Switched on Pop - Quitting Spotify (ft. Deerhoof)

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

In June 2025, indie veterans Deerhoof scrubbed their entire catalog from the world’s dominant streaming platform. The catalyst wasn't low royalties, but Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military technology through his investment firm Prima Materia. Greg Saunier and Satomi Matsuzaki explain why they are prioritizing their ethics over exposure. They argue that the "convenience" of streaming traps us in harmful systems. They’d prefer listeners explore alternative paths to hear their music. That’s why the band premiered their latest single on Craigslist. And it’s they half jokingly say they "would rather our fans steal our music than stream our music at this point." SONGS DISCUSSED Deerhoof: Immigrant Song, Scarcity is Manufactured, Life is Suffering, Return of the Return of the Fire Trick Star MORE Get Zach Tenorio's synth extraveganza 'Field Trip' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. At the turn of the millennium, the music industry was in freefall. While labels scrambled to plug the leak with digital downloads and ringtones, piracy was winning. But in 2008, Spotify officially launched and popularized the streaming model by 2017. Streaming had become the largest revenue source and recorded music. The business was back from the dead.

According to Spotify, the company has distributed $60 billion to music rights holders from its founding through 2024, $10 billion of that in the last year alone. But this recovery has come with significant friction. For years, artists withheld catalogs and rallied against opaque fractions of a penny compensation. Now, in 2025, these frustrations are starting to boil over. Earlier this year, we talked with Liz Peli, whose book The Moon Machine, investigates some of the perceived issues with Spotify's model, and the backlash has since escalated with various lawsuits and listener boycotts. And then in June 2025, a new kind of tipping point arrived when the beloved indie veterans Deerhoof scrubbed their discography from the service.

The leftover concerns regarding Daniel X, Spotify's co-founder, ex-investment firm Prima Materia, which is independent from Spotify, led an almost $700 million funding round for Helsing, a German defense company that develops strike drones and AI surveillance tools for European defense, including the war in Ukraine. Deerhoof's exit highlights a complex web of ethics in big tech. While they target Spotify, other streaming giants including Amazon and Alphabet also have defense ties. Despite this ubiquity, Deerhoff's move sparked a chain reaction, acts like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, massive attack, and Sylvan S.O. all followed suit. Amidst these highly publicized departures,

Daniel Eck announced in September he would transition from Spotify's CEO to executive chairman. I wanted to speak with Deerhoof because they're a critically adored band with a 30-year history of provocative music. Since forming in the Bay Area in 1994, they've been prolific, releasing 20 studio albums. Their music has broached themes like nuclear war, extinction, and issues such as immigration on this year's album, Noble and Godlike in ruin. So I invited Deerhoof to the show. Drummer Greg Sonier and bassist singer Satomi Matsuzaki joined me to talk about the logistics of leaving the world's biggest stage, And what they hope happens next. Greg Satomi, thank you so much for joining me on such a house.

Thank you for having us. You have all made the really bold move to remove your music from Spotify. I wanted to talk about that decision and some of how it relates to your music. You've also erased it from your mind. What prompted your decision to leave? Well, you know, we never used Spotify to listen to music. I grew up listening to physical records and cassette tapes and all these. analog media, which I love, because I feel like I'm like buying from them.

You know, I go to record stores and I go to shows and I talk to the bands and, you know, I express that I like your bands and, you know, I support directly, 100%, you know. So like I never believed in kind of this streaming idea, you know, which is fine. Like I think all these younger generations listen to streaming all the time. just find it really difficult to, you know, navigate through. I like the feeling of, you know, putting records on or just the action, you know. Just like when you play music, I like playing bass, you know, or like listening to bass acoustically. It's so beautiful. I think that's where I believe in, like, the connection with music. And I feel like Spotify really disconnected.

world, you know. So I didn't even think it was a big deal to just leave Spotify. I want to get into some of the discussions that you all had. What did that look like? What were the internal discussions that went on? I mean, the reason I'm giggling is we were on tour. The headline came out about Eck increasing his investment and becoming chairman. And so we're just in the car. It's like, oh, you guys saw that headline, right? Yeah. We should get off Spotify, right?

