Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sparked an online backlash after a social media post in which he said the cost of creating “content” is “close to zero”.

The boss of the streaming giant said in a post on X: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.

"While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.

“Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?”

Music fans and musicians were quick to call Ek out, with one user, composer Tim Prebble, saying: “Music will still be valued in a hundred years. Spotify won’t. It will only be remembered as a bad example of a parasitic tool for extracting value from other peoples music. (or “content” as some grifters like to call it).”

Musicians weighed in too, with Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler saying: “Fuck off you out of touch billionaire.”

  • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I literally just cancelled my membership with that shitty company yesterday! It sucks, I’ve used it daily for almost a decade, but I just can’t really deal with my money going to such publicly malicious and stupid executives any more. They can’t just not be arseholes for like two seconds.

    Anyway, I need some alternative… Does anybody use anything else that they prefer? 👀🤞

    • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Today, 1000 times Tidal, they give more money to the artists and they lowered their prices while everyone else raised them.

    • Oddbin@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      What, the whole Joe Rogan bullshit didn’t tip you over but this did?

      Tidal if you want to pay. YouTube Music with Revanced if you don’t.

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I absolutely cancelled after that Joe Rogan drama. I was already questioning why I needed Spotify. And seeing my subscription money go there, I bounced.

        Now I’m watching more boneheaded moves and shaking my head.

      • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Tidal turned me off by pushing that snake oil MQA format for years, although I believe they have been moving away from it in recent years.

      • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        No, this didn’t. I cancelled yesterday, after reading about them just bricking one of their peripherals without offering refunds until the legal system threatened them. It’s just a straw that broke the camel’s back situation, rather than one big thing - the Rogan situation certainly contributed, though.

        Tidal sounds like a good idea, thank you!

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        Torrent if you don’t lawl. Flac forever.

        Also I know lemmy is DAE HATE APPLE but Apple Music is the shit, they have ultra high quality lossless for the base price and a gigantic selection. They don’t pay artists WELL, but they’re near the highest paying per stream. (I think tidal might actually be the highest)

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Apple Music worked well for me, but then it was worth the money as part of Apple One. If you’re not on iOS, you won’t have much use for Arcade or icloud storage though.

          Whether Apple Music alone is worth it is up to OP though. IMO it is, but I now have YouTube Music instead, gets me access to a lot of music Spotify and Apple Music don’t have.

          • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 months ago

            Interesting! I have an iPhone but I don’t use iCloud for anything because I don’t want my nudes online, and I don’t play games on my phone so I don’t have any use for Apple one hahaha

            I’ve only failed to find one artist on Apple Music so far (DZK, an edgy YTMND/SA rapper from the mid-2000s) so I just torrented his music.

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        Apple Music fucking slaps, after getting some fancy headphones their Spatial Audio is insane. It’s a novelty, sure, but damn if it isn’t fucking dope in some songs.

        • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          Apple Music also has music videos and their sound quality is high res. I used Tidal for a while but switched to Apple Music years ago and wouldn’t go back.

    • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      YouTube music has actually been pretty great, although I hear some people have issues with it’s algorithm. I got grandfathered in back when Google Music shut down and I honestly like it more than the old GM app at this point. Plus, you get YouTube Premium for free with it.

      • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Thanks for the suggestion! I remember GM back in the day, had loads of stuff on there :o I ended up going with Tidal for now, mostly because I also just can’t stand YouTube and don’t wanna give em money 😂

  • Yerbouti@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    I will keep repeating this over and over: Spotify hates artists. This douchebag CEO pays himself hundreds of millions for storing other’s music on a server, but thinks musicians are such losers they don’t deserved nothing. Fuck modern Internet, and fuck you especially Daniel. Your time is worth 15k a minute, but musicians should work for free so you have a “product” to sell? Fuck you loser, I will always be superior to you because unlike you, I can create things. You need me, I don’t need you.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Maybe he’s thinking about their darling, Joe Rogan, whose main cost at this point is probably enough weed for him and his staff and his guests on the regular while he just talks about stupid shit that he thinks makes him sound smart but really doesn’t.

    So the cost of making that content is close to zero. Unless, of course, you count the $250 million they paid him already…

  • aggelalex@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    He’s not wrong, the cost of making content is near zero, the cost of making art is not.

    • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Content: I strapped a camera on my face and got drunk and harassed randos in a country I’m not native to

      Art: I wrote a song and played almost every instrument and also directed, shot, and edited the music video over the course of years*

  • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This feels like an out of touch comment about AI tbh. I could be wrong but it’d make all of that make slightly more sense

  • fishos@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    While I get the desire for outrage and backlash, a generous reading of what he said would be something like “In the past, making music meant needing access to numerous instruments and equipment. Today, you can create the same kind of music with a cheap PC and some programs.”

    He’s not attacking creativity or saying your time isn’t valuable. He’s saying the barrier to entry has dropped dramatically to the point that almost anyone that wants to create content, can.

    Look at any medium and notice the wide array of tools now available to the average person. You can do Photoshop and video effects using entirely free programs for the most part. Or paying a fraction of what you’d have paid in the past for less features.

    Under that reading, he’s absolutely correct.

    But yeah, Spotify sucks, I get that. They don’t pay creators fairly. Absolutely. Don’t disagree with that.

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I think it’s also pretty ironic to question how much current music will be valued after 100 years as Spotify is pivoting towards podcasts. Podcasts are easier to make than music and even quality podcast episodes are significantly less memorable than music.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I guess I don’t understand his point. Is he saying that making content is cheap (it’s not) so artists don’t need to be paid a lot? If content creation is cheap, why are they not the ones producing the music? It should be cheap for them to be their own label, right?

    But shit, you would think the CEO of a company whose main product is streaming content would have some idea of the cost to produce that content. Recording studios do not exactly grow on trees and it’s not like audio engineers are working for free. I guess I don’t understand why he is paid so much since being an executive at a company does not require much expense.

  • KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The problem all around, IMO, is just how extremely broad the term content is. Content can be a complex hour-long video on a subject with amazing editing, or a beautiful piece of artwork, but it can also be a quick selfie at a club or any given platform’s equivalent of shitposting.

  • unreasonabro@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The value you provide to the world of music is less than zero, in fact it’s a debt to society you will never repay, congratulations on the proof of concept that stealing can be both legal and profitable though.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Well don’t just tweet. Put those fingers to frets and show us how little it really costs you fucken igit.

    • Oddbin@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I saw a comment yesterday that has stuck with me and it was that CEOs jobs are ripe for replacement by AI and I really can’t fault it. It won’t happen but I kind of wish it would.