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.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      I’m a bit skeptical about these “payouts” numbers. I’ve tried to look them up and find out why it is like that and where the money goes since they all have their monthly subscription priced similarly and they supposedly also take a similar share for running the infrastructure and pay their own staff… And it turns out all services are intransparent. There are no hard facts and numbers. It’s massively complicated how they calculate these payouts and seems nobody publishes the exact maths behind it. There are some news articles with claims and speculation, but they’re all based on the same thing and mainly copy-paste each other. Maybe Spotify is even amongst the most transparent services because they’re traded at the stock exchange and do yearly reports… Anyhow, looks to me all this service XY pays Z per stream is one of those “simple truths” which might just be a lie.

      • Pinhead77@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        And it turns out all services are intransparent. There are no hard facts and numbers. It’s massively complicated how they calculate these payouts and seems nobody publishes the exact maths behind it.

        Yes, it is indeed a problem that almost no one discloses official numbers. Qobuz at least did this once: https://community.qobuz.com/press-de/qobuz-legt-als-erster-akteur-in-der-musikindustrie-seine-durchschnittliche-vergtung-pro-stream

        There are some news articles with claims and speculation, but they’re all based on the same thing and mainly copy-paste each other.

        Yes, I agree with you! Of course, these articles and figures are not reliable. Here is an article with payout numbers, which also goes into more detail about how the numbers came about: https://dynamoi.com/de/learn/statistics/what-streaming-platforms-actually-pay-per-stream

        • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          Thanks. At least some more recent numbers. I’d really like to see some more context, though. I mean everything is mushed together into one number that’s supposed to tell me something. When in reality I have no clue what a stream of a South American or Indian user is worth against mine, what a family subscription pays, or one person having Rihanna on 24/7 in the background, when I listen to 20 Pink Floyd tracks a month. I don’t know what kind of demographics these services actually have. The total marketshare model they mostly seem to base their calculations on doesn’t seem super fair to me to begin with… So for all I know any individual service might just have users in a different country, or more casual users who like background music or whatever. They sure all claim to forward roughly 70% of their revenue, so there doesn’t seem to be a big difference with that. I wish anyone were ethical enough to be properly transparent with what they do. What I can tell is, I dislike Trump supporters, right-wing podcasters and AI music, so quitting Spotify was a safe bet for me.

          • Pinhead77@piefed.socialEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            To get a better impression, all that would be needed is for a few indie artists to disclose how their payout rate is calculated down to 1000 streams per provider…

            I’m still waiting for a streaming provider that pays so fairly that the subscription fees are distributed proportionally to what the user has actually heard. For example, if I pay 12 €/month and have only listened to one artist in the whole month, it should be obvious that this artist gets, for example, 70% of the 12 € and the streaming provider gets the remaining 30%. But I’ll probably have to wait forever for that…

            • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              Hmmh. Make it an itemized bill, though. Otherwise we still can’t tell whether these platforms are fair since even the same artist probably has varying listener demographics on different platforms. And all the maths differences might have weird effects as well.

              I’d welcome that as well. I mean currently the majority of my money likely goes towards some mainstream pop artists, and the less music I listen to, the less I’m making a difference. It’d be nice if there things were factored in to a degree. I mean they sometimes do that because it’s not a ratio of the total streams either, but they differentiate on location, subscription type… But then they don’t go all the way. (Which might not even be fair, either.)

    • verdi@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      And no AI slop. That’s two advantages. They also pay Europe centric artists more so that’s a third advantage.