Yeah. Okay, I'll call the label. That was it. I mean, we're... So did you weigh anything in making this decision? No. I mean, it was just like, I mean, no-brainer for us, yeah. What are some of those practicalities of, you know, who do you need to talk to?

So you have to call a label? Like, do you have to get permission from someone? How does, what's the... How does it work? It would work differently for, you know, for different artists. In our case, we have records on a bunch of labels, so it involved contacting several.

The main one that, you know, took a little bit of time and discussion was the label we're on currently, which is joyful noise. And when we're chatting to the people, who run joyful noise, and we had a very, which we always do with him, we have a very good communication, good relationship. And they start bringing up things like, if you publicly state that you are leaving Spotify, people are going to read that. And other people are going to want to get off Spotify, too. We're like, nah, nobody follows our, you know, page or whatever.

No one will even realize it. We'll have, you know, 200 of, our own, you know, fans be like, okay, cool, you know. And we are more like, you know, how are we feeling about, you know, somebody else is using our music to kill people? I'm like, that's like so,

never. This conversation really made any moral clarity that we thought as completely simple-minded musicians on tour with but one goal. to bash the drums and we need to arrive at 3 p.m. for soundcheck, you know, etc. Instantly much cloudier, much fuzzier, because some people are not as privileged as Deerhoeff is,

and they are making a larger percentage of their income from Spotify. But the fact that we're 31 years old as a band and had kind of gotten over a few humps within that 31 years and had become, you know, somewhat medium profile before streaming even appeared. And so we could continue to go on tour with us, you know, actually very loyal

listeners, you know, who really like our music and come back, you know, repeatedly to our concerts. And so, you know, we can just sort of breezily, you know, oh, whatever, you know, let's get off Spotify. And you realize it's like, it's a bit more of an agonizing topic for, and complicated topic for our colleagues, our peers, especially for younger artists. And I think that that was upsetting for us. Yeah, it's because we played in UK, you know, this year. And then we had the opening bands.

They had one hit on Spotify. And so they were like, you know, oh, you guys are so cool that you guys left Spotify. But I don't know if we get off Spotify, we would ever, you know, like. Like I can't eat. Yeah, I can't eat because they have this one hit song. Right. And they don't even have like real live audience because, you know. A lot of new artists might develop a following on a social media platform that then pushes them to a streaming platform.

They haven't had the grinding it out on tour and building a fan base in that kind of way. So we are like, you know, kind of lucky that we could, we can still, you know, go on tour and, you know, people would find out, oh, you know, The O'Hoof is going to, you know, still release album, you know, and they can listen other than Spotify. And I hear a lot of people cheering for us. So, I mean, we don't blame, you know, other people keep going. Partly. I think it's more like in the process of trying to wrap our heads around what was happening. We started to realize that we were in the perfect sweet spot.

I mean, anybody more successful than. us probably can't leave Spotify or it would mean, I mean, maybe unless you're Neil Young or something like which he did briefly. But like your relationship with your label is much more complicated and involves teams of lawyers, etc. And the financial sacrifice that you're asking your label to make would be astronauts. And they're going to answer with the word no. Whereas smaller artists would have the opposite problem, you know, that Satomi just described. We were in this kind of sweet spot.

And so we started to see our role as like, well, because we have the privilege and the comfort to be able to do this, what we can help do is what we have actually. succeeded in doing. And that is make Spotify incredibly uncool. And you don't feel the pressure to be on Spotify. You just use something else. Using the lovers of cultural power over financial power.

I guess so, yeah. Yeah. So Toma, do you feel like because of some of the ethos of your music that it was more urgent for you to take these steps? Well, I don't, we never talk about our ethos in the band, but I think we,

you know, I don't think my you know, how I want to be in the ban never changed. We all felt the same way. I'm sorry. I mean, it's like the... There's something funny to me about the idea of having to like, well, okay, you can join Deerhoof.

