Thursday, March 28

A drop of 6% and thousands of unsubscribed users: for Spotify, the Neil Young crisis is also economic


The question could have simply been that Neil Young was leaving Spotify. An artist disagrees with other content on the platform, in this case Joe Rogen’s controversial podcast, which has come to be denounced by the American medical community as a dangerous spreader of misinformation about COVID. He gives the platform a choice “Either me, or Joe Rogen”, and finally has to go because Spotify, among other things, has paid 100 million dollars to exclusively broadcast Rogen’s programs.

The first reactions. However, the popular response and economic impact has been immediate, and not entirely beneficial for Spotify. For starters, the odd artist has joined Young’s stance. Joni Mitchell, also a Canadian singer-songwriter, who has stated on your website that “irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical community on this matter.”

Other artists such as Nils Lofgren, David Crosby or the widow of Andy Gill, leader of Gang of Four and who died of COVID, have shown their support for Young.

Spotify’s reaction has not been long in coming. The platform has issued a statement in which he acknowledges that the company has lacked transparency when communicating its rules and that it wants to guarantee user access to information from the scientific community. To do this, it will add a “content notice” to any podcast episode in which a discussion about coronavirus is addressed, with possible redirection to a data center and verified information about the pandemic, in an “effort to combat misinformation,” according to its CEO, Daniel Ek. It is the first and foremost of several content moderation and warning measures, though none particularly radical.

The impact on Spotify has not been long in coming. The most direct negative effects have been two. On one side, a spectacular stock market crash of its value of some two billion dollars in just three days. The shares fell 6% between January 26 and 28. On Thursday, they were priced at $171.32 a share, the lowest in 19 months. However, not only Neil Young is to blame: his position on the stock market has been falling for a few months due to lower than expected growth.

The other negative effect is more difficult to quantify. It’s about how this whole situation is going to erode Spotify’s popularity. Economically, the decision may not have much global impact. The New York Times, in its article entitled “Joe Rogen is too big to be canceled“, he said that “the idea that Mr. Rogan gives some headache to the executives is laughable”, such is the importance and the economic benefit that Rogen provides to the company.

#DeleteSpotify. But can the flood of social media hashtags like #CancelSpotify, #DeleteSpotify or #ByeSpotify erode your image and end up giving you those headaches anyway? The prestigious lawyer Tristan Snell counted in your account Twitter that Spotify, saturated with requests to unsubscribe from the service, had stopped processing them. In principle it was an issue of saturation, but if they continued to refuse to provide help it could become a reportable issue.

Many? In any case there are no figures, but the impact of all these casualties will end up being noticed. Spotify currently has 380 million monthly users, 172 of them paying. Media like Market Watch have requested an update of these figures after last week’s crisis, but Spotify (reasonably, because it is possible that some will return to the service) has not reported the specific figures. At the moment, there is a close date to watch out for: February 2, when Spotify communicates the results of the last quarter of 2021 to its shareholders.

And in the meantime, what does the competition do? Logically, rubbing their hands before the platform changes of many fans, who are also discovering services with catalogs comparable to that of Spotify, but with other advantages, such as a more affordable price or better sound quality. Apple Music The Tidal They took the opportunity to fight back on social networks, and prepare Young and Mitchell playlists on their services. young even has endorsed an offer from Amazon Music four free months of service.





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