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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I don't really understand why anyone who claims to be a proponent of a free market economy has an issue with a private corporation deciding what type of content they want to broadcast.

Perhaps they have other principles too, not just the free market as the be-all end-all.

Not to mention that this isn't the free market operating freely -- it's corporations being told what to do by pressure groups (as opposed to customers of those corporations voting with their wallets, e.g. by not listening to Rogan).

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Are you so sure it’s not due to customers voting with their wallets forcing the change? It’s easier than ever to pick up and leave a streaming service.

I downloaded all my playlists from Spotify and will move to any other streaming service I want to (one which has Neil Young—whom I enjoy).

Who are these “pressure groups?” Are they individual musicians and customers? When do individuals morph into these straw men?

I doubt this has anything to do with "customers voting with their wallets".

I suspect it's due to investors realizing the fragility of Spotify's business model - thanks to some (high profile? ish?) artists abandoning them at the drop of the hat - and selling their stocks, resulting in a huge drop in market value. The company has already been steadily and significantly loosing value for the last year, so it probably didn't take much to convince a lot of investors to bail.

>Are you so sure it’s not due to customers voting with their wallets forcing the change? It’s easier than ever to pick up and leave a streaming service.

I don't think people left Spotify because of Joe Rogan, not in any real numbers anyway (and we can see that next they publish their user statistics). It's a few pundits and musicians making a negative publicity fuss...

>Who are these “pressure groups?” Are they individual musicians and customers? When do individuals morph into these straw men?

You could have written: "I don't believe there are pressure groups involved, just individual musicians and customers". Instead, you opted to insinuate that I disingenuously created some "straw men" (and thus, am not to be trusted, or whatever). How about the principle of charity, and just making your case, instead on shitting on the person you're discussing with?

There were never just some individuals and musicians, but also major media calling for cancelling the show again and again, group petitions such as:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/covid-misi...

and even White House statements addressing the JR issue.

Apologies if you felt shitted on, but I do believe that you are inventing straw men pressure groups and ignoring the fact that there might be a legitimate organic movement. So I am, in fact, making my case.

> It's a few [...] musicians making a negative publicity fuss

One thing I'd like to add on this point is that this kind of negative publicity fuss, raised by musicians, can be incredibly powerful. If you aren't familiar with the work and impact of Neil Young, especially songs like "Southern Man" and "Alabama," I encourage you to consider his work.

His music likely opened some eyes in the 70s while the American South was still gripped in racist fervor (as someone who grew up in the south, I too was impacted by these songs when I encountered them in the early 2000s). Musicians have the power to influence public opinion. That public opinion is influenced by them does not imply that all influence is the result of a greater agenda.

"If you aren't familiar with the work and impact of Neil Young"

What I find hilarious is the number of folks of a, certain political persuasion (the fact a public health issue is politicized is absolutely nuts), have deemed Neil Young and Joni Mitchell as irrelevant dinosaurs from an artistic perspective. Some even going so far as to say their historical importance is of a mere footnote.

Of course the firestorm their actions caused in the public discourse on this issue has shown their voice matters quite a bit.

>Of course the firestorm their actions caused in the public discourse on this issue has shown their voice matters quite a bit.

Media pundits and organizations can always blow up and enlarge the issues raised by some artists that they agree with to further a cause they'd advocate for anyway.

Doesnt mean the artists are relevant in 2022 pop culture - or that if they had said something different (with no eager pundits to push it) they would been also listened to.

In fact, Neil Young for one, has been laughed at (by the same media) several times in past 1-2 decades, for his "out of touch" tirades against compressed musid, his bizarro Pono music player business, and so on.

>pressure groups and ignoring the fact that there might be a legitimate organic movement.

Pressure groups can be organic too.

They just aren't just "individuals" -- and their influence is not the same as consumer choice to listen or not to the podcast (and thus relegate it to unprofitable).

To repeat the question that person asked: when does an organic movement to apply pressure become a "pressure group organic movement"?

When do their actions, in your eyes, cease to be ordinary "vote with your wallet" market interaction?

>When do their actions, in your eyes, cease to be ordinary "vote with your wallet" market interaction?

Doesn't the act organization itself change it from a "vote with your wallet" (as an independent customer) to propagandizing and promoting your ideas to others on what they should buy?

When it comes to companies working like that, people call it a "cartel".

Also, isn't there a difference between movement organized and advocated "don't buy Spotify" versus group dictated Spotify what to sell?

In the second case Spotify caved because of the pressure/threat, not because the product wasn't selling.

It might still be a market decision (in the sense of it being an economic consideration of Spotify's behalf, as the ultimate threat was to their image and ultimately bottom line) but it wasn't a free market decision as in consumers signalling worth of a product with their purchases or lack thereof.

What you're describing is how "vote with your wallet" works when the number of people voting exceeds 1.

Like, what exactly is it do you think they are coordinating, other than individually choosing to vote with their wallets for similar reasons?

>It might still be a market decision (in the sense of it being an economic consideration of Spotify's behalf, as the ultimate threat was to their image and ultimately bottom line) but it wasn't a free market decision

What you're describing, making business decisions based on weighing the economic costs of losing customers vs. the economic benefits of keeping the content, is indeed a free market decision. The fact that there are no options that make everybody happy doesn't negate that.

Apparently the "there's just individuals behind the attacks on JR" aged quite badly: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/149022042327069900...

> and even White House statements addressing the JR issue.

Which I think you can argue is a problem (to the original question). Dragging company execs to testify in front of congress about misinformation and then framing any (in)action as monopolistic (during a time of anti-trust inquires) isn't exactly "free market" either. I'm not convinced that influence has fundamentally changed the outcome in the past year but it seems a bit naive to think the government has no influence in these moderation decisions. It's not hard to imagine an example where this would be less defensible; "WH strong disapproves of these 'powerful' tech companies amplifying content that contains misinformation about our justifications to invade Iraq".

As I pointed out elsewhere, the White House didn’t criticize anyone, they were asked about how they felt about the disclaimer that Spotify had added, and the White House said they were in favor of calling out misinformation and uplifting accurate information.

That’s pretty different than how you portrayed it.

> Not to mention that this isn't the free market operating freely -- it's corporations being told what to do by pressure groups (as opposed to customers of those corporations voting with their wallets, e.g. by not listening to Rogan).

Aren’t artists and content creators Spotify customers, too? They use Spotify’s platform to sell and distribute their content. We consider both the buyer and the seller to be customers of eBay. We consider both the app user and the app developer to be customers of Apple. Why do you not also consider the content creators customers “voting with their wallet” in this situation?

Pressure groups often represent customers. If a political pressure group can't dangle a boycott, they don't have much practical pressure to apply.

In this case, Spotify is staring down the barrel of a well-organized boycott from both customers and content providers who may (or may not) sign contracts to let Spotify use their music, podcasts, etc.

> as opposed to customers of those corporations voting with their wallets, e.g. by not listening to Rogan).

How is it “voting with your wallet” if you’re still giving them money every month?

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