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.
You must log in or register to comment.
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 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.
I switched to Tidal and love it.
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.
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 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.
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.
Based. We need to fund european military technology in preparation of a Russian attack on sacred Western European soil.
Yo wtf you don’t need to simp for a company building automatic killing machines. That shits existence is a threat to everyone but the wealthiest and most powerful.
No War But Class War
The wealthiest and the powerful can’t hide forever from a guillotine. But first, we take their money.
I’m doing my part!
Well tough guy, how else is Raytheon supposed to perfect its AIM-9X Romper Room baby-seeking missile’s accuracy?
We all know that scene in Robo Cop 2 is going to happen eventually.
What are the Spotify alternatives people recommend?
Napster, bearshare
Qobuz is great. It’s a french company, they pay the artists well and the music is in high quality
Qobuz
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.
Oh yeah, I feel qobuz has the right mentality and ethos to really break into the scene and disrupt.
I loved everything about the experience, but the app was shockingly bad. Like, if it just behaved as gen 1 iTunes it would have been an improvement. Really bad at just the basic things. Just bad. And I cannot stress that enough lol.
I’ll keep an eye on them, but whoo-boy! I’ve never been scared off from an app so quickly
This is kinda funny to me because I was using Apple Music before, and I honestly feel it’s less jank.
I will say I’m still rocking my samsung a71 so, maybe the tech just want up to it… but that experience was bad. Glad it works for you though
If might also just be a testament to how jank Apple Music on Android can be. Anyway, I just hope you find a solution that works well for you.
Tidal is cheaper and better quality, Deezer is good, too.
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.
Funkwhale
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.
This is where I’d have recommended deezer, but they shit the bed on their mobile app.
+1 for tidal
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.
Out of every company I would have never expected Spotify to be one of the ones to want that
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.
You’re saving an already low-quality stream into a lossy format. Just use Soulseek.
I somehow cannot wrap my head around soulseek, so I’m just torrenting like I always do 🏴☠️
Don’t have high end audio equipment anyway, I can’t tell the difference on 99% of songs.
Reading this while listening to vinyl…best enjoyable music experience.
To hell with the enshitification of music streaming.
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…
I boycotted them a long time ago when I found out they donated to Trump’s campaign, despite being a Swedish company.
Highly illegal.
It’s legal through a US subsidiary if the funds come from US operations. The morality is questionable though
deleted by creator
Honey this is America, anything is legal if you got the money
“The land of the free”
I also newly started boycotting them for the same reasons. Plus they don’t give enough to the musicians, and support AI music.
Same, took some legwork to get files for my 700-song library, but we did it. Fuck 'em.
Wow didn’t know that.
thats when i cancelled as well. this guy seems like such a fucknut
Not to mention giving 100s of millions of dollars to fund Joe Rogan and his extreme right-wing propaganda.
Been off Spotify since they have Rogan his platform, which contributed to Trump also.
deleted by creator
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.