You have to fill out of form. For or against war. For or against war profiteering. And so, yeah, if we had discussed ethos, it would be like, okay, for or against, you know, it feels a little obvious. Perhaps I'm projecting, you know, you have songs like scarcity is manufactured. Yeah, yeah. Life is suffering. I mean, you're right.

And it's true. Satomi is also right that within the band, you know, we tend to be a little shy with. each other about talking about emotions and our political beliefs and our, you know, our deepest value systems. But that's just because we're a bit shy. I mean, we do talk about them in the songs. But we don't need to talk about it too because we feel the same. Exactly.

This war is just so horrible. Every, you know, news is hard to watch these days. Of course. You know, talk about it just brings me all this feeling, you know, about people, you know, getting killed, you know. And how could I just talk about it? You okay, Satim? Yeah. All right.

Okay. What we instantly realized when we saw the headline, about the doubling down on instruments of warfare by Danielaq, and that then was deepened by looking under the hood and having conversation with our label about it, was that, guys, you know, hey, band, fools, you know, did you not know? Like, everything you do, every step you take is deeply,

entangled with the war machine. It's funny because a lot of what has happened in the wake of our decision has been called a Spotify boycott. And then almost immediately I thought to myself, well, we're not exactly boycotting. We've been boycotting since the day it started because we never signed up in the first place. So as listeners, we're not consuming music via Spotify. So is it more of a strike because we're the laborers?

We're the ones who create value for Spotify. Spotify would be nothing without the musicians past and present of the world and all of their work. So are we on strike? But then even there, I was like, not really because I don't have any demands. I just won out of there. You know, it's not like, oh, you know, if Daniel Eck would just step down as CEO and change his title, oh, sure, we'll come back, you know. I mean, it was really kind of made me laugh. I mean, I have been so publicly critical of Spotify for so many years on social media.

I'm quoted in that book that Liz Pelly wrote called The Mood Machine. And lots of magazine articles. Nothing. I mean, it was never the slightest blip, you know. Who cares, you know? The second we said, oh, we're taking our music off, like, We get these panic emails, of course, through secretly, through joyful noise to us, messages from Spotify reps saying like, oh, we need to have a dialogue. Is there anything we can do?

And so, you know, it's funny how putting your money where your mouth is is what oligarchs notice. But, you know, just it's not because dear have only dear hope, but we came out with this news that made people felt connected, you know. And then they can sense the, oh, bad image, you know. I think the people who are cool people are feeling it, you know, then the Spotify cannot maybe go on. And so, you know, it's that the vibe, you know. Yeah, I think, and like, you know, what if there's no resistance to the bad things in this world? You know, I mean, Greg really follows the details of how politics, you know, and stuff.

But for me, like, I have this gut instinct of like, no, you know. And it's important that we have that, you know, that I want to go to grave with the good feeling, you know. How has your gut felt since making this decision? Great. Amazing, actually. Yeah, totally. Just right, like, right off the bat, like when we say, oh, let's leave Spotify. I'm like, oh, man, the relief.

I mean, exactly. Even like before you know, invested the Hellsing, like when we announced our album this time, right? That was before, you know, Helsing thing.

We premiered our new song on Craigslist because we were like, well, you know, I think, you know, we made this video like, oh, I, we think that these platforms are, you know, trouble, you know, which is like Spotify and all that,

other stuff. So let's release our song on Craigslist, you know. So we got listed on this worldwide Craigslist, our new song. It got taken down. Yeah, it got taken down. But, you know, because they thought

about the scam, you know. Right, right. Yeah. But yeah, it wasn't new. No. In the past, there have been other major exodus from Spotify. Taylor Swift kept her music off for a period of time over some of the battles around streaming. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell took their music off.

