I was shocked to learn that Spotify was headquartered in Sweden. Until I read about Spotify and their CEO I had assumed they were based in America because to me they were just like all the other big tech companies in terms of lack of morals and ethics.
Spotify has a deal with Joe Rogan worth up to $250 million according to an article published in Variety. This was the deal that was signed in 2024. They’ve previously given Joe Rogan other very lucrative deals giving Rogan a massive platform and funding to spread disinformation, propaganda and lies and don’t forget things like saying the N word.
So by using Spotify you’re funding Joe Rogan who as we all know is based in America.
But that’s not the only way your money was used to support the far-right in America. Spotify donated to Trump’s inauguration. Do you want your money being used to bribe Trump?
In addition Spotify has also garnered controversy for allowing ICE recruitment ads and is already being boycotted by groups such as Indivisible.
Also let’s talk about Daniel Ek who was until recently their CEO but will still be very involved with Spotify. Was he born in Sweden? Yes. But what are his values like? Are they different from American billionaires? “Daniel Ek warns Sweden that Spotify may be forced to grow elsewhere” hmmmm… I kind of having a feeling that might be a no.
Another thing is I researched how many employees Spotify has in each country and multiple websites such as this one claimed they have the most in the United States. At the end of the day how much of a European company is Spotify if they just have their headquartes in Sweden and is from what I’ve read mostly used for executives and operations?
You know what they say “if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”. I personally don’t see any reason for treating Spotify different from all the US-based big tech companies but I’ll admit at the end of the day it is true they are headquartered in the EU so I propose a compromise: use Spotify as much as you like as long as you’re using the free version and using the website (not the app which has more ability to collect data and track you) with an ad blocker such as uBlock Origin. Cancel your subscriptions. When you cancel mention that you don’t like your money being used to fund disinformation via paying Joe Rogan so much money.
I’ve switched to Tidal a few months ago when Spotify increased prices. Mainly for reasons like this. I wouldn’t recommend them here, though. It’s an US company and for some reason the majority owner is some financial technology company since a few years. But we certainly do have alternatives to Spotify and those services work just fine.
I switched to Tidal a year ago because Spotify kept recommending Joe Rogan and Trump/Musk podcasts and there was no way to opt out. First I tested Deezer and Qobuz but unfortunately didn’t like them. Tidal is a US company but they’re way less unethical than Spotify and their service is much better IMO.
I’ve had other people tell me that as well. Somehow I’ve been exempt. Maybe because I occasionally listen to punk and proper antifascist music and maybe the algorithm picked up on it? But I’m using a separate podcast app anyway, because I never liked how Spotify tries to centralize podcasting. So I can’t really make a statement how this turns out for podcasts.
I’m fine with Tidal as well. Seems the search function sometimes sucks. It has the same amount of useful music, most just carried over. I got one artist who isn’t on Tidal, but in turn I can listen to a different one again, who quit Spotify… And the recommendations algorithm is still trying to home in on my taste, which isn’t easy. Spotify was never able to do a good job at recommending new music to me.
I listen mostly to electronic music, especially house, and I never listened to a single podcast on Spotify, so no idea why it started pushing those far-right podcasts!
I find the recommendations on Tidal and Spotify to be pretty different from each other, but one isn’t necessarily better than the other. Spotify will recommend dozens of tracks that sound almost identical to one I like, while Tidal suggestions are broader as they pull from related subgenres.
Weird. Yes. seems to be the same for me with the recommendations. I currently enjoy the different approach… Though, I listen to things ranging from The wheels on the bus go round and round, to Dubstep, death metal, summer of 69, old-school hip-hop, death metal, punk, punkrock, Irish traditionals or weird banjo music. Loads of pirate metal… Just rarely mainstream pop. I figured Spotify just gave up at some point and rolled dice with a lot of the same stuff pulled from my playlists. Which wasn’t great because I love discovering new music. And I don’t just enjoy any random music from genres I like… We’ll see where this is going with Tidal, I didn’t have too much time in the last few weeks to listen to music so it probably still needs to figure out what I do. So far it’s not half bad.
Tidal was bought by Jay-Z. It’s no longer European. There’s a short documentary about it on youtube. (or you can just read the wikipedia article).
I think for people wanting to switch off Spotify, but stay with something European, Qobuz could be worth a look as they are from France and have similar focus on better audio quality similar to tidal.
I tried Qobuz, but the lack of the Finnish music was disappointing me. I mainly listen to the older rock and pop music.
That is sad to hear and based on the other replies it seems not too uncommon that something niche is missing.
Imo it’s really fascinating how music streaming is different in that regard compared to video streaming. Where more people are just happy with whatever e.g. Netflix offers them and don’t seem to mind too much, if one particular thing isn’t on their service.
But I guess the fact that in regards to music everyone has a slightly different taste and each one really wants that particular, different niche artist is what so far has prevented a similar fragmentation of services happening as we see with video.
Long time Spotify subscriber who started using Qobuz when I found out Spotify was playing ICE recruitment ads. Having a hard time with the selection of music. I think Qobuz has a little over 100 million tracks and Spotify has 260 million. The sound quality on Qobuz is off the charts though. Hoping to download my Spotify library and set up a self-hosted alternative soon.
Have you found the smaller selection to be an issue in practice? Because most of what’s on Spotify never gets played, so the raw numbers without context don’t really give an answer to how good the selection is.
Since Anna’s archive recently downloaded most of Spotify we got some context to the statistics. See for example here. Only a fraction of those 260 million get listened to. And the number alone doesn’t tell how many of the actually relevant tracks are on a streaming service.
Yes. I listen primarily to electronic music, a decent amount of it is from lesser-known artists, and I regularly find tracks I really like that Spotify has and Qobuz doesn’t. Most recently Certified by EAZYBAKED.
I am in a similar situation as the one you’re asking here and I have sadly found Qobuz’s selection too lacking in practice for me to use it which is a real shame because there’s a lot to like about it. For example, attempting to import my favourite songs playlist from Spotify or Apple Music to Qobuz resulted in only ~60% being carried over. The majority of my missing songs were from a large variety of japanese artists or very niche genres like beatboxing, so I think most people would find their selection perfectly fine.
Based on the other replies it seems indeed like niche genres and non English music seems to be a weak spot, which really is unfortunate. Only 60% success rate in your case is indeed a deal breaker.