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Comment by newaccount74 | Hacker News Reader

I think Spotify is getting onto thin ice. I subscribed to Spotify because I want to stream music, and I like that the bands I listen to get a bit of money.

But when I hear that they are paying $100M to some controversial US podcaster (before Neil Young left Spotify I have never heard of Joe Rogan), I'm thinking, this isn't what I signed up for. I want my money to go towards German indie bands, not rich American celebrities.

I don't know what the majority of Spotify listeners care about, but for my part I know I couldn't care less about podcasts, I just want to listen to music.

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I don't think they're on thin ice. Remember when people were boycotting Netflix over Cuties? Their stock prices recovered and everyone forgot. People have also boycotted YouTube or pulled their ads. These things just blow over.

This feels different to me. Netflix has a unique library of shows. They have content you can't get elsewhere. Spotify doesn't, when it comes to music (other then their Spotify Sessions, but it's not much). I can easily switch to a different service (already did) and get the same content. My new platform pays artists more, and works well enough. I'm not sure Spotify has anything special enough to draw music fans who left back.

The budget of the film Cuties was under $1M, maybe a small bit more with Netflix's marketing involvement after the initial release (Netflix bought the rights to a worldwide release outside of France). Spotify just directly wiped tens of millions of dollars off their service and likely suffered more long-term lost subscriptions since people have already switched to YT Music or Apple Music; anyone that dropped Netflix had probably resubscribed by the time Squid Game was released.

Unless I missed something, they lost a couple of artists that weren't exactly chart toppers, and a few episodes of a podcast. I don't see the fuss.

or dave chappelle. i mean, both dave and netflix are doing quite fine.

I signed up for the music, or more specifically, the algorithmic recommendations.

With Spotify allowing commercial interests to influence recommendations (artists can choose to take a drop in royalty income to prioritize their music in recommendations) and pushing podcasts in my face all the time when I open the app, to the detriment of recommendations... I've decided to run my own Jellyfin server instead.

Like you, this isn't what I signed up for. It's sad that I can't just pay a monthly fee for a good music app -- even Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, etc. are all crappy music apps.

I signed up for the music. Cancelled over the censorship. Gross.

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