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.

  • Balaquina@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

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

    • positiveWHAT@lemmy.world
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      4 days 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
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      4 days ago

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

      • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

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

        • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          when due process is completely ignored, then you can be pretty sure that “legal” has no meaning anymore. especially seeing as how the people who are supposed to be enforcing these “laws” are the ones who are ignoring them

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      i boycotted them when i found out they streamed drm-protected lock-in music back then, and charged us a subscription for it.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

  • ryper@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    “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?.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      4 days 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?

  • SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip
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    3 days 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!

  • hopesdead@startrek.website
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    4 days ago

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

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    4 days 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.

      • Jonnynny@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Thanks.

        I was talking to my wife this morning about this thread and the Qobuz recommendation was just what she needed to replace and cancel Spotify. She was able to import her playlists from her Spotify account and she’s been commenting for the past couple hours about how much better the audio quality is.

    • Lanske@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Qobuz is great. It’s a french company, they pay the artists well and the music is in high quality

    • Quazatron@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I jumped to Tidal many years ago because Spotify could not be bothered to provide high quality output. Yes, you can ear the difference, even on shitty gear.

      For the stuff I could not get on either platform I started buying CDs on Discogs and ripping them to FLAC.

      Edit: ear, not eat.

    • steal_your_face@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      Apple music believe it or not. Nice selection and interface. Works on Apple devices as well as android. Has a high bitrate and supports aptx on android. Don’t think they have a native app for windows or Linux, though, so you’d have to use the web version.

  • Cherry@piefed.social
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    4 days ago

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

    • addie@feddit.uk
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      4 days ago

      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
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        4 days ago

        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.

        • Cherry@piefed.social
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          4 days ago

          I think that’s the worry. Do I have to start again. Will my stuff be disrupted. Spotify has counted on me sleepwalking though with them and not moving because of this fear. They have had enough of my money.

          I had to laugh at the leaving page “if you leave me now you’ll take away the biggest part of me”. Spotify is not a human and I’ll take my money. They need to get lost with the emotive marketing, Spotify and the CEOs actions speak louder.

          My hard earned money and who I spend it with is one of my biggest voices in my world.

  • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    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.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Europe used the specter of Russia to justify it’s dive into militant fascism the last time too.

      • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        False. Western Europe increased arms spending in response to German aggression. Germany increased arms spending… well.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          Germany, famously not part of Europe.

          Germany increased arms spending… well.

          Well what? The specter of Russia was a huge part of how Germany justified it’s fascism.

          Just like now.

          • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            False.

            Germany built up it’s army in preparation for attacking the rest of Europe. Adults usually know this. Sorry if I have misjudged your age.

            Germany and Soviet Russia were allies and cooperated in the attack on Poland. This only fell apart when Hitler betrayed Stalin by invading the Soviet Union.

            It is said that in all his life, Stalin only ever trusted one person: Adolf Hitler. When German communists conscripted into the Wehrmacht defected in the night before the attack, to bring warning to the Soviet Union, Stalin had them shot. The last supply train carrying grain for Nazi Germany crossed the border less than 2 hours before the launch.

            • diplodocus@lemmy.sdf.org
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              3 days ago

              That’s a dog’s breakfast of anti-communist slander you’ve gobbled up, Mr. Adultman. This is the garbage they taught in West Germany? I guess that’s one of the consequences of Stalin stopping at Berlin.

              • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                West Germany

                Oh wow. Looks like you fell into a time warp, comrade. No spoilers but it’ll all get better in 1953. But stay away from Moscow in March.

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              It is said that in all his life, Stalin only ever trusted one person: Adolf Hitler.

              It must be so easy being a right winger: you can just make up any old bullshit off the top of your head and apparently people will believe you.

  • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 days ago

    What’s up with the cool startup names recently? First Palantir the fortune teller ball, now Helsing the vampire hunter? Fuck yeah, who doesn’t invest in these? /s

    • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      thiel has an obsession with lotr, so he named all his evil companies after various lotr themes.

  • atmorous@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

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