In their 2021 Q4 report, Spotify boasted an 18% increase in Active Monthly Users (AMU), with Premium Subscribers increasing by 16%. With no negative impact on their bottom line so far, Spotify seemingly has no reason to re-evaluate its stance on Rogan’s podcast. Money aside, Spotify also has the numbers to reason that the rising concern over the “infodemic” Rogan perpetuates has never deterred users from the site.

From the numbers alone, Spotify clearly would have suffered a much more significant financial loss if they sided with Young, considering podcast ads becoming an essential source of revenue. 2 On the other hand, Neil Young regularly accumulated around six million monthly listeners, not even breaking into the most significant 500 artists on their service. Not to mention Spotify and Rogan’s $100 million deal to have all of his episodes exclusively streamed on their platform.

In its first month alone, the show accounted for 4.5% of all Spotify podcast listening or 14.9 million hours. The Joe Rogan Experience has been on Spotify since September of 2020, with over 11 seasons worth of content.

With each artist making statements about issues they take with the company, what started as a fight against misinformation quickly became a much larger exposé of Spotify’s ethics and dominance over the streaming industry. In the days that followed, many other artists, including Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, and India.Arie, followed Young’s lead and planned to remove their catalogs from the platform. Not both.” 1 The ultimatum posed to the streaming service became a call to action for artists everywhere. On January 24, Neil Young penned a letter to his label and manager regarding the spread of misinformation regarding Covid-19 perpetuated by America’s number one podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify. A guest post by Vincent Williamsof Berklee College of Music: Music Business Journal.

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