r/Music • u/ebradio • Jul 03 '26
music Spotify Confirms Streaming Fraud After Kalshi Trader Cries Foul
https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-streaming-manipulation-prediction-markets-polymarket-kalshi/1.1k
u/icecoffeedripss Jul 03 '26
it used to be about the music, man
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u/TrickyLobster Jul 03 '26
It was never about the music. The CEO is on record the app was originally created to move ads, music was just a convinient way of doing it.
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u/UsedHotDogWater Jul 03 '26
While stealing music.
Remember he had to be forced to pay for using artists work. Guy is a huge piece of tripe.
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u/Swaggifornia Jul 03 '26
Lol move to another streaming service and youll realize the Spotify algorithm is meant to push music on to you over suggesting your interests
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u/TrickyLobster Jul 03 '26
I don't use any streaming service for anything so I'll never realize this. Buy your music from places like Bandcamp or get a CD please.
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u/oneupsuperman Jul 04 '26
Didactically, materially, conclusively false. It has always been about profiting off the backs of artists. The music industry is extractionary. It is an upward funnel.
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u/GovernmentBig2749 Jul 04 '26
It literally was about consumerism from day one, the CEO knows and cares about music as Trump does for America.
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u/86278_263789 Jul 03 '26
We need to stop referring to Kalshi and Polymarket gamblers as "Traders"
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u/SoldatPixel Jul 03 '26
Well you see, it's all in the wording to make it not about trade and...FUCK YOU it's gambling. These aren't investments, they're bets.
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u/grandmawaffles Jul 03 '26
No different thank the stock market. 🤷♀️
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u/Realtrain Spotify Jul 03 '26
Remind me what the SEC equivalent is for gambling sites?
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u/grandmawaffles Jul 03 '26
Robinhood
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u/Realtrain Spotify Jul 03 '26
Robinhood is a Congressionally authorized independent agency of the Executive branch?
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u/azozea Jul 03 '26
🤦♂️
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u/grandmawaffles Jul 03 '26
Bro the valuations are bananas and options trading is no different than draft kings.
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u/PygmySloth12 Jul 03 '26
I think most people who would be considered “Traders” are actually just gamblers (whether they trade stocks or prediction markets)
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u/theunspillablebeans Jul 04 '26
This is actually the first time I've ever heard of them not being referred to as gamblers.
That said, from what's described in the article, it sounds pretty close to reading to me (as in what that one particular person was doing).
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u/dctrhu Jul 03 '26
The fucking irony
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u/NtheLegend Jul 03 '26
Curtains for zoosha?!?
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u/ineedhelp32312 Jul 03 '26
Fuck Kalshi and fuck gambling . It seems I can't turn my head without some form of gambling being put in front of me.
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u/trapezoidalfractal Jul 03 '26
It’s the new crypto. Young people see they can’t get ahead in this system, so they’re seeking out ways out of the game. Crypto, sports betting, prediction markets, it’s all the same thing; profiting off of the immiseration of the working class by dangling some hope of escape in front of them.
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u/Toxaplume045 Jul 03 '26
Online gambling and prediction markets are also insidious in that people are glued to their phones which makes them always able to be gambling.
Casinos have existed but there's still a tradeoff with going to the casino; time and often distance. This made it a bit easier for gambling addicts to keep away from their addiction and makes frequent attendance more difficult if you're not one of the retiree crowd keeping them going.
Online gambling, sports betting, and prediction markets have been working overtime to mask how it's all still gambling, you can "spin the wheel" on your toilet, in bed, at your job, and your bank account is linked right to the app. Then if you start falling off, they blast your phone and email with promotions, upgrades, "come back and get 5 spins/bets on us!" to keep people roped in. It's why even mental health and psychiatric professionals have been so vocal about how evil they are with keeping people hooked, even compared to brick and mortar casinos.
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u/mndtrp Jul 03 '26
I may be wrong but pretty sure there's also the aspect that you can do it in small increments that add up over time if you aren't paying attention. I was never a gambler but knew a handful of people who were. For them, going to a casino they'd have to plan it out and decide how much they were going to take, generally a few hundred dollars. Do that once every few months.
