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.
Didn’t confuse them with anyone, they put out a quarterly report as all publicly-traded companies do, and they’re on track to do over $2 billion in profit this year ($17b revenue).
What I didn’t go into depths to describe is that the vast majority of their money goes to big labels and several big artists they have less-favourable (to Spotify) contracts with, because those big labels and artists know they can pressure Spotify to get a bigger slice.
So, they continue to give most artists, especially small/new artists next to nothing, exploiting them.
Nothing I said is innacurate IMO.
Quarterly earnings and projections for 2025: https://musically.com/2025/04/29/spotify-q1-2025-financial-results-reveal-it-now-has-268m-paid-subscribers/ (And as you said they already turned a profit last year, which was over a billion).
Yes, that’s how the algo works, unfortunately most people have no taste in music, if the people suddenly decide that avant garde orchestral metal is popular, then those artists will make more money as their plays and share of the pie goes up
Welcome to the music industry ;)
https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/
That said this is a very specific argument to make, you said
Now you’re saying, yes many people make lots of money and I saw no disagreement that the music industry raking in 10 billion in a year benefits from Spotify BUT new and non-popular artists find it tough to make money and that’s exploitation
The algorithm is simple, the more listens you get, the bigger the pie you have, the more you get paid.
The reality is that small/new artists are now competing in a field that is flooded, it’s hard to complain of exploitation if you are simply trying to swim in an ocean and finding it difficult
It sucks but this is life in the 21st century with computers, it’s also not going to get better with AI allowing people who can’t work photoshop to make pictures and people who can’t work logic pro to make music
I also give Spotify credit for music discovery: https://aussie.zone/post/19441027/16055498
It has never been easier for people to go outside the box and discover new music, it’s just a shame most people don’t