249 points

From the article:

"…journalist Liz Pelly has conducted an in-depth investigation, and published her findings in Harper’s—they are part of her forthcoming book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist.

"Now she writes:

‘What I uncovered was an elaborate internal program. Spotify, I discovered, not only has partnerships with a web of production companies, which, as one former employee put it, provide Spotify with “music we benefited from financially,” but also a team of employees working to seed these tracks on playlists across the platform. In doing so, they are effectively working to grow the percentage of total streams of music that is cheaper for the platform.’

In other words, Spotify has gone to war against musicians and record labels."

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22 points

Can someone explain why this is bad? It seems like normal behaviour of corporations.

Or has spotify previously committed to being a fair market?

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57 points

This is like a soup joint that’s trying to see how much they can piss in the broth before customers notice.

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17 points

That would be a health hazard, so it’s not really comparable.

It seems more like a soup joint using cheaper ingredients in their dishes, which is just… normal? I don’t get what the big deal is.

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5 points

Better check the TOS doesn’t include acceptance of various concentrations of piss…

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10 points

This is a completely disingenuous comparison.

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13 points

IANAL but it seems akin to the antitrust case against Microsoft for bundling their own web browser in with Windows or movie studios also owning theaters and giving preferential treatment to their own films.

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3 points

Unfair competition.

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34 points

The normal behavior of corporations IS bad. By definition.

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7 points

Just because it’s normal doesn’t me it isn’t bad.

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8 points

You seem to be saying that something normal and legal cannot be bad.

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3 points

I’m just surprised that anyone didn’t assume this was happening. If most people are using playlists generated by Spotify, how are they not expecting Spotify to choose songs that are also in their interest? Furthermore, how would this be different from the practices of a radio station? Seems like manufactured outrage to me.

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21 points
2 points

Published in January 2025, seeing the URL, huh.

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4 points

The article is an excerpt from the full report, which comes out next month.

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11 points

So basically Payola 2.0

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30 points

didn’t they sue someone for doing this on his own? I guess they want to be the only ones doing it.

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170 points

I mean they paid Joe Rogan $100 million dollars so they have already wrecked their reputation.

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66 points

Ngl, I canceled them and haven’t gone back since. Don’t really miss it much, I try to use the same cost as my subscription to buy music every month on CD when I can.

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27 points
*

I have recently discovered Qobuz (French company). You can purchase digital music. They aren’t cheap, but they have selection and hi-res music (sometimes 24 bit).

But good on you for the CDs, too!

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11 points

I heard they pay artists a lot more. Need to double check.

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8 points

I just want to remind people that you may still have a used CD store in your city, also 2nd hand stores for CDs. They tend to be quite cheap these days.

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5 points

I cancelled it the second I found out how easy it was to get it for free.

I still buy FLAC releases individually from artists I like, I just use Shittify for discovery. Fuck 'em.

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3 points

Yeah, I switched to deezer then, haven’t had any trouble with it.

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91 points

The last and only truth I needed to know about Spotify was it’s 250 million dollar deal with Joe Rogan, who is antivax incel cancer, and that was it for me. No need to learn or know any more about them.

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10 points
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Thats some pretty bad stuff: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3wLm5nlYrHkbd29ilMRq89?si=e6f3299113e34bb9&nd=1&dlsi=50e31b2329204ddd

its all the same song as the article states.

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