Sadly, it was an obvious choice, Rogan or Young? Joe Rogan is bringing in big money for Spotify. Neil Young not so much. The only way such a boycott would work is if Young can enlist other musicians to deliver the same ultimatum, but as I understand Neil doesn't have that many friends anymore after the fallout over leaving Pegi. But, I get his point.
Turns out Neil battled polio as a child and still had recurring bouts many years later. So for him the vaccine is important, as is treating yourself properly if you do catch COVID. Something Rogan and the folks at Spotify will never understand. For them, it is all about revenue, and Rogan is the king of Bullshit Mountain right now, drawing in a massive number of viewers to his crappy show and saying anything and everything that will draw more in. Spotify has gone from being a music streaming platform to another peak in the Bullshit Mountain range. I'm glad I dropped it long before this asswipe came along.
Still there are those who defend Rogan, namely Howard Stern, who has been a harsh critic of his anti-vax stance. Howard believes free speech trumps cancel culture. Well, this really isn't about free speech. This is a guy who wantonly plays off people's ignorance, peddling horse de-worming medicine and any other long debunked medication for treating COVID just to nab an audience. It is exploitation of the worst kind. A very dangerous exploitation that ultimately leads to lengthy hospitalization and death among his gullible viewers. I bet he will now start pitching Regeneron, which he refused to take when he had COVID, now that the FDA has halted its use for treating the latest Omicron variation.
This is what the Florida governor and his highly dubious state surgeon general advised after the FDA made its latest pronouncement, urging hospitals not to return back stocks. As it turns out, one of Ron's top donors has invested heavily in Regerneron and wanted the Florida governor to stock up, not down. You begin to get the picture. It isn't about treating COVID, much less immunizing against it, it is about big business. As the variants change, so do the treatments, as will the vaccines, but for those who invested in the previous remedies and vaccines that is a reversal of fortune they aren't willing to accept.
Spotify was launched in 2008 but really didn't take off until around 2015, going public in 2018. Google apparently was ready to dole out $1 billion for his service in 2010, but Ek claims that was just a rumor and he wouldn't have taken it anyway because he saw a much greater potential. Spotify is now valued at $37 billion. Not Google territory, but pretty amazing for a start-up like this.
The music streaming service has a long history of ripping musicians off when it comes to royalties. Thom Yorke, Jimmy Buffett and Taylor Swift all railed against Daniel Ek when they felt they were being shortchanged by his music streaming service, and pulled their music. It didn't matter for Daniel by this point, as his contracts were with the record labels not the artists. Swift eventually went back to Spotify, as it quickly pushed other music streaming services to the side, becoming the only name in town, and a major source of revenue for the record labels, which were struggling with the pandemic of pirate recordings and the freebies on Youtube.
Neil Young has long railed against these platforms, as they deface music in his opinion. The music provided is all MP3, the lowest grade of quality, taking up less media storage space. As a result you are hearing very poor forms of reproduction. Young tried to push FLAC recordings there for awhile, even came out with his Pono player, and PonoMusic where you could download FLACs from the musical artists themselves. Only problem was that it was pricey, and most people aren't willing to pay that kind of money for digital recordings, no matter how good they are. They would rather invest in vinyl.
As for this first amendment bullshit, Rogan's rants have nothing to do with free speech. It is all about cashing in on the information superhighway, which has spun wildly out of control. Rogan has only been on Spotify since 2020. His so-called Experience has been around since 2008, moving from one streaming service to another. He rose to fame on Youtube, when being a Youtuber was the thing. For the most part, his telecasts were innocuous but in the age of COVID he has cashed in big on his anti-establishment theme by bucking all conventions. He's not the only one, but at this point the most pronounced, thanks in large part to his infamous interview with Dr. Malone.
The only problem is that it is impossible to stifle these self-professed mavericks completely. No sooner would Spotify drop him, than some other streaming service pick him up. Not that Spotify is going to give up its golden bull, as The Joe Rogan Experience is the number-one-rated podcast on its streaming service, by far. Joe can spew all the bullshit he wants as long as revenue keeps pouring it.
I made my choice, but that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Anymore than it does Neil Young pulling his music from a streaming service that has long pissed off musicians, leaving large blank spots in its music catalog. Ek doesn't give a fuck! And, that seems to be the way so many persons think these days despite the inordinate number of hospitalizations and deaths from a pandemic that won't go away largely because of the misinformation being spread on social media platforms like Spotify. The Manson image is spot on, as that is the type of cult figure he has become, with Ek an all-too-willing accomplice.
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