"To baby boomers, I say that 70 percent of your country’s financial assets are in your hands compared with just 5 percent for millennials,” he wrote. “You and I need to lead. In our age of Climate Chaos, I say ditch the companies contributing to the mass fossil fuel destruction of Earth.

Jesus wept. You're 76, Neil. Your generation did its damage. No amount of vocalizing will whitewash the 20th century. The memory of the baby boomers will not be forgotten for a long time.

Equating Joe Rogan using racism and anti science to the impact of a "generation" of American humanity is nonsense.

I am surprised news outlets are still trying to give life to this manufactured crisis. Who cares what Neil Young thinks about any of this? Why are these celebrities put on a pedestal by news media and individuals? At best, Neil Young is a has-been whose music will soon be forgotten by newer generations that have long since moved on.

More importantly, Neil Young has shown himself to be for censorship and against the free exchange of ideas. His stance is fundamentally at odds with free societies that harbor enlightenment values. The problem is not Rogan or Ek, but Young and the new authoritarian pro-censorship/deplatforming political tribes, who abuse their voice and power to silence those who don’t share their ideology. That’s not the stance of reasonable people - that’s the stance of zealots, no different than religious zealots of a different era.

A free market, though it does not exist, includes companies censoring anything and everything. The idea that consumers can't tell a business what to do is yet more fascism via capitalism.

Wrong. If there's an issue with public safety Spotify has 51%+ responsibility. Joe less. If no issue Young is talking about a non problem. The rest of your adjective laden diatribe is off topic.

Get in the game. There a wide limits to what you can opine; it's finite and large and a few things have consequences. Narrow: Spotify kicks Joe off; Joe walks elsewhere. Or legal. Nobody said consequence free.

Anything can be construed to be a safety issue. Spotify has no responsibility. It’s a dumb pipe and people can make up their own mind as to what to do with information they receive from content creators. If you think exchanging information is dangerous to the point that it requires censorship, then you’re arguing for authoritarianism and tyranny.

Spotify pays for exclusivity. They are not a “dump” pipe you nitwit.

And this is literally Neil Young expressing his first amendment rights in our capitalist market system based on voluntary exchange.

Go read Wealth of Nations, the Constitution, the treaty of Westphalia, the Magna Carta, some Hayek, some Friedman, and an intro to civics and economics lot.

You have absolutely no idea how our system of laws, economy, or government works.

To me, Spotify is a dumb pipe connecting listeners to content they want to hear. I use the phrase “dumb pipe” because the users don’t care about much of their features beyond that aspect (and there really aren’t many features). The libraries of alternative services also mostly overlap. Additionally, marginal attempts at exclusivity or editorialized content don’t change what they materially are, just like a telecom utility adding content businesses (like Verizon and Oath) doesn’t get to escape their status as a common carrier utility service.

I also didn’t ask that Neil Young be denied his first amendment rights, so you’re attacking a straw man. But I did point out that he is abusing his power (of celebrity) to try and silence political adversaries. Censorship is censorship. It doesn’t matter if it is brought on by the government or individuals with power or masses with collective power.

As for your patronizing tone telling me what to read - I’ve actually read some of those things you listed, for what it’s worth.

Signed, a nitwit.

You can't post personal attacks like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.

Perhaps you don't feel you owe people you disagree with better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it—much better.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

To the musicians and creators in the world, I say this: You must be able to find a better place than SPOTIFY to be the home of your art.

Everyone can go self-host their audio out of an S3 bucket for a dime.

Or go make a hundred dollars selling an album on Bandcamp to a fraction of the audience.

There are alternatives. And you'll find out how little people will pay just to listen.

Hosting out of an S3 buckst wholly ignores the problem of discoverability. How do listeners find your music? How do they get recommended music similar to their own taste?

On point.

A friend of mine is a producer for a big music studio. He said more than 80% of Spotify listeners are completely passive - not even changing tracks or adjusting the volume.

The percentage that actively chooses their music? Less than 2%.

It’s a vanishingly small audience and discoverability is the key feature.

Neil Young and censorious tendencies are the problem, not Joe Rogan. Maybe that should be his new band name.

Attacking Neil Young for differentiating himself from an anti-science talk show host is itself destructive to pragmatic rationality.

It's appropriate criticism of Rogan.

Spotify is a monopoly.

Let's all remember how Neil Young once claimed that you could catch AIDS if a homosexual clerk handled your groceries (obviously bigoted and wrong).

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/michelle-shock...

I'm not here to defend Joe Rogan or Daniel Ek, just pointing out that it's stupid to get involved in Internet fights between celebrities. Most of it is kayfabe anyway.