Some of that was around the pandemic and the platforming of Joe Rogan. So both there was concerns about anti-vaccination and platforming that on his show. So very different kinds of conditions in which people have made these decisions. What do you feel like is different in this moment and why it's getting resonance with a lot of artists that are maybe more associated with a sort of DIY. why, India aesthetic. I mean,

I think you just answered it. You just answered the question. I think that's why. I mean, if Taylor Swift says, you know, and I remember the same thing. It was like the Beatles

weren't on iTunes. ACDC wasn't on it. Deaf Leppard wasn't on iTunes for a long time. It's sort of like, okay, you know, some multi-millionaire,

whatever is like, basically is not satisfied. You know, their team of lawyers isn't satisfied with the terms, you know. A contract negotiation is not. Exactly.

I mean, you're kind of like a little suspect, but the exodus didn't end up happening, other than with a small handful of, you know, somewhat potentially out of touch musicians. So what has been the sort of... So what I think it is is exactly what you said is that a more DIY band did it. And then immediately a few more DIY bands followed immediately. They Shus Shoo did, and then what, King Gizzard followed. And, you know, there have been several. And perhaps it was that the impetus was more egregious in this case, more hard to ignore. I mean, you see the word AI weapon, and then you see daily video footage of the results of AI weapons.

I mean, it's no longer an abstraction. It's very categorically different than concerns around streaming rates. But it's even a little different than, say, vaccination as an issue. Now, you know, Deerhoff tends to be very COVID-conscious, COVID-safe, and we request masks at our shows and stuff, even at this late hour. But, you know, a COVID molecule is not something you can see. And so it's easy to dismiss. This is different. When you're talking about weapons, and then you're seeing footage of maybe not Helsing's weapons, but you're reading news reports every day about what AI war is like. The human element is gradually being removed from policing and warfare and border control. And you see the result. And everybody's seeing the result on screens. And I think maybe that contributed. It's like you just, it's really hard to.

compartmentalize, you know. It's like, well, this, this. Maybe I don't want to support that. Our world has gone through a radical context collapse over the last decade in which all media appear in the same stream. And so the fact that we are seeing images of war next to advertisements, next to band song announcements, they do exist in our consciousness very differently than in an era. I read a newspaper.

I picked up an album. when these things are separate actions. And so this moment of war, the rise of AI, the connection to music and investment, your experience is that this is a significantly more potent moment for the critique of these streaming platforms.

What has the reaction been? Do you feel that are people capturing that, that reason that is driving you? I don't know. I mean, like Satomi mentioned early on, it's like it wasn't necessarily our intention. It wasn't a tactic to start a movement. I mean, the Joe Rogan thing died out. I felt like after about a week, you know.

And then Neil Young was back on Spotify. Now there are people doing pop-up death to Spotify events. Well, yeah, exactly. We're months out from our little post, you know. And I'm, yeah, I mean, the amount of content, I'm not sure it's even peaked yet, you know. To some, it's already old news. And that's why I'm like, spot a what? Oh, that old stupid platform, you know, who cares about that, you know, nonsense, you know.

But in fact, you know, and I mean, it's hard not to see, sorry, but it's hard not to see Eck changing his title or, deck steps down, you know, and all the headlines as a attempt at a, you know, somewhat distraction tactic to change the topic of conversation. It was funny, though. Like, okay, now I remember about Spotify's story on the last door we did. We stayed in this one hotel and then there was a, when we were checking in 1 a.m. At night after the show, this really kind of gauzy front desk guy who checked us in. It's like, oh, you're in the back.

And then what's the band's name? And we said, oh, Deerhoff. And then he searched on Spotify, I think. And he's like, oh, your band doesn't show up, you know. Or like. Exactly. That was really cool. So how does it feel to not exist?

Yeah. I think he went to other platforms to find out. But yeah, yeah, it was funny. But for me, like, it's more about AI, you know, technology that is more and more progressing. is an alert, like I high on alert, because you have to stop somewhere that what is good technology to do what, you know? You have to choose, you know, just AI taking over music or weapons. I mean, that is not, you know, the future that we'd like to really dig into and go deeper. I mean, I think...

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Discoveredlao today and let's emvolver for his essence. I'm sorry, this is crass, but I have to ask what has it done for you? Like, what has this reaction done for you? Because you are a band.

