humans, I 100% want all of humanity to self-terminate and give this planet back to the few species that we didn’t already wipe out! We are a nightmare species. I fear humans more than anything else in life. We are the enemy of this planet.
Seeking profit above all else isn’t human nature. Humans have lived and still live in societies that don’t do this. The socioeconomic system that we find ourselves in currently in a large part of the world does put profit above all else. But this system is just one iteration of how we live. And even it has changed over time where it has gotten worse over the last 50 years. It too would change and likely be replaced by another in the long run. Many believe that would be some form of socialism. Or we could go largely extinct before we abandon it. A better world is possible though.
Great idea! You first, I’ll totally be right behind
It is a great idea. And perhaps you are so disturbed as to reply with this snarkyness, because deep down you know it to be true. We are the ultimate creeping Mold on this rotting ball of hot sewage. We did this to the planet. Fuck humans, we all need to go extinct.
Totally agree. Just have someone let me know when you’ve done it. Maybe we could set up a chain or something. You start, have someone that knows notify me, and then I notify the next person.
Now go on and start the change you want to see 🌠
What are the Spotify alternatives people recommend?
I jumped to Tidal many years ago because Spotify could not be bothered to provide high quality output. Yes, you can ear the difference, even on shitty gear.
For the stuff I could not get on either platform I started buying CDs on Discogs and ripping them to FLAC.
Edit: ear, not eat.
Qobuz is great. It’s a french company, they pay the artists well and the music is in high quality
This is where I’d have recommended deezer, but they shit the bed on their mobile app.
+1 for tidal
Apple music believe it or not. Nice selection and interface. Works on Apple devices as well as android. Has a high bitrate and supports aptx on android. Don’t think they have a native app for windows or Linux, though, so you’d have to use the web version.
IIRC Tidal and Qobuz should be good alternatives
Thanks.
I was talking to my wife this morning about this thread and the Qobuz recommendation was just what she needed to replace and cancel Spotify. She was able to import her playlists from her Spotify account and she’s been commenting for the past couple hours about how much better the audio quality is.
Qoobuz had the most horrific app I’ve ever experienced.
Couldn’t even search a song in a playlist bad.
I feel it’s been getting better. Like, it isn’t perfectly smooth, but I like what I get on the Frontpage way more than what I did with Spotify.
Qobuz
If you’re technically inclined, self-host navidrome or jellyfin.
If you just want music and don’t care about the streaming part, bandcamp (although it does have some basic streaming I believe.
If you want streaming and aren’t technically inclined, Tidal.
Tidal is cheaper and better quality, Deezer is good, too.
I have been using Deezer because it was local for me, France. At the beginning you could upload your own collection to share with others, it was fun. Now it’s basically the same as the others, I think it pays artists a little bit more than Spotify. Also just learned that it is now majorly owned by some US investment fund. 🫠 At least it’s not directly funding terminators yet?
Napster, bearshare
Funkwhale
There are lots of reasons to boycott Spotify and call out Ek for being a fascism enabler but this is not one. Helsing is a promising project that could give Europe the edge in the face of Russian imperialist aggression. If anything, we need more companies shaking up the crusty MIC. They also provide important military aid to Ukraine.
The Germans can surely be trusted with AI murder tech.
The best time to start boycotting was when they started platforming a conspiracy theorising, testicle headed manosphere peddler. The next best time is not I suppose.
You’re way to late then too. The perfect time to act on this was back in Iraq with that prince dick head with xi.
Also we all should have taken a harder stance at celebrity using these private security companies. Drake’s in Toronto blocking roads so he can get all 16 armored cars on to the 401.
Lots of people really defend the stuff by saying “look how much money they bring to the city, we can ignore it” but at the end of the day, it’s growing a new industry. I don’t get why we don’t call it out more like these fucks need to wait in traffic like the rest of us. I don’t care who they are or how much money they make. Roads are a public space and shared by everyone equally.
