Spotify now getting the full Joe Rogan experience

The start of the year has been plagued with controversy for Spotify, with artists across the entire spectrum of music demanding their music be removed from the platform after it refused to condemn Rogan’s alleged COVID-19 misinformation.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has publicly defended his company’s handling of the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan – Photo: Ibl/Shutterstock

Rogan has famously propagated claims that have been publicly condemned by The US Food and Drug Administration, and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The podcast host, who himself has contracted the virus, has promoted the use of hot saunas and horse-worming tablets to cure his ailments. The former akin more to renaissance medicine than modern medicine.

As can be seen in the tweet below from Media Matters, Rogan has not only received backlash for his comments on the virus itself, but also for his stance on vaccines.

In response to this misinformation, artists like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash have all removed their music from the platform over the last few weeks, but it was singer India.Arie who took matters into her own hands to condemn Rogan’s other comments.

Arie accompanied her announcement that she would be removing her music from Spotify with a compilation of clips showing Rogan using the n-word on over 20 separate occasions.

Arie stated in her Instagram post that she was leaving Spotify as she does not want her music to “generate money that pays for this [the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast]” – Photo: Matt Baron/Shutterstock

As Arie rightly claimed in her posts, Spotify was built off the back of the artists and musicians, and while the aforementioned boycotting-artists might not be your personal favourite – it may not be long before it is someone whose music you do love removes their work from the platform.

This could potentially have massive repercussions for Ek and his company. In a poll of KU students, 71% of the 158 respondents said that they would stop using the platform completely if their favourite musicians took their work off the streaming platform.

Users potentially leaving Spotify, the music streaming market leader, would be cause for celebration for long-time competitors Apple and their Apple Music service – Photo: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

If these numbers were reflective of the entire Spotify user base, the Swedish company would lose over 50 million premium subscribers, a potential $500 million hit to the company’s revenue.