You have to keep on going. It sounds like, you know, obviously, as you were saying, you've been around for a minute. You got started before streaming took over. Streaming only became the dominant form of revenue for the music industry in 2017. So what does it look like for you? What is the impact? I think you have to ask us again in, we'll have to do a return podcast in maybe a year or something. Yeah.

Because it's like, you know, from a number crunching perspective, It's really hard to say. And even a year from now, if I say, hey, remember the last year when I could pay my rent? Well, I can't anymore. But that could be for any number of reasons. I mean, within the bed, Satomi was correct. We don't talk about our ethos that much. And it took us about one minute to decide to leave Spotify. But what we talk about for hours is, what is it, Medicare or whatever. We're all afraid we're going to lose our Medicare. And we're always trying to like, you know, carefully. not make too much income, you know, so that we can keep it, you know, and we're always, like, on the edge and different states we live in poor different states, and they all have a different... Medicaid. Medicaid, sorry, sorry. Medicaid, is when you get older. Which, actually, I did get older. Anyway, but, you know, to answer your question, if Deerhoofs has a reversal of fortune and suddenly things are looking a lot rosier for us or things are looking a lot more catastrophic.

for us, it would be a little hard to say it was because we made a post about Spotify and we're leaving Spotify. My guess is that, in fact, that is a drop in the bucket in terms of our ability to pay rent and eat dinner. If we wanted to make more money from the beginning, I don't think we chose to play music. Don't you think? Yeah, right. We took a wrong turn on day one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. The vast majority of the other streaming platforms are owned by one of the world's largest technology companies. Right. Often subsidized by prime memberships, iPhone purchases, etc., etc.

Is streaming a business? I get the sense that Spotify was always pretty bad. Although they did become the most famous and most used. of music streaming platforms. I think they were somewhat cursed with really corny marketing and kind of as opaque as their backroom deals are, the transparency of them trying to pretend that they're interested in music. Like they keep contradicting that with their own public statements

again and again and again. They just make themselves look so foolish. And so I think they've pretty well flushed themselves down the toy. But I do think that they're, you know, now that it's mission accomplished on Spotify, it's time to target other tech platforms. I like the idea of targeted removals, targeted refusals, targeted boycotts, targeted strikes. And in some cases, lawsuits, you know, that you can participate in. All of those things are tools available to the human race as a way to, you know, increase the likelihood. of their survival that is being threatened by a tiny handful of multibillionaires.

But, you know, taking down, like targeting one by one, not the whole thing. Right. But why don't we all gather and strike one thing at a time? Organized. Then the little thing got, you know, the big thing maybe get a little bit smaller and smaller. And then maybe become, many. many, many different companies and is smaller, the better. You know, everything smaller, the better.

I mean, goes against the capitalism. But, you know, it's just more mom and pop idea. And a little community can be sustainable is the good future. Right. You know, because if the big, if it's, everything's so big, if the supply goes all, you know, it gets, weighs only on one side. If something goes bad, we all got taken down. We need to raise the survival rate, just the whole human race.

You can't rely too much. You know, the little stream, if stream is a business. Like, you know, I don't know. I never probably trust the streaming service because that's something I don't understand or I can undo. Like something I can't fix by myself. never trust. You know, I like something that I can actually, like, understand how to undo, you know. Totally. I mean, you talked about holding the base early on in this conversation. You know, like, I can't probably fix the base, but I can't, I have a friend who can fix my base.

Exactly. That's how I want to live in this world, you know, that I have friends or community that I can go to. You know, I go to the drugstore that's nearby, that's mom and pop, you know. instead of CVS or the Walgreens, the big place, because what if they just go out of business, you know? But I want to support these neighbors who are around for 50 years, 60 years, I can trust. I like this. It's very Wendell Berry has the essay of why I'm not going to buy a computer. And he describes why would I buy a computer when I can use my typewriter,

which might sound absurd. But he says, I think a good technology is one that becomes easier to repair, that works more reliably. Yeah. And I imagine he's probably using the same typewriter that he was using when he wrote that essay decades ago. Yeah, I'm not going back that far. I would still, you know, hold on to my computer. But, you know, like, I wouldn't buy Tesla because, well, it's not good, you know, for, you know, like, if it's so digitalized, whatever, I don't understand.

