Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jonassalen 1603 days ago
It's exactly what NY asked. He didn't do it as a means to let Spotify drop Joe Rogan, but he did it out of principle. I applaud him for that.
4 comments

What a bizarre comment. He most definitely did do it in hopes of forcing Spotify to drop Rogan. Appearing on the same streaming platform as Rogan costs him nothing (neither financial nor moral). Nobody believes that he and Rogan share beliefs just because they're both on Spotify.

If his principles are that he won't be streamed on the same app as somebody he disagrees with, that's seriously pathetic. He's literally the polar opposite of the coexist bumper sticker.

The other comment said it best. Also, note that Young has dropped out of Spotify before. He made a hue and cry about its audio quality, dropped out, launched his own music player, it didn't do very well, and then he came back.

I feel like he just wanted an excuse to leave, to be very honest, so he could promote competitors that encourage high-quality streaming.

He most definitely did do it in hopes of forcing Spotify to drop Rogan.

No - he did it because he has FY money and FY reputation.

And if doesn't want to be associated with a platform he doesn't like -- he's not going to be associated with it.

He's literally the polar opposite of the coexist bumper sticker.

In the sense of not wanting to "coexist" with the vapid corporate opportunism as exemplified by Spotify, you're completely right.

> In the sense of not wanting to "coexist" with the vapid corporate opportunism as exemplified by Spotify, you're completely right.

How many years was he on Spotify?

> And if doesn't want to be associated with a platform he doesn't like -- he's not going to be associated with it.

Well now he totally is going to be "that guy that tried to get jr off Spotify".

> No - he did it because he has FY money and FY reputation.

Why is he selling music in the first place then, why not make it free for anyone who wants to listen to it?

Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, the title of the article is misleading. It's not Spotify that is removing Neil Young, it's Neil Young removing his music from Spotify as a protest against them hosting Joe Rogan.

It's kind of annoying to me that Spotify went all in with podcasts (in the name of "growth"?), and promotes them so heavily. That's really different from music. Do people really decide to subscribe to Spotify because of podcasts? Would they change providers if Joe Rogan was on another service? I doubt it.

It's because they can get better margins from podcasts. Personally I want music and no podcasts but I understand the business pressures that have caused this.
Yea, he just blackmailed a platform to censor fellow content creator. Perfectly fine principled gentleman. Because that's how we all should do with each other, and the peace would come upon us
He gave them an ultimatum. An ultimatum is not blackmail.
With great power comes great responsibility. You don't see spiderman ripping in pieces that reporter who harassed him, and if you did, it would be a completely diff character. You don't abuse your power to punish people you disagree with. It's evil. Call it whatever you like, what this guy did is very very bad
Blackmail? Spider-man? Murdering journalists? I feel like maybe you’ve lost the thread here
Let me lay down some parallels here: reporter posting fake news, damaging reputation of good people. Actually causing tangible harm to innocents by his bad reporting. Spiderman was given powers to be his judge, jury, and executioner, but he chose to not use them in that manner. Because you can not exercise your power on people just because you can, and because they piss you off. It is morally reprehensible. Good people don't hit somebody like a ton of bricks just because they don't like what this somebody said. You must learn to coexist with people you disagree with. You can't just bully the others to make them exclude people you don't like.
> With great power comes great responsibility.

Someone should tell JR(E) that, being the largest podcast on the planet.

Look: if you think you have a case, ask Joe to invite you to a program, and argue your point. I don't think he is of the anchors who would argue with you in bad faith. I am pretty sure that if Neil actually had something valid to say in favor of his position, that road was and likely still is available to him. He just preferred to strike below belt, because he thought he could get away with it. It also demonstrates that he likely does not have a valid point he can present and defend in a fair debate.
I am not particularly fond of Joe Rogan, but I respect Rogan's principles a lot more than Neil Young. Neil Young wanted to make a political statement and the media ran with it to try to pressure Spotify into breaking a large multi-million dollar contract. Neil Young's music on Spotify is prob worth very little. I'd be surprised if Neil Young was making a $2k/mo from Spotify. Neil Young had very little to lose by making this political statement to help the media, which I'm guessing he prob got some money from the attention of pro-vax people that wanted to try to censor Rogan and thought by supporting Young that they were going to be able to have any pull.
At least 6 million monthly listens at $0.00331 per listen is about $20k per month, so you're off by an order of magnitude. Still not terrible for a wild guess based on nothing. My numbers may be wrong for all kinds of reasons. Young himself apparently said it's 60% of his streaming revenue.

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/...

https://www.planetarygroup.com/do-artists-get-paid-every-tim...

https://mobile.twitter.com/jclarachan/status/148646182068449...

>Neil Young had very little to lose by making this political statement to help the media, which I'm guessing he prob got some money from the attention of pro-vax people that wanted to try to censor Rogan and thought by supporting Young that they were going to be able to have any pull.

This was hilarious, thanks for the laugh! :)

Your anti-vax comment history indicates that you may be particularly fond of Joe Rogan.
Crossing into personal attack is not ok here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Your bias is predictable. I actually lean left and do support peoples choice, just not mandates. I am not a big fan of Joe Rogan, but you can believe whatever helps you sleep at night. You can think I'm a racist Nazi Trump supporter if it helps you build images in your mind of what you think people that have different thoughts of you must be like.
If you continue to use HN primarily for flamewar and/or ideological battle, we are going to have to ban you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html