Neil Young vs. The New World

Neil Young has always been a hero of mine. Great songwriter, curmudgeon extraordinaire, a guy who doesn’t mind stepping on toes. So when he got wind of Spotify paying 100 million dollars to Joe Rogan for an exclusive platform and Joe used his podcast to promote anti-vaccination guru Dr. Robert Malone, Neil issued an ultimatum to the company to remove Rogan or remove him. Spotify dropped Neil like a bad rash. 100 million dollars, in case you think inflation is out of control, is still a lot of moolah, enough to convince Spotify that a little misinformation about the pandemic and vaccinations really isn’t too big a deal. Course Neil thinks it’s potentially killing people.

A few dead Covid deniers really doesn’t add up to 100 million dollars, now does it? Be honest, how many would it take to convince you, if you were the CEO of Spotify, to drop Joe Rogan and his huge fan base? C’mon, a thousand? Ten thousand? We’re talking real money here, not chump change. If my little blog was on Spotify and I started spouting off that vaccines actually kill more people than Covid, you think they’d keep me on and let Neil stay? If you think that, I got some bitcoins I can sell you cheap….

And if you think money is always the primary driver in the world, keep in mind that Neil just gave up tons of royalties by dropping out of Spotify’s playlist. Sure, he’s rich and maybe if you were that rich you’d do the same thing. Maybe. Neil’s got an old song ‘This Note’s For You’ that mocks all those musicians who sold their songs to commercials. What’s wrong with rock and roll capitalism? you ask. Don’t ask me, go ask Neil. He’ll give you real thing. And it ain’t Coke.

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