Photo Credit: Age BarrosA survey of Spotify users reveals around 19% say they will cancel or have canceled their subscription.
Neil Young’s request to remove his music from Spotify, citing misinformation on the platform, has ignited a social media fury. The #DeleteSpotify and #CancelSpotify hashtags have taken off with people sharing photos of their canceled subs. So will Spotify see a decrease in users over the Joe Rogan complaints? It’s unlikely, even according to a survey of Spotify users.
A poll conducted by Forrester Research found that 19% of Spotify users said they had already canceled or plan to. 54% of Spotify users said they had no intention of canceling their subscription. Meanwhile, 18.5% said canceling would be on the table if more artists pull out of Spotify. Around 8.5% of those surveyed said Spotify’s features were too important to cancel their subscription.
Neil Young has been joined by Joni Mitchell, India Arie, Roxane Grey, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash.
Spotify abruptly removed around 70 Joe Rogan episodes on Friday without much explanation. On Saturday, Rogan issued an apology for a compilation video featuring cuts of him using the n- word. “He shouldn’t even be uttering the word,” India Arie says. “Don’t even say it, under any context. Don’t say it. That’s where I stand. I have always stood there.”
Rogan says he opted against using the ‘n-word’ substitution on his show. He explained that in many cases, he was discussing the use of the word itself by referencing comedians’ use of the word. “I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now,” Rogan said in his apology.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek called censoring Rogan over this a slippery slope. In a letter to Spotify staffers, Ek wrote, “I want to make one point very clear – I do not believe that silencing Joe Rogan is the answer. We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope.”
“I think it’s important you’re aware that we’ve had conversations with Joe and his team about some of the content in the show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language,” Ek’s letter continues. “Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify. He also issued his own apology over the weekend.”
It’s also worth noting that the poll size was 657 online consumers in the U.S., U.K., and Canada. Only about one-third of that number actually used Spotify – so the sample size is rather small. Researchers also note that the data is not weighted to be representative of total country populations.
