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by coldtea 1597 days ago
>It was Joe's content to do with as he pleased, and his decision was to sell it and allow someone else to do with it as they pleased.

And they did. They published those episodes.

Consistently with a free market, customers of Spotify should also be able to do with them as they pleased - listen to them or not, or even leave Spotify in protest.

Instead, some pressure groups, the media, and a couple of unrelated musicians forced Spotify to unpublish those.
1 comments
ghaff 1597 days ago
>"forced"

How did anyone "force" Spotify to do anything? Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.

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coldtea 1597 days ago
>How did anyone "force" Spotify to do anything?

By making it costly not to do it, not in a free market (vote with wallets) way, but in a "will hurt you with bad publicity, government pressure, etc" way. Forcing doesn't need to be a gun in the head of the CEO.

>Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.

Yes, like corporations did when they censored works because of pressure groups, like Tipper Gore's, stuff that promoted "homosexuality" or "decadent" black music in the past, etc.

Doesn't mean it was left to the individual customers to decide, or that corporations deemed the works they sold as unprofitable in themselves (that is, not selling).

Only unprofitable as in "not worth the trouble".

Which is a totally different thing.

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ryandrake 1597 days ago
> Forcing doesn't need to be a gun in the head of the CEO.

Wait, that’s exactly what needs to be happening in order to call it “forcing.” If there is a (difficult) choice, it’s not force.

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twmiller 1597 days ago
How is 'we will hurt you with bad publicity' not part of the free market in action?
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coldtea 1597 days ago
Because bad publicity is not a buy-not buy choice, and the decision to take the episodes down wasn't because they didn't have enough audience to be profitable.
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