Is Spotify Evil?
I don't know enough to really have an opinion on it. It didn't give me a great feeling when it first appeared and I couldn't find any of the weirdo hipster techno I liked on it at the time so I ignored it.
But I've noticed that a lot of the anarchist software dev hippies (who I love) that I work with / know seem to use it now. Not sure what that means but I thought I'd ask HN rather than risk offending anyone I respect at work.
Thanks in advance!
What do you think is evil about it? I dont know about any specific internal practices they have (and generally find if you want to find something to get mad at a company about, you usually can). But as far as their business goes, they found a business model that actually makes me pay for music. I think this is great, and finally ends the artificial monopoly that distributors had for the last ~50 years and brings us into more balanced regime that respects the ease of digital musical distribution.
It depends how you define evil. Spotify behaves like anyone else does in the space, redistributing licensed, copyright content to users who pay money. They're a business, and the majority of the evil you'll hear about from them comes down to their bottom line. There are some places where they go the extra mile: they (semi-unofficially) support Linux, have a pretty massive catalog of music, and a pretty accessible price tag to what is essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet of music. There are also some places where they fall short, like their measly compensation for artists and general apprehension to fix bugs. Really it just depends on where you stand in the Overton Window of this particular topic.