Actually, Spotify was Goliath, and the numerous musicians they exploit are David. But in this case, David lost, and badly. I have music on Spotify, Pandora and other streaming services and they all send me around a hundred dollars or so a year total. I used to make thousands a year from CD sales at concerts and through distributors, and now I have hundreds of CDs in my garage that I will never be able to sell. I have numerous friends who have lost the ability to make a living from their music because Streaming has essentially eliminated CD sales. But the board of directors at Spotify all pay themselves six figures salaries, and you get the fruits of my labor and of countless other musicians while paying us essentially nothing.

Frankly, I’m amazed that you, with your keen sense for ferreting out racial social injustice, could be so clueless as to call these pirates “one of us, one of the people.” Perhaps it will help you feel some sense of empathy if I remind you that a lot of musicians are black.

It’s not that Spotify are no longer true to their mission. Their mission has always been the exploitation of musicians. This has been made possible by the fact that so many people have stolen music for decades, that they can pay us almost nothing and we have no choice but to take it. Yes, by all means cut your ties with Spotify. If it takes a racial issue for you to finally take a stand against this kind of economic exploitation, I’ll take it. It’s about fucking time.

That’s a nice snappy ending, but I don’t want to end things this way. I will of course continue to read your articles, and to learn from them. This kind of cluelessness about where music comes from is so widespread that I can’t be too hard on the people who have it. If I did, I wouldn't have any friends at all.