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Neil young spotify8/6/2023 ![]() ![]() Given the zero-sum nature of consumption, the company cannot keep both creator cohorts happy: one will inherently receive more attention, financial investment, and marketing support than the other. This change, however, comes with a price. This shift is not merely about adding ancillary content to an existing library of 70 million recordings: it is a long-term strategic realignment which seeks to replace loss-leading music with royalty-free long-form audio and concurrently redefine the very core of Spotify's mission. In Streaming's Endgame part three, I made the case that Spotify's pivot to 'audio' signals a new era in the platform's vaunted history. What can we glean from this still-developing controversy? Audio Has Won. Later that day, Ek and Spotify at last broke their silence – with a vague statement that didn't mention Rogan by name – and received a tepid response (to put it mildly) on social media. On Sunday, Nils Lofgren announced he was joining Young and Mitchell in boycotting the platform. On Saturday, Brené Brown, a podcaster with an exclusive Spotify deal, said she would pause any future podcast releases until further notice. On Friday, Joni Mitchell announced she would follow Young's lead. Spotify didn't hesitate to make an example of Young the company promptly removed all of his music just two days after his initial demands were published. Young gave the platform an ultimatum: do something about it or remove my music. Specifically, Young was upset over Rogan (and the service by extension) providing a platform for COVID-19 vaccine misinformation via his Spotify-exclusive podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. ![]() Last week, famed musician Neil Young began a very public spat with the world's largest music streamer over its support for podcast host Joe Rogan. The transition, which began in earnest with the combined $404M acquisitions of Gimlet, Anchor, and Parcast in 2019, has now created the most significant negative PR cycle for the company since its public spat with Taylor Swift seven years ago.īy the time you're reading this, you've likely heard the particulars of the story – but here's a quick summary just in case. In the third chapter of my deep dive on the modern music industry, Streaming's Endgame, I spent considerable time discussing the monumental shift occurring with Spotify's pivot to aggregate the world's audio. What ails the company now, however, may be far more substantive: after creating a booming market for IP acquisition, the world's leading video service is demonstrating just how precarious the zero-sum game of content ownership can be.Īs it turns out, the story of these two companies – and their current troubles – is far more intertwined than many suspect. Netflix, the dominant aggregator in an adjacent vertical, is no stranger to key-creator controversies. As I'll explain here, there's good reason to believe this will not be the company's last. On the heels of a pivot to audio, Spotify now finds itself embroiled in a headline-grabbing conflict between its two primary creator cohorts: musicians and podcasters. Just over one month in, we've already witnessed the emergence of several major trends that are likely to be with us for quite some time. It's been a lively start to the year in both music and video streaming. An in-depth look at Spotify's podcast controversy, Netflix Q4 earnings troubles, and the ways in which the turbulence both companies are experiencing is deeply intertwined.
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