Spotify's Phony War On Bots
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as a firsthand example of artists losing catalogs with no recourse and of the middlemen in music streaming.
What it is
Musician Benn Jordan explains how all of his music was removed from Spotify and walks through the history of digital music distribution and fake streams. He argues that Spotify's anti-bot measures are mostly a phony war.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2024 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Cites non-nil · 2024-03 · on “Swedish composer becomes Spotify's most-famous musician you've never heard of”
Whether you think music streaming in its current form is a net good or bad for humanity, consider not supporting Spotify the company. From the very start, they're nothing but grifters. Daniel Ek has his background in ads, SEO and related stuff –basically every possible way to make a buck using this newfangled internet thing – including selling virtual clothes for virtual dolls to kids age 9-17. The teaming up with Martin Lorentzon was never about music, but simply finding an untapped market, a niche in which to apply their particular set of skills of hawking stuff online. They teamed up with the guy behind µTorrent and eventually convinced the major labels to buy into the idea (by getting a
Critical keeperofdakeys · 2024-04 · on “Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams”
And maybe it wasn't removed by their choice. Below is a video of someone who had all their Spotify music removed with no recourse, due to a claim the were buying streams. No recourse. [this video]
Critical musesum · 2025-02 · on “Spotify Paid $10B to the Music Industry in 2024, $1B More Than Last Year”
>> In 2023, the company said it pays out nearly 70% to the industry Does not stop there; there are tiers of middlemen: [this video]