You have to take it back to the dealer to get it repaired, period. And the repair is cost more than, you know what I mean? So it's not actually you don't save money. That's part of the nefarious, you know, dark side of this kind of, you know, corporate takeover of every moment of your life. Is that it, the corporation makes themselves seem so indispensable and so. so deeply enmeshed and entangled with your every move that it's hard for an individual to even imagine extricating themselves from that. And, you know, Spotify or whatever, streaming is obviously an incredibly clear example of

that. If you're a musician, it's like, sorry, you can't leave Spotify. It's too late. Most of your income is coming from Spotify. Sorry, you waited too long. You didn't read the fine print and now you're screwed. Looking for convenience is not. actually a good way to survive, you know.

This question of convenience, I think, actually does go back to the main story. You know, Liz Peli and her book Moon Machine talked about how Spotify really emerges out of this era of piracy and trying to find a way to simply make it easier or more convenient. And if it's easier to get your music, then that's what you're going to go do. We're actually now living through another rise in piracy. As young people have, A, it's often really hard to find the thing you're looking for, especially. in the world of film and television, where those streaming services are all bifurcated, right? With the music streaming services, except for Deerhoof and increasing other artists, largely parody of the content you're going to get.

Okay. But in all of these cases, it's really hard to maybe take your media with you. There's been a rise of, you know, you talked about the importance of physical media. A lot of young people are buying up old iPods and MP3s and are excited to listen in that kind of way. Do you know how hard it is to buy MP3s today and load it onto an iPod? It's incredibly challenging. And so there's been a rise in piracy because, in fact, it's not that convenient to take your music from your streaming service with you out in your pocket, especially if you're away from cell coverage or you don't want to connect in that kind of way. So I'm not surprised that we're seeing new ways of interacting with music as people want something different. Totally.

I've seen many instances or expressions. of the idea in the past few months that I really resonate with that, like, best thing you can do by our music, you know, whether it's by the MP3s or buy a physical copy of an LP or a CD or cassette or whatever.

Second best thing, steal it. You know, pirate it. Third best thing, stream it. In fact, worst thing, stream it. Like, I would rather our fans steal our music than stream our music. at this point. And because, and that has to do, I mean, it would depend on the streaming site itself. And if there were, if a streaming site were to become more widely used and that streaming site did not have corporate entanglements that make us cry when we think about them,

then that would change the calculation perhaps. But with any of these large corporate platforms, yeah, I'd almost rather you steal Deerhoff's music than listen to it on that. Yeah, and then later, if this person survived this world, they can buy our music later. Exactly. Or they come to the concert, you know. Like getting a viral post on Instagram does not make people come to the concert. But them stealing the music, I mean, the number of conversations I've had over 31 years, You know, I wouldn't say all 31, but at least the past 15 or 20. But now, yeah.

Of, like, people come up to the merch table. It's like, I'm buying this record. Oh, this is my favorite record. And I'm buying it now for the first time. I've been listening to this for years. I wake up to this song every single morning for the past 20 years, you know, because I stole it. You know, I pirate and they say it to me. I'm like, cool, you know, that's awesome.

I'm interested in this idea that you want to release. music and a place where it doesn't make you cry. Well, we listen to music because often we want to either change how our feeling, make us feel more happy, make us cry. Sometimes we would need a good cry when we're listening to our music. 100%. And you want to be doing so from a place of being vulnerable with that artist and a place that they're in, not the dark vulnerability of the place that you're listening to it from.

I mean, or just, yeah, I mean, I don't know if. vulnerable in the sense that you've been forced to become vulnerable. Everybody does feel a little bit cheated, a little bit exploited, a little bit forced into a corporate agreement that they didn't, if they really had time to, like, this is not the world they would have chosen for themselves if they had had any say whatsoever. You've got two ways to go. You can either feel depressed and defeated about that fact, or you can. start to take little steps where, well, today I'm going to refuse this corporate entanglement.

