Solved: the sensible solution to Spotify and the overall ethics of music streaming
Plus a bonus comic for paid subscribers! Talk about bang for your buck!
Behind the Panels
This is a reworking of a comic I did a few years ago. I decided to redo it because I thought of a few extra jokes, wanted to update the art as I’ve improved in the intervening years, and because the ‘ethical streaming service’ conversation has resurfaced.
This conversation seems to crop up at least once a year. I originally created this comic in response to several big-name artists, like Neil Young, removing their catalogs from Spotify after the platform allowed vaccine misinformation to spread via Joe Rogan’s podcast. Young and many others encouraged users to ditch the platform to send them a message.
Neil Young has since returned to the platform, user numbers didn’t decline, and Spotify continued to grow.
This time round, people are threatening to leave once again after Spotify billionaire CEO Daniel Ek invested €600 million into Helsing, a military tech start-up developing AI tech for war.
Once again, the conversation around ethical streaming flared up. Social media takes, op-eds, and listicles came flooding in, and the general consensus was clear: move your business and playlists off Spotify and onto another platform. But the same problem arose: are the other streamers any less ethical? Probably not if you are willing to look deep enough.
And no matter where you move to, musicians still aren’t getting paid fairly, and your money is most likely lining the pockets of another dodgy dude.
Unfortunately, that’s not going to change for the time being, and we are most likely not going to quit the convenience of music streaming cold turkey, you know it, I know it.
At the end of the day, if you feel uneasy about streaming and the ethics behind that unlimited library in your hand, the simplest solution is to support the artist directly.
That could be buying some merch, tickets to gigs, or grabbing that album you’ve been blasting on Vinyl, CD, or, if you are that guy, cassette. In most cases, a large portion of the money from this goes directly to the artist, and you get something tangible in return; it’s a great system.
Obviously, this is only possible if you have the means to do so, but for now, I don’t think there is any other solution to the ‘ethics around streaming’ conversation.
Let me know your thoughts! What streaming service are you on? Have you bounced around? Does it even matter because we are hurtling to the end of times? Pop off in he comments!
Danz
Bonus Comic!
Two comics in one newsletter! That’s right team, y’boy has had a very productive weekend. This is another comic from the notes app of potentially funny premises, and in this edition, I ask a simple question: is there humour in service animals?