An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
This month, indie musicians in San Francisco gathered for a series of talks called Death to Spotify, where attenders explored "what it means to decentralize music discovery, production and listening from capitalist economies". The events, held at Bathers library, featured speakers from indie station KEXP, labels Cherub Dream Records and Dandy Boy Records, and DJ collectives No Bias and Amor Digital. What began as a small run of talks quickly sold out and drew international interest. People as far away as Barcelona and Bengaluru emailed the organizers asking how to host similar events.

The talks come as the global movement against Spotify edges into the mainstream. In January, music journalist Liz Pelly released Mood Machine, a critical history arguing the streaming company has ruined the industry and turned listeners into "passive, uninspired consumers". Spotify's model, she writes, depends on paying artists a pittance — less still if they agree to be "playlisted" on its Discovery mode, which rewards the kind of bland, coffee-shop muzak that fades neatly into the background... The Death to Spotify organizers say their goal is not necessarily to shut the app down. "We just want everyone to think a little bit harder about the ways they listen to music," says [event co-founder] Manasa Karthikeyan. "It just flattens culture at its core if we only stick to this algorithmically built comfort zone."
So the goal was "down with algorithmic listening, down with royalty theft, down with AI-generated music," according to the event's other co-founder, Stephanie Dukich.

Basically some artists "are questioning whether it's doing much for them," says a professor of music at the University of Texas at Austin. The article cites performers who are trying Spotify alternatives, like pop-rock songwriter Caroline Rose, who released her new album only on vinyl and Bandcamp. "I find it pretty lame that we put our heart and soul into something and then just put it online for free," Rose says.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/10/12/1756208/death-to-spotify-event-draws-interest-from-some-musicians-to-try-alternatives?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"Amazon Echo Show owners are reporting an uptick in advertisements on their smart displays," reports Ars Technica.

The company's Echo Show smart displays have previously shown ads through the company's Shopping Lists feature, as well as advertising for Alexa skills. Additionally, Echo Shows may play audio ads when users listen to Amazon Music on Alexa. However, reports on Reddit (examples here, here, and here) and from The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who owns more than one Echo Show, suggest that Amazon has increased the amount of ads it shows on its smart displays' home screens.

The Echo Show's apparent increase in ads is pushing people to stop using or even return their Echo Shows.

The article notes Amazon's smart displays have also started showing ads for Alexa+ — and The Verge's reporter saw ads on one (but not all) of her Echo Shows this week. (Even when the display is set to show personal photos, ads sometimes appear for herbal supplements, Quest sports chips, and tabletop picture frames.

Ars Technica notes that users "are unable to disable the home screen ads."
When reached for comment, an Amazon spokesperson told Ars Technica: "Advertising is a small part of the experience, and it helps customers discover new content and products they may be interested in..." Amazon declined to comment on whether it has increased Echo Show ad loads... According to Amazon, Echo Show home screen ads change based on how close someone is to the gadget. "When the customer is more than four feet away from their device, ads will display full-screen in rotation with other content such as weather, recipes, sports, and news..."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/12/1942209/amazon-smart-displays-are-now-being-bombarded-with-ads?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.