Important: Please stop using Spotify
From The Ballad Of Anne & Mary by Long Cat Media
November 7, 2025 · 2 min · Season 1 · Episode 7
About this episode
The hosts urge listeners to stop using Spotify due to its unethical practices and suggest alternative podcast players.
Hello, Laurence & Lindsay here. We've got a big problem, and we need your help. If you're listening to this on Spotify, we're asking you to stop, and switch to another podcast player. As I'm sure most of you know, there's plenty of evidence that Spotify is a terrible company with a long history of exploiting and underpaying artists, but that's only part of why it's so bad. It's been reported that Spotify's CEO, Daniel Ek, has recently invested millions of Euros of your subscription fees in an AI weaponry company called Helsing. This company has developed an automated target identification system, with the option to keep a human in the loop. In other words, it's machines selecting which humans to kill on the battlefield. It's also been reported Spotify donated $150,000 to the Trump campaign, and it's recently been running ICE recruitment ads. It is a powerful force for bad. So here's our problem. Almost half of our total listenership comes from Spotify, and the adverts that we run are how we make our money. If we just pulled our podcasts straight away, that would be a huge financial blow for us. So we would like to urge you to listen elsewhere, on another podcast player. Lots…
People in this episode
Hosts: Laurence, Lindsay
Topics covered
- Spotify
- artist exploitation
- AI weaponry
- podcast alternatives
- advertising
- listener support
Keywords
- Spotify
- Helsing
- AI weaponry
- podcast players
- advertising
- artist rights
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Spotify, Helsing, Trump campaign, ICE, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict
More episodes of The Ballad Of Anne & Mary
- We're leaving Spotify. Let's keep in touch! · April 8, 2026 · 2 min
- Our New Show! Magenta Presents... Ghosted · February 21, 2023 · 25 min
- 5. Redoublement · May 27, 2021 · 40 min
- 4. Broken Time · May 20, 2021 · 28 min
- 3. Boar's Thrust · May 13, 2021 · 34 min
- 2. True Edge · May 6, 2021 · 33 min
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