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.
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Seeking profit above all else isn’t human nature. Humans have lived and still live in societies that don’t do this. The socioeconomic system that we find ourselves in currently in a large part of the world does put profit above all else. But this system is just one iteration of how we live. And even it has changed over time where it has gotten worse over the last 50 years. It too would change and likely be replaced by another in the long run. Many believe that would be some form of socialism. Or we could go largely extinct before we abandon it. A better world is possible though.
It is theorized by anthropologists that for most of humanity’s existence (almost 200,000 years), humans operated on gift economies, without keeping any ledgers or IOUs, and also not bartering.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
Humanity mostly beat out (kind of, not really, humans mated/bred with neanderthals) neanderthals as a species in evolution because humans cooperated with each other, whereas neanderthals were more individualistic (also not a universal truth).
Greed and profit seeking are a direct result of forming massive civilizations with defined leaders and the possibility to gain power over other people. There are ideas for new economic systems that will eliminate this hierarchal structure, namely anarchism and some other socialist idiologies like forcing all corporations to be worker-owned coops (not all of them).
Here’s a playlist that’s a good introduction to anarchism: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8V0LbSKRwxqBt2Odrl_Yp_SlEVrv-w9G
And here is an intro to a worker coop focused economic system and modern Marxism (the non-authoritarian type): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Whccunka4
Great idea! You first, I’ll totally be right behind
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Fuck both y’all, I don’t want to go extinct and it’s fucked up to try and get someone to die. Go touch grass both of you. The planet is going to be fine, it’s a giant rock in the middle of space, life will continue regardless of how bad we fuck it up, life exists in sulfuric lakes for fucks sake. Humans are cool as fuck, we turned rocks and metals into magical devices we can use to be edgelord douchebags on the internet.
Totally agree. Just have someone let me know when you’ve done it. Maybe we could set up a chain or something. You start, have someone that knows notify me, and then I notify the next person.
Now go on and start the change you want to see 🌠