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.
I stopped using Spotify long ago because of their shitty business practices. Producing a product they killed support for within just a couple years without reimbursing customers and producing huge amounts of e-waste. Jacking their subscription prices twice in one year. Apparently, they also donated to Trump despite not being an American company?? That’s to say nothing of their shitty recommendation algorithm, which just plays your most played tracks over and over. Good riddance.
For those interested, I use Tidal now. I’m satisfied with, their recommendation algo is fine and the higher quality streaming is really nice but nothing I’ve used has ever been as good as Google Play Music, I found so much good music though that service and could upload whatever I was missing. Once Tidal inevitably pisses me off, I’m going to move on to self hosting.
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.
What are the Spotify alternatives people recommend?
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.
Qobuz is great. It’s a french company, they pay the artists well and the music is in high quality
Napster, bearshare
Funkwhale
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.
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.
Who’s calling for that boycott? Putin?
Respect for the true pacifists out there, but investing in EU-based defense industry is hardly questionable by ordinary standards.
Europe used the specter of Russia to justify it’s dive into militant fascism the last time too.
False. Western Europe increased arms spending in response to German aggression. Germany increased arms spending… well.
Germany, famously not part of Europe.
Germany increased arms spending… well.
Well what? The specter of Russia was a huge part of how Germany justified it’s fascism.
Just like now.
False.
Germany built up it’s army in preparation for attacking the rest of Europe. Adults usually know this. Sorry if I have misjudged your age.
Germany and Soviet Russia were allies and cooperated in the attack on Poland. This only fell apart when Hitler betrayed Stalin by invading the Soviet Union.
It is said that in all his life, Stalin only ever trusted one person: Adolf Hitler. When German communists conscripted into the Wehrmacht defected in the night before the attack, to bring warning to the Soviet Union, Stalin had them shot. The last supply train carrying grain for Nazi Germany crossed the border less than 2 hours before the launch.
It is said that in all his life, Stalin only ever trusted one person: Adolf Hitler.
It must be so easy being a right winger: you can just make up any old bullshit off the top of your head and apparently people will believe you.
Out of every company I would have never expected Spotify to be one of the ones to want that
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.
It is possible to get off Spotify.
What you can’t buy legitimately via other means you can use a Youtube-To-MP3 converter to rip and add the file to your music library.
it will always be and has always been about money
I’m doing my part!
We all know that scene in Robo Cop 2 is going to happen eventually.
Must be so nice to be so privileged as to be spoiled for choice on which fascist to support.
Spotify is the only streaming service available worldwide other than YouTube Music and Apple.
So for a lot of people it is either piracy or supporting a US tech megacorporation. Tidal, Qobuz, deezer. Cool, nice that they exist options. But most people in the planet would have to also pay a VPN and hope to not get their account banned if they want to use some of those alternatives.
It’s funny really, to see how the “fascist option” for some is actually the most ethical for others.
There’s always piracy of course, I suppose that is the only morally correct option always.
Yarr
Is there a p2p music streaming platform yet?
It requires a bit more effort but Soulseek has been around for years. I build my own music library from P2P or buying on Bandcamp. It all goes on my NAS and I stream it via Plexamp. I have my own library, my fiance’s, a few friend’s on there. I’m pushing 10k albums at this point.
I know I used to have an adblocked version of Spotify on my phone for convenience sake but I think they finally caught on and killed that. The AUR version still works for me however. I haven’t had a Spotify subscription since probably like 2018.
Based. We need to fund european military technology in preparation of a Russian attack on sacred Western European soil.