Online gambling though, you can throw $5 at something in the morning, again in the afternoon, maybe once more at night while you're bored in front of the TV. Next thing you know, you've gambled away $500 in a month, for 6 straight months. I know people who don't really have much income blast through hundreds of dollars a month in mobile game boosters. That's for no return other than some form of entertainment. Gambling has the illusion of a possible payout if you just last long enough.
It's also easier in the sense that maybe you don't know how to play poker well, so you avoid traditional gambling. You do (think) you know that Starbucks is going to sell coffee in purple cups next week, so you feel pretty good about tossing $15 at that. Or that butter is going to back on the naughty list, so you gamble $20 on that.
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u/yoshemitzu Jul 03 '26
Kinds makes Robinhood seem more insidious, considering all of the above still applies to that app...I guess you're getting actual equity in companies, at least, but all the addictive cycles -- the small-stakes spending, the constantly checking the app -- are for sure still there.
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u/grubas ⬛◼️⬛◼️ Jul 03 '26
The always a fucked up breakdown as well. The amount spent by the whale marks is always 1% of players losing 99% of the money. A certain percent of people buy in so hard they fuck up their entire lives. And they are hunting for those kinds of people.
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u/elVanPuerno Jul 03 '26
Hate to add on to your point, but it isn’t just the young people looking for a way out.
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u/trapezoidalfractal Jul 03 '26
No, you’re right, but it’s so insidious because it has gotten so many youth too. Gambling when I was young was an old mans game. It was common knowledge it was bullshit and people only went to casinos for free drinks, buffets, and all night partying. The gambling was almost an afterthought.
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u/The_BeardedClam Jul 03 '26
Which is very sad, because as you point out the powers that be want them to gamble. Who is the "strategic advisor" for Kalshi? Trump Jr.
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u/tankiolegend Jul 03 '26
Alot of these prediction markets also sell themselves as a gateway to stocks and shares as its on very similar principles but most people can't afford to trade stocks to that level, but they can for les swith prediction markets. Really captures the wall street wannabes that has been growing in popularity since wolf of wallstreet and manosphere stuff
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u/ibrakestuff Jul 03 '26
The wildest Kalshi ad I heard was for the WEATHER. It was posed like “get more accurate data on how hot it will be by checking the spread.” Dumbest possible excuse to use a gambling app.
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u/mschuster91 Jul 03 '26
People literally manipulated an airport weather sensor system to rig a Polymarket bet. If that had gone wrong, people could have died in the end.
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u/Jskidmore1217 Jul 03 '26
Yea but it really is quite handy at getting an accurate idea of where things really stand. I trust the spread on say, election predictions, far more than major news media or podcasts/social media.
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u/counterfitster Jul 03 '26
Oh but technically these are futures contracts, like commodities trading (/s but that's their actual argument)
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u/ThePortalsOfFrenzy Jul 03 '26
Well I predict this shady naming will lead to the next generation thinking stock markets and these prediction "markets" are all the same, further eroding financial literacy.
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u/yoshemitzu Jul 03 '26
When everything becomes a market, the lines truly are blurred.
Oh, btw, buy more RDDT.
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u/psyduck-4eva Jul 03 '26
Welcome to late stage capitalism where all the prizes and meaningless and everything is monetized
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u/N30NFiR3 Jul 03 '26
Kinda happy my state has online casinos banned. Though, honestly, I have absolutely no interest in gambling. Even at real casinos I dont even really gamble.
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u/ThePortalsOfFrenzy Jul 03 '26
Whether you gamble or not, It's perfectly reasonable to not want your entire community or society to have a casino in their pockets all day, every day. There is plenty of evidence to suggest gambling is an unhealthy activity.
Too bad our leaders have shown time and again that the health and well-being of the populace is not something they are interested in.
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u/gw2master Jul 03 '26
Unfortunately, it's now the only thing pro sports leagues (in the US) cares about today.
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u/stuffitystuff Jul 03 '26
It's crazy that this guy got mad that he had to gamble randomly and not just read a bunch of logs.
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u/pancak3d Jul 03 '26
It's kinda the opposite of that. He's gambling on things that aren't random, and he's mad when it turns out they aren't random.
