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In Depth Interview with Johannes Stabel aka XTR Human
Johannes Stabel pushes XTR HUMAN into high-voltage territory with “RAVE GOD”—a clash of 90s rave euphoria, modern EBM power, and sharp irony.
Berlin’s dark electronic scene is constantly shifting, but few artists navigate its shadows as purposefully as Johannes Stabel, the creative force behind XTR HUMAN and Wie Ein Gott Records. Known for a signature sound that stitches together the cold precision of EBM with the dramatic flair of 80s darkwave. Now Stabel is pushing his project into high-voltage territory.
His latest single, “RAVE GOD“, is a sonic collision of eras. It captures the frantic, neon-soaked euphoria of 90s rave culture and grounds it with the heavy, industrial muscle of modern EBM. But beneath the aggressive basslines lies a layer of sharp irony. Poking fun at the “TikTok-ification” of club culture and the modern obsession with bouncer-dodging and gatekept dancefloors.
From his roots in the black metal scene to his deep-seated love for German-language pioneers like DAF and Falco, Stabel’s influences are as varied as the cities he calls home. We sat down with the Berlin-based artist to discuss the contrast between LA sunshine and German underground. Uncovering the production secrets behind his piercing synth leads, and why the “Rave God” title isn’t quite as serious as it sounds.
Photo by @notjusthanione_modernismus Your new single RAVE GOD blends 90s rave euphoria with heavy EBM energy. How did the idea for the track first come about?
I wanted to do a really energetic track that works well in a live set and is fun to play. At the moment, I’m exploring more 90s influences and trying to move a bit away from the more classic EBM sound, so it doesn’t always feel like repeating the same 80s formulas.
It’s not the first track in that direction though, I already explored that with “Sledgehammer” and also “Abgrund”, so this felt like a pretty natural continuation.
The song feels both aggressive and ecstatic at the same time. What emotions or experiences were you trying to capture with it?
The track is kind of about losing yourself in the club environment. There’s this mix of a really intense, almost euphoric experience, but also a certain pressure that comes with it.
I was also thinking about these TikTok-type narratives, where people talk about trying to get into clubs, or not getting in, and it becomes this very exaggerated, almost touristy version of club culture.
So the idea was to reflect that ambivalence, between having a great night out and at the same time this hype and expectation around clubs, where people sometimes end up in places that don’t really match what they’re actually looking for.
The title RAVE GOD is quite powerful. What does that phrase mean to you personally?
You should definitely take it with a bit of irony. It’s again connected to this whole TikTok culture, where people explain how to get into clubs like Berghain, or even use apps where you can simulate getting past the bouncer.
So it’s a bit over the top and plays with that idea in a slightly exaggerated way.
Sonically, the track touches on the spirit of 90s rave culture. What draws you to that era of electronic music?
To be honest, back in the 90s I wasn’t listening to rave at all, I was more into black metal. So it’s not like I come from that scene originally.
But I find it really interesting to bring some of those elements into my music now, because they can actually work very well with EBM and make the rhythms more dynamic.
Bands like Brutalismus 3000 really inspired me in that sense, especially how they approached it on their record Goodbye Salo.
Can you tell us about the production process?
I write everything at home in my studio, mostly with synthesizers, but I also use quite a lot of plugins. For “RAVE GOD” I used Serum a lot, because it has sounds that really cut through the mix.
Usually I would replace some of those sounds later with analog gear, but it’s a good starting point.
The single also includes a remix by Houses of Heaven. How did that collaboration come about?
I’ve known them for quite a while. The first time I played in LA, I supported them, and that’s how we initially connected.
Since then, we stayed in touch and got a bit closer, also because of my friend Matia, who produced all of their albums. So there’s a shared connection there, and the collaboration came together quite naturally.
The video tells the story of a transition from the bright LA lifestyle to Berlin’s darker underground. What inspired this narrative?
It’s actually quite personal. Over the past years, I built a stronger connection to the US, made a lot of friends there, and really got into the scene.
At the same time, I’ve been living in Berlin for a long time and still feel very connected to it. Especially LA, with this sunny West Coast lifestyle, is kind of the opposite of Berlin, and that contrast really fascinates me.
We had the chance to film in both cities, so the idea was to connect them and show my appreciation for both worlds.
Your vocals have a deep, dramatic quality reminiscent of 80s darkwave. Which singers or bands influenced your vocal style?
I wouldn’t say it comes only from classic darkwave or post-punk artists. Because I sing in German, I’m quite specific about what I like vocally.
