Sunflowers

In November 2021, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invested €100 million in Helsing, a company that uses AI to support militaries. Spotify CFO Christian Luiga was the former CFO of Saab, a company that has also invested in Helsing and supplies arms to the IDF. Spotify has an internal program called Perfect Fit Content, through which employees replace music from real artists on their curated playlists with low-budget slop from anonymous musicians to reduce royalty payouts. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that ~20 songwriters were behind the work of more than 500 "artists", and that thousands of their tracks on Spotify had been streamed millions of times. Spotify has also encouraged artists to enroll their tracks in Discovery Mode, a pay-to-play program wherein musicians and labels receive fewer royalties in exchange for "algorithmic promotion." In 2024, Spotify stopped paying royalties for tracks under 1,000 yearly streams. A better world is possible. Somewhere beyond the horizon, it must be.