Mastodawn

Niklas Pivic Aug 1, 2025

Spotify used to seem like a necessary evil for musicians. Now it just seems evil: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/31/spotify-musicians-david-bridie-ntwnfb

'Ek isn’t paid a salary by Spotify – he takes a share of its stock, last year alone cashing out a reported $345m. So here we are, artists helping to build algorithms to sell our music – and the success of that algorithm determines the flow of wealth to a man who invests in building machines that could kill people.

In recent years, we’ve witnessed the horror of AI drone wars in Ukraine and Gaza – children killed and hospitals destroyed with the press of the space bar. Ek is investing in technology that can cause suffering and death. Spotify used to seem like a necessary evil. By association, it now just seems evil.'

#spotify #DavidBridie #DanielEk #BrokenRecord #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #capitalism #MusicBusiness

Spotify used to seem like a necessary evil for musicians. Now it just seems evil

I am removing my music from Spotify because I don’t want my songs – some written with survivors of conflict – to enrich people who fund weapons

The Guardian