Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well.

Oh, boy. Daniel Ek. He's being a quirky again.

Yes, as it turns out, the CEO of the most beloved music platform out there, Spotify, has gotten once again into hot water with creatives in a couple of weird, totally random, nobody even frigging asked tweets, which begin with the line that pretty much got everybody angry with him to begin with,

Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life. While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are…

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) May 29, 2024

Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content, which when I originally read this, I was shocked. In fact, I was gleeful. I thought Daniel was announcing our entry into some socialist wet dream where free time is abundant and the tools to create art are easily available to everyone.

Sadly, I was disappointed when I logged on to Rever.com to find that the Minimooog I've been eyeing is still $5,000. Yes, it is true. Things like cameras, instruments, microphones, wires, they still cost money. Though I understand what Daniel is trying to say and where it comes from, this stupid and clueless mantra that's being ground into our heads every day by motivational social media influencers influencers and social media platforms in general.

Everyone has a phone and a computer and a laptop, so the means of getting involved with social media and becoming successful at it is available to everyone. Even phones and tablets and laptops, though many do have them, they still cost money. Plus, there is also the problem of planned obsolescence when it comes to a lot of these objects as their viability Security, functionality, battery life, they don't all last forever. Not to mention a lot of programs out there right now when it comes to video editing, photo editing, music creation. In order to combat things like piracy. A lot of these companies are favoring instead of having users download their program, have them herded into a subscription-based model.

I understand that these kinds of tools are more commercially available than they've ever been. But simultaneously, this is happening during an era where cost of living is at an all-time high. Hours worked are at an all-time high. Constant distractions are at an all-time high. I mean, for sure, ideas are free. That's true. But the means to execute them and the means to keep yourself alive so you can have the ideas often are not free.

And side note, this all loops back into the trust fund baby, nepo baby prevalence thing that we've been talking about in recent videos. Because it's easy to look at things like the luxury of creating art all day as something that's free when you don't have to worry about the cost of rent or groceries.

Sadly, Daniel continues to be a knucklehead when it comes to the art he makes a livelihood off of, but as if this wasn't bad enough, why does every motherfucker who pockets a billion dollars suddenly think they're a philosopher God King? While simultaneously pushing observation observations that anybody worth listening to has already made over a decade ago. He's also talking in this tweet about things like shelf life and how much of what we hear these days becomes obsolete because there's just so much music, so much content out there. This phenomenon has been observable since the early 2010s now. Isn't the saturation of the music market the excuse that the music industry and your company uses to have normalized the idea that, 'Well, there's so much music out there now, so we don't need to pay everybody that much for it because there's just an abundance of music,' in the same way that the price of an ear of corn would drop if there was an endless supply.

But music is not corn, most of it anyway. Can we picture Ronnie Radke when I say that? Also, what the hell is he talking about with a resurgence of stoicism? I mean, is there a resurgence of stoicism? What direction is it coming from? I mean, it could be. Who's popularizing it? I feel like this is just the thing you say when you've recently become excited about something, so you're trying to loop it into everything you talk about and experience on a regular basis. You know what this reminds me of? Stranger Things. Remember how in Stranger Things?

Then he finishes things off with this weird mealy-mouthed question, 'What are the most unintuitive yet enduring ideas that aren't frequently discussed today but might have a long shelf life?' I mean, Daniel, we don't know. They haven't endured yet. Are you looking for a mystic, somebody who's going to tell you the future? I mean, I don't know. The answer is me. Follow my ideas. I have all the good ideas. Pay me $10 million.

Of course, a lot of people reacted to this tweet very negatively, and Daniel saw that reaction. And with him being the sensitive king that he is, he posted a follow-up where he talks It's about not intending to devalue things like time and the resources to create art.

Oh, now we remember resources and time cost things. But even with this realization, Daniel is still on some dumb shit, asking, 'How can we ensure bold, world-changing pieces of art don't get lost in the noise that's out there right now?' Now, personally, as somebody who communicates ideas for a living, sometimes there's only so much you can do if the audience isn't receptive to what you're saying. Sadly, some great ideas never take, and others catch on long after. Those who put them out there are dead. Often, how ideas and art catch on It's a case-by-case basis with not many artists getting popular, famous, or successful in the same exact way.

By that same token, my brother in Christ, you literally control the means of exposing people to these bold ideas you supposedly care so much about. You could be using the Spotify algorithm to expose the work of countless struggling artists who are searching for an audience to millions, if not billions of people. But instead, you're using the algorithm to shove me espresso up everyone's ass. I don't want my espresso up my ass. I mean, if there is a piece of music released in the last year that we're going to be listening to a century from now, it's not that.

So, yeah, it's ridiculous to see Daniel just philosophizing here as if he doesn't own the means of exposing artists to the world here. And also paying them. Oh, man. There's so much good music out there. And how do we get people to hear it? Here's your $0.0001 per stream. He's just washing his hands of his impact when the channels of influence in the music world are more homogenized and monopolized than they've been in the past decade, with streaming today really having no formidable opponent or competition. Plus, there aren't that many big players in the streaming industry to begin with, and Spotify is by far the most popular.

It's just sad and tragic and weird that despite owning the biggest music exposure platform in the world, Daniel seems to have really no clue or even insights, just questions when it comes to why music and art and so on and so forth becomes popular. He just seems to be completely unaware of how it all works, doesn't even have a theory to put across. And he seems even more blissfully ignorant to the countless positive and potentially game-changing tweaks he could be making to the way his It's really just further proof that you can become a billionaire and a successful CEO while still being a total fucking idiot.

And I pray that one day we can all live in a world where we are allowed the freedom to be as successful and as completely out of our element as Daniel is here. And I'm going to leave it there.

Anthony Fantano, Daniel Ek, Danielick, forever.