How did anyone "force" Spotify to do anything? Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.
By making it costly not to do it, not in a free market (vote with wallets) way, but in a "will hurt you with bad publicity, government pressure, etc" way. Forcing doesn't need to be a gun in the head of the CEO.
>Various people put public pressure on Spotify and Spotify took the action that it presumably thought was optimal for its bottom line. Which companies do all the time.
Yes, like corporations did when they censored works because of pressure groups, like Tipper Gore's, stuff that promoted "homosexuality" or "decadent" black music in the past, etc.
Doesn't mean it was left to the individual customers to decide, or that corporations deemed the works they sold as unprofitable in themselves (that is, not selling).
Only unprofitable as in "not worth the trouble".
Which is a totally different thing.
Wait, that’s exactly what needs to be happening in order to call it “forcing.” If there is a (difficult) choice, it’s not force.
And they did. They published those episodes.
Consistently with a free market, customers of Spotify should also be able to do with them as they pleased - listen to them or not, or even leave Spotify in protest.
Instead, some pressure groups, the media, and a couple of unrelated musicians forced Spotify to unpublish those.