Spotify starts 'disinvesting' in France in response to new music-streaming tax | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com
Spotify is pulling support for two music festivals in protest against a new tax directed at music-streaming platforms operating in France.
  • TheMurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1545·
    11 months ago

    Spotify is saying it’s “a real blow to innovation”.

    Honestly wtf they on about. 1-2% tax on their massive multi million platform, and the tax goes directly to support music in the country.

    Fuck Spotify.

    • LazaroFilm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      661·
      11 months ago

      Spotify still can’t figure out how to make a profit even with all their subscribers. Theo the 1% tax adds to their loss. Still fuck Spotify.

    • De_Narm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      292·
      11 months ago

      Oh yeah. Innovation from Spotify. Like their great recent one, copying TikTok for a few weeks.

      • Johandea@feddit.nuEnglish
        381·
        11 months ago

        What are you on about?! Spotify innovates all the time. Almost every week I’m greeted with a new way to fuck up their app and/or service. That’s impressive! 😐

        • no banana@lemmy.worldEnglish
          91·
          11 months ago

          Also fucking recommending me podcasts even though I just want to listen to music

    • LemmyHead@lemmy.mlEnglish
      19·
      11 months ago

      Innovation my ass. Their UI has been as a disaster as ever. Major reason why I stopped paying for their crappy service years ago

    • The Barto@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      234·
      11 months ago

      Innovation? The fuck have they innovated? They’re stupid Bluetooth spotify only car thing that they bailed on?

      Spotify wrapped … yeah no shit I played my favourite song the most this year… Such an inovating feature of useless information…

      They did innovate underpaying artists tho.

    • Avid AmoebaEnglish
      224·
      11 months ago

      Wait, what does “to support music in the country” mean? Spotify already pays the majority of their revenue to record labels. That is funding for the music industry. Aren’t French labels a part of this scheme?

      Not a Spotify fan, just thinking about this on the basis of some facts I’m aware of.

      • blargerer@kbin.social
        181·
        11 months ago

        Its not unusual for countries outside the biggest media producers (like the US for instance) to have rules in place to make sure there is continued local cultural output.

        • Avid AmoebaEnglish
          6·
          11 months ago

          Ah similar to Canadian content (CanCon) policies in Canada. Got it.

  • foggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    495·
    11 months ago

    When a huge company pulls out if a country due to its laws affecting their ability to make money, it should tell you that the company in question only has its status due to exploiting something that should be being regulated.

    • Pepsi@kbin.social
      111·
      11 months ago

      Or that a quant figured out it would be cheaper to cut staff and stop operating in a specific region vs pay extra fees to continue operating in that region.

      • pandacoder@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        11 months ago

        Well in this case the companies that should be regulated are the Internet companies in SK. 😂 Good counterpoint (not /s)

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Well yes… Or that the government has enacted laws to extract rent from international companies.

  • SquiffSquiff@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    11 months ago

    I’m in the UK. Spotify family subscription is £17.99/month (US$ 22.84). Same price as Netflix premium, although I have Netflix standard at £10.99 (US$ 13.96). Now, I know that they give a high percentage to the record companies, source says 70% but really? What are they doing over there? They seem to have some fundamental problems. With Netflix, my history, watchlist, search results, etc. are consistent across sessions and devices. Spotify can’t manage this. Netflix of course produce a significant quantity of original content. Spotify do a few live music sessions. I don’t think that the user experience with Spotify has changed significantly in the last 6 years that I have been a customer.

    So they’re not making money. They’re not improving the user experience or meeting the market standard for it. They’re not producing original content and they seem unable to comply with local laws. Why have they not been disrupted by one of their competitors?

    • Radium@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      281·
      11 months ago

      What you are missing is that they are majority owned by the same record companies they are paying out 70% to. They even specifically structured the deals between Spotify and labels so that they pay labels in a way that allows labels not to credit artists for nearly 50% of all streams meaning the label gets to keep it.

      Chokepoint capitalism by Cory Doctorow is a great book that goes into detail about how it works

    • PlantObserver@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Anecdotally, about 25% of my circle have moved to various other services, so maybe not a huge disruption but they’re definitely losing some customers to competitors at least

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      Tbh I prefer the different play sessions between devices of device A is offline.
      That way I have my work playlist at work and my home playlist at home ready to play.