Okay, I laughed. At first I thought the author was actually publishing music on the platform, so I patiently waited for their justification to quit Spotify relative to other platforms. It's a big world, maybe they're a big-shot who's tired of negotiating splits with their label...?
...nope! They're publishing playlists, a software feature that frankly shouldn't belong restricted to any one platform. On top of that, they're playing moral augur on behalf of the musicians they support without seemingly asking any of them how they feel. Tidal and Apple Music are both awful for musicians too; all the royalties in the world won't matter if your listenerbase consists of four people from Cupertino. Why not publish playlists everywhere, YouTube and Soundcloud included? Why split hairs in an unwinnable, service-oriented fight?
You'd think this would end up with a one-or-the-other solution. Either "we're uploading playlists in a text format now, as it should be" or "we're just going to leverage every service's native features" as the stance. Playing the reductive moralist card will end with you uploading Bandcamp playlists and begging Epic Games to listen to your plight and negotiate better terms as your publisher.
thcipriani•6mo ago
I am a subscriber to Hearing Things, so I knew the context going in. But I thought the second sentence made it clear they were music journalists and not artists.
Hearing Things publishes playlists as music reviews—text, that is. And the playlists are available on all music streaming platforms.
But this blog announced that their playlists will no longer be on Spotify due to Spotify's continuing enshitification—I found no reductive moralism, only an interesting bad review.
bigyabai•7mo ago
...nope! They're publishing playlists, a software feature that frankly shouldn't belong restricted to any one platform. On top of that, they're playing moral augur on behalf of the musicians they support without seemingly asking any of them how they feel. Tidal and Apple Music are both awful for musicians too; all the royalties in the world won't matter if your listenerbase consists of four people from Cupertino. Why not publish playlists everywhere, YouTube and Soundcloud included? Why split hairs in an unwinnable, service-oriented fight?
You'd think this would end up with a one-or-the-other solution. Either "we're uploading playlists in a text format now, as it should be" or "we're just going to leverage every service's native features" as the stance. Playing the reductive moralist card will end with you uploading Bandcamp playlists and begging Epic Games to listen to your plight and negotiate better terms as your publisher.
thcipriani•6mo ago
Hearing Things publishes playlists as music reviews—text, that is. And the playlists are available on all music streaming platforms.
But this blog announced that their playlists will no longer be on Spotify due to Spotify's continuing enshitification—I found no reductive moralism, only an interesting bad review.