this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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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.

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[–] Balaquina@lemmy.ca 133 points 10 months ago (8 children)

I boycotted them a long time ago when I found out they donated to Trump's campaign, despite being a Swedish company.

[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 50 points 10 months ago

Wow didn't know that.

[–] positiveWHAT@lemmy.world 38 points 10 months ago

I also newly started boycotting them for the same reasons. Plus they don't give enough to the musicians, and support AI music.

[–] 3abas@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago

Been off Spotify since they have Rogan his platform, which contributed to Trump also.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] Greg@lemmy.ca 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's legal through a US subsidiary if the funds come from US operations. The morality is questionable though

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 11 points 10 months ago

Not to mention giving 100s of millions of dollars to fund Joe Rogan and his extreme right-wing propaganda.

[–] killerscene@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago

thats when i cancelled as well. this guy seems like such a fucknut

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[–] ryper@lemmy.ca 50 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

“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.

You shouldn't be "paying for a fuckass app that works worse than it did 10 years ago" regardless of anything an executive has done. Be less lazy and cancel subscriptions to shitty services.

Also, if a CEO doing a bad thing is a dealbreaker for them, why the fuck are they on twitter?.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 73 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I think one of the most toxic things on Lemmy is the prevalence of judging normies for using incredibly popular services and ascribing it to a character defect instead of life just being too complex for most people to be able to prioritize exploring more ethical technology choices.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You're not wrong. There are lots of holier-than-thou types around here.

[–] noobface@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

😎 If you're not compiling your own kernel 🏋🏼‍♂️ you're missing out on substantial gains 💪🏼. Just drink a little Nix shake in the morning 🤙🏼, then hit your favorite systemd alternative GitHub pages and pull the nightly 🤘🏼. You'll be so swole bro, you'll be Godify. 🎶

[–] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 16 points 10 months ago

Agreed, most comments are miserable, toxic, old man yells at cloud, energy. More and more, so.

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

I get where you're coming from, but it's not like there aren't multiple obvious alternatives (and not just on the fediverse). And someone being clued in enough to boycott Spotify should have no trouble finding those alternatives. Additionally, the platform being owned by an outright Nazi should give even the most out of touch people pause.

But agreed that people could stand to be a bit more tactful about it and not immediately go on the attack.

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[–] 3abas@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No... It's just laziness let's not sugar coat it. You have the wealth of human knowledge in your pocket, knowledge of how to do absolutely anything and everything for free on a silver platter, all you have to do is prioritize exploring ethical technology choices. Complexity of the problem itself is not a good excuse to not learning to solve it as it continues to become a bigger problem.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Be less lazy

"Damn this sucks, I'm doing the thing"

"Hey you lazy stupid fuck, go back in time and do it sooner"

Why is the Internet like this?

[–] hopesdead@startrek.website 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Dude, you should have stopped using Spotify when they let Joe Rogan on their platform… or when they started hosting fake music.

[–] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 16 points 10 months ago

Or because they pay artist way less than any one else, while having lower quality audio.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago

Always worth keeping in mind that these fuckers are selling snake oil to one another under the guise of national security.

This technology is dangerous not because it works as advertised but because it creates a vacuum of responsibility for when the very manual killing starts

Israel's Lavender AI is a great example of this in action. It doesn't work in any meaningful way. All it does is label casualties in a bombing run as "terrorists" after the fact.

[–] criss_cross@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (11 children)

What are the Spotify alternatives people recommend?

[–] 1995ToyotaCorolla@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (7 children)

IIRC Tidal and Qobuz should be good alternatives

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[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Napster, bearshare

[–] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

Tidal is cheaper and better quality, Deezer is good, too.

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If you're technically inclined, self-host navidrome or jellyfin.

If you just want music and don't care about the streaming part, bandcamp (although it does have some basic streaming I believe.

If you want streaming and aren't technically inclined, Tidal.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago
[–] NotProLemmy@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 months ago
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[–] EstonianGuy@lemm.ee 21 points 10 months ago

Spotify CEO also donated millions to trump campaign.

[–] slaacaa@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago
[–] BigBenis@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I stopped using Spotify long ago because of their shitty business practices. Producing a product they killed support for within just a couple years without reimbursing customers and producing huge amounts of e-waste. Jacking their subscription prices twice in one year. Apparently, they also donated to Trump despite not being an American company?? That's to say nothing of their shitty recommendation algorithm, which just plays your most played tracks over and over. Good riddance.

For those interested, I use Tidal now. I'm satisfied with, their recommendation algo is fine and the higher quality streaming is really nice but nothing I've used has ever been as good as Google Play Music, I found so much good music though that service and could upload whatever I was missing. Once Tidal inevitably pisses me off, I'm going to move on to self hosting.

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 16 points 10 months ago

“Said one user on X.”

[–] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 13 points 10 months ago

Funny enough, for local downloads of video game OSTs (which I like way too much), I've been recently turning to Steam of all things. Often cheaper than Bandcamp and DRM-free!

[–] vorb0te@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Helsing supplies Ukraine which is defending itself in accord with international law and the UN Charter. An attacked nation defending itself against Russian aggression. Nothing wrong with that. Basically the opposite of Russian Z-fascism.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 17 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, it seems they also didn't mention that it's a European defense company, not a US defense company.

Europe is investing a lot into defense now and it's actually a good thing that they're moving away from dependence on the US defense industrial complex.

Spotify sucks tho. But that's a separate thing.

Clickbait article.

[–] head_socj@midwest.social 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I empathize with the sentiment and agree with the argument that Europe should invest in its own defense infrastructure, particularly if Putin is gearing up to make a move.

That being said, Im increasingly wary of Europe's willingness to appease Trump, and find it probable that, if right-wing parties continue making political gains, this same infrastructure will be turned against marginalized communities in these same countries; in a similar vein to the U.S regime's attacks against immigrants and dissenters.

Again, I'm not opposed to re-armament, but I hope EU citizens exercise more vigilance and skepticism in this era of resurging nationalism and protectionism.

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[–] Cherry@piefed.social 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Been thinking of booting them for a whilst. Just cancelled. Better late than never.

[–] addie@feddit.uk 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah - been talking about doing so for quite a long time, and then signing up to a Qobuz family plan, downloading all their apps, and cancelling everything Spotify has taken all of five minutes. Hardly even interrupted the album we were listening to via Chromecast. There's a lesson to be learned somewhere.

Qobuz' recommendations and albums-of-the-week actually look good, too. Like an actual music enthusiast has picked things out, rather than Spotify's slop.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Same story here. I cancelled Spotify after the whole Trump thing and switched to Qobuz; the whole thing was pretty seamless. I've got to say, the increased quality is actually noticeable and, as you said, the curated selections actually seem to be, well, curated. Also, if you've got a load of playlists on Spotify you want to keep, Qobuz actually provides subscribers with free access to a migartion service that did a superb job.

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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 months ago

damn people are just learning that spotify is a shitty pro fascist/pro white supremacist company?

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The best time to start boycotting was when they started platforming a conspiracy theorising, testicle headed manosphere peddler. The next best time is not I suppose.

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[–] atmorous@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Out of every company I would have never expected Spotify to be one of the ones to want that

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Who's calling for that boycott? Putin?

Respect for the true pacifists out there, but investing in EU-based defense industry is hardly questionable by ordinary standards.

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