A lot of my influences actually come from German artists, especially from the 80s, like Falco or bands like Abwärts, DAF and Fehlfarben.
So it’s more rooted in German-language pop and wave from that era.Berlin has a long history of underground electronic and post-punk culture. How has living in the city shaped your sound?
There was a reason why I moved to Berlin. Back then, around ten years ago, the scene felt even more active than today. There were a lot of shows, with bands from darkwave, post-punk, and industrial coming from the US and all over Europe.
There was a strong sense of connection and exchange, and that definitely shaped my taste. I’ve always been interested in influences from different countries, and Berlin was a place where that kind of international community really came together.
When you start writing a track, do you usually begin with rhythm, melody, or lyrics?
I usually start with the kick and the bass, because that’s the most important foundation, especially for club music. It’s quite technical in a way, finding the right combination in terms of frequency and scale so everything works well together and has the right impact.
Once that foundation is there and the groove feels right, the rest of the track develops much more naturally.
Photo by @notjusthanione_modernismus What excites you most about the current dark electronic / post-punk scene right now?
I’m always curious about new bands, especially younger artists coming up with their own sound. That’s probably what excites me the most, that there are always new generations pushing things forward.
Even though people often say that subculture is disappearing and everything is just about TikTok or content now, I don’t really agree with that. There are still a lot of people who are genuinely passionate about what they do and want to build communities around it. And I think that will always exist.
What’s next for XTR HUMAN after RAVE GOD?
I’m going on tour in Latin America in April, which is my first time there, so I’m really looking forward to that.
After that, there are more shows planned later this year, so it’s going to be quite busy. At the same time, I’m working on new material and planning to finish the next album.
Taged as/in; 90s, Berlin techno, Berlin underground, dark electronic, darkwave, EBM, electronic body music, industrial music, Interview, Johannes Stabel, music video, Post Punk, Rave God, techno, Wie Ein Gott, Wie Ein Gott Records, XTR HUMAN#writtenby:
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Capitalism Consumes Hedonism: The Endless Loop of Desire
Capitalism feeds on desire, not pleasure—turning hedonism into endless craving, where satisfaction vanishes and the self is trapped in cycles of want.
The relationship between hedonism and capitalism is one of the more philosophically treacherous terrains in modern thought, because capitalism doesn’t simply tolerate hedonism — it requires it, metabolizes it, and in doing so transforms it into something philosophically hollow.
Hedonisms: Classical Background
Ancient hedonism — Epicurus especially — was fundamentally ascetic in its logic. Pleasure was the highest good, yes, but the route to sustained pleasure ran through ataraxia (tranquility) and aponia (freedom from bodily pain), not through maximization and acquisition. The wise hedonist desires little, because unsatisfied desire is itself a form of suffering. There’s a profound frugality at the heart of Epicurean pleasure.
Image by: Xavier von Erlach Cynics like Antisthenes pushed further: the body’s pleasures are traps. True freedom comes from detachment. Even Aristippus — the most unapologetically sensualist of the ancient hedonists — insisted the wise man uses pleasure without being enslaved by it. The governing metaphor is always mastery, not satiation.
Capitalism inherits almost none of this.
The Manufacture of Desire
What capitalism requires is not the satisfaction of desire but its perpetual deferral and renewal. The Frankfurt School — Adorno and Horkheimer especially — diagnosed this with characteristic bleakness in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944). The “culture industry” doesn’t deliver pleasure; it delivers the promise of pleasure, forever just around the corner of the next purchase. Consumption produces not satisfaction but a restless, anxious craving that must immediately find a new object.
This is structurally anti-Epicurean. The system depends on desires that are never fully met — on a subject who is constitutively dissatisfied. Herbert Marcuse deepened the analysis in Eros and Civilization. He argued that capitalism produces what he called “repressive desublimation.” It appears to liberate sexuality and pleasure but actually channels them into consumption. This defuses their potentially revolutionary charge. You get pornography, not Eros. You get the aestheticization of commodities, not genuine aesthetic experience.
A Pleasure Principle Inverted
Freud’s pleasure principle — the organism’s drive to reduce tension, to reach a state of rest — becomes, under capitalism, something closer to its opposite: a drive to maintain tension, to remain stimulated, to avoid the stillness that genuine satisfaction might bring. Consumer culture is a machine for producing and sustaining anxiety dressed as desire.
Image by: Anastase Maragos This is where the dark turn becomes visceral. Byung-Chul Han, the Korean-German philosopher, has written that contemporary society has replaced the disciplinary subject (Foucault’s prisoner, soldier, factory worker) with the achievement subject. This subject is someone who exploits themselves voluntarily. They experience burnout not as oppression from the outside. Instead, it is the collapse of a self-driven imperative to optimize, perform, and enjoy. Depression, he argues, is the pathology of the achievement society: the exhaustion of a self that can never rest, never say “enough.”