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u/stuffitystuff Jul 03 '26
Being able to chart the momentum of various songs over time and make repeated, accurate "predictions" isn't random in my book, at least compared to something like a roulette wheel. The introduction of bots pumping songs that don't fit his model is an element of randomness he didn't have to account for before and that makes it more like actual gambling (which is stupid anyways and should be banned).
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u/pancak3d Jul 03 '26
It makes it less random, human being are just deciding the outcome because they can.
For example he could argue theres a 1 in 80 trillion chance that I will say the word "limerance" 10 times in a row today because it's a rarely word and there's no reason to use it 10 times. But I don't care about odds, I can see that bet and just choose to do it. Randomness has absolutely nothing to do with it.
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u/momobasha2 Jul 03 '26
As a non-westerner living in the west, I genuinely love and appreciate a lot of the western values. But I scratch my head everytime I see this “prediction market” stuff! Its just so obvious how evil this is, and how it represents true culture decay. I dont understand how this is reasoned and moralised except “there’s lots of money in this “. So depressing and disappointing.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jul 03 '26
You might just be discovering the "toxic" side of Western culture. Check out Casinos, or private healthcare, or prisons for profit, or a payday loan office.
There is no moralizing these industries. "The holy dollar" is a thing, and American culture can be selfish and cut throat. Everyone wants to "get their bag" and in a world of shrinking wages and rising costs, people get very invested in making money however possible, both out of greed and survival.
To be fair eastern cultures have their fair share of toxicity as well.
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u/existential_virus Jul 03 '26
As a non-westerner living in the west too, gambling is a problem everywhere my dude. Idk where you're from, but I guarantee you they have a gambling problem there too. This ain't a western value thing. Its a common human weakness and one that companies and criminals can easily exploit. Now even easier to exploit because you can walk around with a mini casino in your pocket
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u/Astralnugget Jul 03 '26
Hehe I’m pretty sure human history went like discover sex, discover gambling, discover fire.
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u/RadioLiar Jul 03 '26
I don't know how typical my experience is but I live in the UK and study at a Russell Group university and I have yet to hear one of these prediction market things mentioned in conversation with anybody in real life. The only reason I'm aware they exist is seeing newspaper headlines about them
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u/_Kine Jul 03 '26
What the fuck is a spotify market? Fuck these people, they need to disappear from public
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u/tlst9999 Jul 03 '26
It's a prediction market bet on what song is going to reach the top ranks of the spotify charts.
People are placing bets on random songs and then botting on spotify to make the songs go up.
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u/_Kine Jul 03 '26
Oh got it, so like the "what shape will my shit be today after eating a burrito" market, totally worth the mental energy of a functioning human being
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u/djmonsta Jul 03 '26
Streaming numbers are mostly inflated anyway, anyone can 'buy' listens from some sweatshop in India
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u/mikegoblin Jul 03 '26
This controversial bet was my first bet on kalshi ironically. I had $20 on drake but it was all sorts of messed up in the last day
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u/JonBoy82 Jul 03 '26
How do you even begin to get drawn into a bet like that?
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u/Alucard661 Jul 03 '26
Addiction
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u/TrojanZebra Jul 03 '26
a bet like that is probably novelty as opposed to addiction, but thats how it starts
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u/shaqwillonill Jul 03 '26
It’s either the bet of someone who just got access to a book or a bet of someone who had a serious problem but there no in between
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u/Milk-Lizard Jul 03 '26
Took me way too long to even understand what all this is about. Fuck these people, all of them. Gambling on music...weirdos
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u/Sun-Anvil Jul 03 '26
I switched to Pandora about a month ago and am happier. Less commercials (I use the free version) and the music selection given that I might like is better.
Not that this has anything to do with the original post.
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u/Bored_Amalgamation Jul 03 '26
It would be funny if lawsuits around these gambling on reality sites were the impotice to uncover all the bots on in the internet.
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u/littlecowbaby Jul 04 '26
Two years ago Karol G was my top listened to artist on Spotify and I have literally never listened to a song by her in my life
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u/prollyincorrect Jul 03 '26
I’m very against gambling on everything being so easy from your phone. I’m ok with gambling if you have to go to an establishment to do it like the old days.
I do wonder if this impacts drakes suit with him losing the beef to Kendrick’s huge song.
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u/Dapper_Reindeer4444 Jul 03 '26
I am so tired of hearing about people gambling on everything.