And I agree with Sotomay. I feel great. I feel much better after exiting that particular obnoxious, you know, advertising scheme. Because, yeah, I just feel a little lighter on my feet, you know. It's just one last thing that's dragging me down. down, you know. Yeah, we'd like to play more shows and make, you know, income than getting, you know, we don't get a lot from Spotify anyway.

They pay 0.003 to 0.005 cent per stream. So tell me with the facts. Yeah, okay. Yeah. That's right. And that's just an estimate. No one really knows because it's a, you know, it's a division of it. Yeah.

Also, depends on the artists. Some artists negotiate how much. Major labels have. special deals. But like us, you know, who are indie, you know, small artists, like, you know, they don't pay that much. So it doesn't damage us, you know, so badly, you know. Maybe bad for Taylor Swift or cold play or something like that. Yeah.

We can survive and we will, we'll. And we will. Yeah. And if we don't, then goodbye, listeners, you know. I'm going to start a farm. I would say about 20% of our listeners listen to our podcasts on Spotify. What would you like for our listeners and for our podcast? Yeah, right on.

But it's one step up, I mean, you know, that you are airing this conversation, you know? And then maybe that can change the little bit of the word out, you know. and maybe people change their minds or, you know, some kind of little change, you know, little by little. I just heard from my friend Mike two nights ago a very interesting model that he was presenting. And I think it can apply in the case of, it can apply to really any form of whether it's a refusal, it's a type of activism, it's a type of effect to the wider discourse. But this model of the people who are very much against you in your point of view, you would like to move them to the, and actively fighting you. You would like to move them to the next box over of they're still against you but not actively fighting you anymore.

The people who are against you but not actively fighting, you would like to move to the neutral category. The people who are neutral, you would like to move to the category of they're actually sympathetic to what you're saying but will not act on it. The people who are sympathetic to what you're saying but don't act on it, you would like to move into the I'm going to act on it category. And it doesn't take every human being on planet Earth to cause a revolution. I mean, studies of revolutions show that it takes, you know, something like maybe 3.5% of the population in order to activate such a thing and to create some kind of massive structural change in a country or in a community or in a, you know, whatever it is. And yeah, I think that if one were to set one's goal as, hey, everybody

listening to this, all of you must stop, you know, and get off Spotify. today, then what you have just set yourself as a completely unrealistic goal. But movements are born and strengthened not by setting unrealistic utopian goals and then just shooting straight for that, but more like a patient step-by-step process that involves many types of action. And one can be this sort of like moving from one category to the next, you know. That's a really useful framework. Yeah. I thought so too.

Yeah. So tell me and Greg, thank you so much for sharing your experience. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Thank you. I reached out to Spotify for comment on the story. Their spokesperson said, quote, Spotify will continue to be the place where artists can find an audience and build

a career. An independent artists like these are earning more from our platform than any other streaming service. In 2024, independent artists generated a approximately half of the record $10 billion, Spotify paid out to rights holders, unquote. Prima Materia did not respond to my request for comment. In June, Daniel Eck was quoted in the Financial Times about backlash to his investment in Helsing, saying, quote, I'm sure people will criticize it and that's okay. Personally, I'm not concerned about it. I focus more on doing what I think

is right, and I am 100% convinced that this is the right thing for Europe, unquote. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Lessa Soap, engineer by Brandon McFarlane, illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our theme music is by Jossi Adams and Zach Tenario of Arc Iris. Zach has a really fabulous new album full of all kinds of wonderful scents. You can find that in our show notes. I'll link to where you can buy it on Bandcamp. I highly recommend it.

We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe to NYMag.com slash pod. We'll be back again next week with my conversation with Mark Rebier, a wizard of improvisation. He shows me how he does it live. It's going to be a really fun one. Check it out. We'll see you next Tuesday. And of course, thanks for listening.