Spotify CEO Daniel Ek caused an uproar among fans and artists after claiming that the cost of creating music or “content” in the modern world is “close to zero”. In a tweet, Ek remarked that people can now easily share an incredible amount of content with minimal expenses. However, his statement received backlash online, with one user calling out the CEO for being an “out of touch billionaire”.
Several others also pointed out the high expenses of creating music, including equipment costs, studio time, rehearsal spaces, mixing, mastering, and travel. Primal Scream’s bassist Simone Marie Butler even commented that music will still be valued in a hundred years, but Spotify won’t be remembered as anything but a bad example of a tool for extracting value from other people’s music or “content”.
Ek went on to tweet that while much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries. However, his earlier comments continued to draw criticism for implying that creating music is an easy and inexpensive task.
This isn’t the first time that Spotify has faced controversy, with the company making changes to its subscription service and royalty system that have been met with backlash in the past few months. It has also been criticized for cutting its workforce by 17% while making over £1 billion in profit
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