>If Spotify is trying to effect or create the appearance of a willingness to reach a compromise in response to the recent singer pressure campaign, then it is doing nothing other than signal weakness.
Perhaps it's just been a long week, but I don't really understand what you mean by "weakness" in this context.
Spotify is in an uncomfortable place right now. Some of the folks who generate some revenue for them aren't very happy with another guy who they bet on to generate even more revenue for them.
This, of course, made worse by the larger discussion around the pandemic.
Spotify is never going to win here. Regardless of what they do they will inevitably alienate a bunch of folks. The question for them is, "what's going to cause the least disruption to the revenue stream?"
I guess I'm not sure how (or why) it makes any difference, no matter what they choose to do.
I think the idea is that if Spotify ignored this and waited for the news cycle and hype to move on, they would retain more of their users (through apathy or whatever.) By rewarding people who have been migrating their accounts anyway, while angering others by capitulating, they lose revenue from both “sides” and make themselves susceptible to repeat scenarios further winnowing users. Hard to say if true, but that is the theory.
Because they still carry a podcaster you disagree with and don't listen to? I don't see people alienated by Comcast because their basic cable subscription has FOX News and MSNBC.
>Because they still carry a podcaster you disagree with and don't listen to? I don't see people alienated by Comcast because their basic cable subscription has FOX News and MSNBC.
Yes. And if they decide to stop carrying that podcaster (with whom I neither agree nor disagree, I have no basis for such a distinction), they will alienate a different set of people.
That was my whole point. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Personally, I have no skin in that game (not as a user, an investor or a content creator), and if I liked popcorn (which is foul, disgusting stuff BTW) I'd be making some about now.
> They're damned if they do and damned if they don't.
I don't see it like that. This is their making.
They weren't damned when they signed Rogan, who was then already both controversial and very popular, and gave him $100m. Nobody forced it, and it was entirely predictable by Spotify that there would be more such controversies down the line. If they didn't want this catch 22, they didn't need to sign that deal.
Perhaps it's just been a long week, but I don't really understand what you mean by "weakness" in this context.
Spotify is in an uncomfortable place right now. Some of the folks who generate some revenue for them aren't very happy with another guy who they bet on to generate even more revenue for them.
This, of course, made worse by the larger discussion around the pandemic.
Spotify is never going to win here. Regardless of what they do they will inevitably alienate a bunch of folks. The question for them is, "what's going to cause the least disruption to the revenue stream?"
I guess I'm not sure how (or why) it makes any difference, no matter what they choose to do.