Call him a skitjävel. He'll understand.

I mean, it's nice to hear some regret. Maybe other CEOs will take note... Probably not. But maybe

Nah. It'll be never. So long as they can spend good money to have Mackenzie tell em firing X employees will raise profit .0Y%, they will do it. Because anything else to improve profits would require actual work and investment. And that doesn't show immediate profitability.

Someday, a large corporation is going to finally figure out that firing the people who make their products work results in shitty products no one buys.

The problem is, this isn't true. The first part certainly is, though many companies are perfectly capable of making shitty products no matter how many employees they have.

The second part though? I would certainly like to believe that, but it's simply not what happens, especially when it comes to apps and services like Spotify. A huge part of why so much in the tech industry is just absolute ass now is because users are unwilling to try alternatives. Vendor lock in tactics have succeeded, but the average consumer is just lazy and complacent too.

The user experience of Spotify has been dropping dramatically for years. They haven't lost any users. They have boiled one of the most well cooked frogs in the entire tech industry. And even if you they have a significant portion of users who do actively complain about it, they probably can't even name an alternative streaming service besides maybe Apple music, and there's certainly not tech literate enough to understand that you can transfer your library and playlists to another streaming service really easily.

I've legitimately explained this to multiple people I know personally who are incredibly frustrated with spotify, and all of them reacted the same way: at the slightest suggestion of putting in a little bit of effort to move away from the platform that they despise, their resolved disappears.

And it's exactly that mentality, widespread, across so many industries, that allows CEOs to get away with shit like this. They are never punished when consumers are so unwilling to change their habits.

If you think of corporations as tools, like a straw used to suck resources from the working class it makes more sense.

The goal isn't corporate fitness, it's not even corporate profit exactly. The point of a corporation is to make money for those in control of it, who are probably on boards for several other companies and can make new brands and pay to manage reputations as needed.

From a class perspective, this was arguably wise. That CEO will probably get a massive bonus and the board can profit off of the stock price fluctuations. Operations are not that important at this stage as long as it's functional-ish. The name "Spotify" can be tossed or rehabilitated by PR firms.

"We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume. Your call is very important to us. Please continue to hold ... "

Fiduciary duty is going to kill everything good.

Tidal is a great alternative in my opinion; they pay artists a much higher percentage per stream, you get more for the same money and their CEO isn't a complete dickwad, I think.

It's not so great for podcasts, though.

Reject streaming, return to mp3? Although I know storage is always an issue these days.

Edit: I'm hearing really great things about Tidal, which is apparently cost-competitive for music, and Deezer, which also does podcasts, if you're set on streaming.