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.
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I thought we were already boycotting this shit
Funny enough, for local downloads of video game OSTs (which I like way too much), I’ve been recently turning to Steam of all things. Often cheaper than Bandcamp and DRM-free!
What’s up with the cool startup names recently? First Palantir the fortune teller ball, now Helsing the vampire hunter? Fuck yeah, who doesn’t invest in these? /s
thiel has an obsession with lotr, so he named all his evil companies after various lotr themes.
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.
Being able to upload to Google Play Music was such a great feature. Honestly though, maybe it’s best that they killed it when they did. That way it can live on in memory as the example of what a music streaming service should be like… instead of becoming an enshittified zombie like spotify is today.
Helsing supplies Ukraine which is defending itself in accord with international law and the UN Charter. An attacked nation defending itself against Russian aggression. Nothing wrong with that. Basically the opposite of Russian Z-fascism.
Yeah, it seems they also didn’t mention that it’s a European defense company, not a US defense company.
Europe is investing a lot into defense now and it’s actually a good thing that they’re moving away from dependence on the US defense industrial complex.
Spotify sucks tho. But that’s a separate thing.
Clickbait article.
I empathize with the sentiment and agree with the argument that Europe should invest in its own defense infrastructure, particularly if Putin is gearing up to make a move.
That being said, Im increasingly wary of Europe’s willingness to appease Trump, and find it probable that, if right-wing parties continue making political gains, this same infrastructure will be turned against marginalized communities in these same countries; in a similar vein to the U.S regime’s attacks against immigrants and dissenters.
Again, I’m not opposed to re-armament, but I hope EU citizens exercise more vigilance and skepticism in this era of resurging nationalism and protectionism.
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Everyone knows what Trump is. Trump is demanding an increase in military spending with the expectation that the money will go to the US. He’s basically demanding tribute.
Saying “sure we’ll spend more on defense” while spending on our own defense industry is calling his bluff while also getting ready for if and when he starts using the US military to bully allies.
Nobody else in the world needs to be lectured about the problems with the US military industrial complex. We know.
Sharing my thoughts isnt lecturing. Sit down and stop being condescending.
“Sit down and stop being condescending.” – someone that doesn’t lecture people
A lot of money being invested in Euro defense right now.
I can’t speak for how viable it is for success or whether it’s just a grift (as I haven’t had the time to really research into it) but feels like as good a time as any to mention that, out in Australia, The Pack Music Cooperative is fundraising for a cooperative music streaming service: https://www.thepackaustralia.com.au/
They haven’t raised a lot towards their goal, yet, and could probably use an the help they can get. As a cooperative, they’ll side step a lot of the probably problems a corporation like Spotify or Tidal will have and they already are dedicated to prioritizing artists and their rights.
Jokes on them, I moved to CD and love it
Got 80GB of music on my phone, tried Spotify once, it was all live versions…
damn people are just learning that spotify is a shitty pro fascist/pro white supremacist company?
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.
Probably. Rashism is real.
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.
That’s a dog’s breakfast of anti-communist slander you’ve gobbled up, Mr. Adultman. This is the garbage they taught in West Germany? I guess that’s one of the consequences of Stalin stopping at Berlin.
West Germany
Oh wow. Looks like you fell into a time warp, comrade. No spoilers but it’ll all get better in 1953. But stay away from Moscow in March.
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.
I boycotted them a long time ago when I found out they donated to Trump’s campaign, despite being a Swedish company.
i boycotted them when i found out they streamed drm-protected lock-in music back then, and charged us a subscription for it.
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.
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
“The land of the free”
Not to mention giving 100s of millions of dollars to fund Joe Rogan and his extreme right-wing propaganda.
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.
Spotify CEO also donated millions to trump campaign.
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.
“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.
You’re not wrong. There are lots of holier-than-thou types around here.
And they are all correct.
😎 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. 🎶
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.
Most of those are lesser evils compared to X, and that’s probably the best you can hope for. And Bluesky is the obvious alternative lesser evil choice if you want a like for like replacement and aren’t open to Mastodon.
Oh you were talking about social media. I was talking about music services.
Fair enough then. I agree there is no excuse to still use X
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.
I thought it was clear from context I was talking about X.
Oh shit, my bad. Yeah, hard agree there
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.
Laziness doesn’t exist. Everyone has their own struggles and it’s pretty fucked up to judge someone because they don’t choose to put their limited energy toward overcoming the obstacles that you take you’ve taken for granted having the ability to overcome. We should be encouraging curiosity and exploration, not demonizing people who got left behind and are too scared to try new things.
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?
“Said one user on X.”
