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.
It is possible to get off Spotify.
What you can’t buy legitimately via other means you can use a Youtube-To-MP3 converter to rip and add the file to your music library.
You’re saving an already low-quality stream into a lossy format. Just use Soulseek.
Don’t have high end audio equipment anyway, I can’t tell the difference on 99% of songs.
I somehow cannot wrap my head around soulseek, so I’m just torrenting like I always do 🏴☠️