The company is Access Industries and the Founder and Owner is Leonard Blavatnik

Along with what’s in the title, he is accused of reputation laundering against Ukraine and has been personally sanctioned by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was also part of a WhatsApp group involving some of the United States’ most powerful business leaders with the stated goals of “changing the narrative” in favour of Israel and “helping win the war” against Gaza.

Everything is in the linked Wikipedia article about him, mostly under the “Controversies and disputes” part.

I switched to Deezer after seeing it recommended as a better Spotify alternative here on Lemmy, but after finding all this I immediately stopped using it. It’s as bad as the shit Spotify does and has done IMO. I’m not here to recommend or push an alternative, but if I can give info on what I use now if someone asks.

  • mitram@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    6 months ago

    Since we are on this topic I would incentivise everyone to take a look at resonate.

    They are, AFAIK, the only music streaming service where artists, workers and listeners are owners (aka it’s a cooperative)

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
      2·
      6 months ago

      This is an interesting idea, but I would assume that over time, the number of “owned” streams would dominate the number of “new” streams, and thus eventually their operating costs would reach a point where they don’t have the revenue to cover it…

      • mitram@sopuli.xyz
        1·
        6 months ago

        At that point their governance structure would show it’s strengths by enabling a democratic decision taking that could solve the issue

        Workers, for example, could suggest a small subscription fee that would cover the infrastructure cost, while listeners will most likely object, their view would be valued and impact the approval of any proposed solution

    • daw@feddit.org
      1·
      6 months ago

      Its not even a flatrate

      The pricing looks like its stacking quick if you do neither listen to the same songs over and over or entirely new ones, i dont know if I find the pricing fair for the consumer.

      • atomicbocks@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah this is not a transparent pricing model. You start at $0.025 and “go up” from there but I can’t find how much. After you listen to a song 9 times and have paid $1.40 you “own” it but can still only listen to it on their service?

        This sounds like iTunes with more steps.

        • mitram@sopuli.xyz
          0·
          6 months ago

          I’m not sure where you get the information that it’s not DRM free

          They explicitly say you can download songs while not mentioning the inclusion of any DRM

          I’m curious where you found that

          • kurcatovium@piefed.socialEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            It’s still not possible, according to the FAQ: Q: Can I download music I own on Resonate? A: In the future, we intend to offer the ability to download tracks that you own on Resonate to your local device. This feature is not yet available.

            So for now, it’s just streaming.

    • kurcatovium@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      This is an interesting idea, but I find their catalogue to be quite terrible for me (so far). Service like this really, really needs big names and much broader catalogue to attract people and start moving. Even though I’m far far from listening to mainstream I literally could not find a single interpret I looked for, and believe me I tried.