Spotify reducing employee base by about 6% • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#21

Post by halgir » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #14

I got asked to do a survey when I opened the Spotify app last week. All the questions were of a "What would you do if this price rise happened?" and most of the varieties had the family plan going to £20.99. I don't know what they are smoking to think that they're worth more than a Netflix subscription. Video > audio. If they put the family plan price up I'll cancel it and use Prime Music or something.

> Video > audio

I get what you mean, but I wouldn't accept that as a universal truth. I spend considerably more time listening to music on Spotify than I do watching video on Netflix. The content I consume on Netflix may have cost more to produce, but the content I consume on Spotify gives me subjectively more value.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#22

Post by jungong » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

halgir wrote: post #16

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

The actual statement by Ek contains: "I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today." Interestingly, responsibility is usually used as a get-out-of-jail-free phrase, while accountability literally means that you will take consequences. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the literal meaning of otherwise similar words.

[dead]

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#23

Post by mrweasel » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #3

More doom and gloom. Last few years have been terrible.

There's still a ton of jobs out there, depending on where in the world you're able to work. They might not be as exciting, the companies aren't as well known, but they still pay fairly well and it's stable.

I do feel bad for those who are losing their jobs, it's not their fault. Many of the companies currently firing people simply had too many employees to begin with. Daniel Elk even admits it: "I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth".

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#24

Post by michaelmior » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

halgir wrote: post #16

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

The actual statement by Ek contains: "I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today." Interestingly, responsibility is usually used as a get-out-of-jail-free phrase, while accountability literally means that you will take consequences. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the literal meaning of otherwise similar words.

The dictionary definition of accountable says nothing about consequences.

From Merriam-Webster

1) subject to giving an account : answerable 2) capable of being explained : explainable

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#25

Post by canucklady » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:05 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #14

I got asked to do a survey when I opened the Spotify app last week. All the questions were of a "What would you do if this price rise happened?" and most of the varieties had the family plan going to £20.99. I don't know what they are smoking to think that they're worth more than a Netflix subscription. Video > audio. If they put the family plan price up I'll cancel it and use Prime Music or something.

Spotify is dumping tons of resources into live streaming video podcasts, I guess they heard "people pay for videos" and didn't realize the video had to be good

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#26

Post by wreath » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

ttrrooppeerr wrote: post #7

[flagged]

You can't stand, not even listening, but having opposed views sharing tenancy in the same software as where your music is?

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#27

Post by jerpint » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

The most frustrating for me is the way the “offline” feature works. On my android, even though I had downloaded songs/podcasts/etc. I had to dig in settings and set it explicitly to offline mode to enable offline playback.

Another grievance: I love music and podcasts and use Spotify for both. It would be great to have a podcast tab and a music tab. Instead, if you switch from one to the other, you’ll have to dig out the previous episode you were listening to. Very user unfriendly

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#28

Post by survirtual » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

mercwear wrote: post #13

12.184B in revenue for 2022 and they are still cutting headcount, another tech company who could not care less about it's employees.

They do it because they can. Because most employees are spineless and will fall in line.

People making the money we make in the tech industry should be living well below their means, saving, and supplanting the tech giants with worker-owned coops and guilds. If all tech workers united into guilds the corps would come begging us for technical contributions, and we would collectively charge up the ass for it — and all make 100% of the profits.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#29

Post by conradfr » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

dataengineer56 wrote: post #15

The Spotify app constantly frustrates me and I miss the old Google Play Music app. - I listened to 5 minutes of one episode of a podcast once, decided it wasn't for me and stopped, but ever since then I have an entire pane on my homepage dedicated to my apparent love for that podcast. - The first 4 sections of the homepage recommend me exactly the same things - I have the last 6 albums I listened to at the top, then…

I use Deezer instead of Spotify, I don't know if it's better or worse, but what I can tell you is that I miss Google Play Music everyday.

Re: Spotify reducing employee base by about 6%

#30

Post by PragmaticPulp » Mon, Jan 23, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

krono wrote: post #11

No mention of who is taking full responsibility for the situation! Edit: The CEO takes full "accountability" instead, further down the original announcement[0] [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230123124201/https://newsroom....

Given how much all of the accountability statements are getting sneered at and used for media/social media outrage bait, I wouldn’t blame companies for going back to simple just-the-facts announcements.

In the current climate where every word and every sentence is picked apart, saying as little as possible might be the only strategy that minimizes outrage, ironically.