The end result is that a content distribution platform will have to curate a specific brand that targets specific consumers and only distributes conforming content. Whereas we currently have a half dozen or so music streaming services that all have roughly the same content, we’ll soon find content fragmented across 20 different platforms; each corresponding to a specific slice of consumer preferences. Many of us will have to subscribe to multiple services to get the content we seek and will not be able to mix content. E.g., many of my current playlists on Spotify would be split across several disjoint streaming platforms.
Instead, I think platforms should never be reactive in calls for dropping content. Instead they should have a general principle of broadly distributing all but the most extreme fringe content. They can regularly update their principles used in determining what content they distribute, but that should never be done as a quick reaction to some mob. Otherwise they’ll constantly be facing a series of outraged customers that want the platform to stop distributing some content that those outraged user’s don’t even consume. And I believe that will only result in platform fragmentation as distributors curate a brand around specific segments of consumers.
Historically the press has dealt with this problem by taking a “lowest common denominator” approach to morality. Extreme prudishness.
For example, the infamous Hayes Code was intended to help movie producers deal with the fact that almost every American city had (different!) laws on what a movie could show.
That’s not ideal, or even an option.
For example, if Spotify stops paying Joe Rogan, they are unlikely to remain exclusive. Another example is that they may not have rights to remove episodes, or refuse to air episodes without loosing exclusivity or paying a penalty.
My point is that we don't know what the other terms are of the contract are.
> Whereas we currently have a half dozen or so music streaming services that all have roughly the same content, we’ll soon find content fragmented across 20 different platforms; each corresponding to a specific slice of consumer preferences. Many of us will have to subscribe to multiple services to get the content we seek and will not be able to mix content. E.g., many of my current playlists on Spotify would be split across several disjoint streaming platforms.
Where else can you get Joe Rogan's podcast, today?
Nowhere. That's fragmentation. Spotify literally signed the contract explicitly for this reason. So it doesn't make sense to start worrying about different content being available on different platforms now that people are removing their music in protest, rather than two years ago when they made his podcast exclusive in the first place.
Sure things are fragmented today, but that doesn't mean it cant be much worse. Today, most of the big catalogs have a ton of overlap. Exclusivity isn't the norm. If artists and services start drawing up into political camps, this overlap could significantly decrease.
I’m welcome to say Spotify shouldn’t “censor” (in the corporate media sense) certain speakers.
And I can cancel/encourage others to cancel their Spotify subscriptions.
And I can keep on using Spotify, but let them know I don’t like their conduct, even though it doesn’t (YET!) make me unsubscribe.
All free market.