The injunction to enjoy — Lacan’s concept of jouissance as obligation — is arguably capitalism’s most insidious ideological move. You are not merely permitted to pursue pleasure; you are commanded to. The failure to be happy, to maximize your experience, to live fully — this becomes a personal failing, a mark of inadequacy. Suffering is reframed as a lifestyle problem.
Aesthetics as Camouflage
One of the most seductive dimensions of this dynamic is how capitalism aestheticizes itself. The luxury commodity doesn’t just sell pleasure — it sells distinction, the fantasy of a life elevated above the merely functional. Benjamin’s analysis of the commodity fetish, extended by Guy Debord in The Society of the Spectacle, provides insight. It shows how the image of pleasurable life becomes more real.
Image by Marcin Sajur This image becomes more desirable than any actual experience. We consume representations of hedonism — the Instagram feast, the curated travel aesthetic, the designed interior — and in consuming the image, we exhaust our appetite for the thing itself. The spectacle is hedonism’s shadow: an infinite surface of desirable appearances that perpetually recedes from touch.
Our Bodies as Site of Contradiction
The body is where these tensions become most concrete and most ugly. Consumer capitalism simultaneously glorifies bodily pleasure (food culture, wellness culture, sexual liberalization) and disciplines the body with extraordinary ferocity (diet culture, fitness optimization, cosmetic surgery). The body is both the site of promised enjoyment and the object of relentless correction. It is never quite right — never thin enough, strong enough, young enough, desirable enough — which means the cycle of consumption aimed at the body can never close.
Image by: Towfiqu Barbhuiya This is hedonism devouring itself: the pursuit of pleasure generates so much shame, comparison, and anxiety that the body becomes less a source of enjoyment than a problem to be solved, a project to be managed.
Dark Cores
What lies beneath all this, philosophically, are a few genuinely disturbing recognitions:
abolition of leisure.
Aristotle distinguished skholē — leisure as the condition for genuine thought and self-cultivation — from mere rest, which is only the recovery of labor power. Consumer capitalism colonizes skholē: even vacation is optimized, even rest is productive (sleep tracking, recovery metrics). There is no outside.
aestheticization of cruelty.
Some strands of dark capitalism — what Mark Fisher called “capitalist realism” — normalize a kind of sadistic indifference. The suffering of others becomes entertainment (reality television, true crime, disaster content). This is hedonism at its most ethically degraded: pleasure taken not just from consumption but from spectatorship of pain, safely mediated by screens.
death drive in disguise.
Lacan and Žižek suggest that jouissance — the excessive, compulsive pleasure that drives so much consumer behavior — is never far from the death drive. The binge, the addiction, the self-destructive excess: these are not aberrations of consumer hedonism but its logical endpoint when the pleasure principle is overridden by something more compulsive, more self-annihilating.
Possibilities of Resistance
The question of whether any genuinely Epicurean — or Dionysian, or Bataillean — hedonism can survive within capitalism is live and contested. Bataille’s concept of expenditure without return (la dépense) — sovereign squandering, gift, festival, eroticism — gestures toward a hedonism that actively refuses capitalist logic by being useless, by consuming without producing, by wasting. There’s something here in art, in genuine feast, in sex that isn’t photographed, in music that isn’t played for anyone.
The ancient hedonists might have the last word after all: the most subversive pleasure is the one that requires nothing to be bought.
Literature:
Adorno & Horkheimer — Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944/47)
One of the core texts of critical theory, it argues that the failure of Enlightenment reason culminated in the rise of fascism, Stalinism, the culture industry, and mass consumer capitalism.
Central to their argument: the culture industry cultivates false psychological needs that can only be satisfied by capitalist products, while robbing people of their imagination and taking over their thinking.
Herbert Marcuse — Eros and Civilization (1955)
In his major works, Marcuse argued that consumerism, technology, and mass culture produced forms of “repressive desublimation” and “one-dimensional” thought that neutralized opposition.
At the diagnostic level, Marcuse examines how capitalism demands a level of surplus repression that supports the development of the death instinct and social domination.
Guy Debord — The Society of the Spectacle (1967)
Debord traces the development of a society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: the historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.
Byung-Chul Han — The Burnout Society (2015)
Han argues that a cult of individual achievement has led to mass burnout and depression. The achievement-subject exploits itself until it burns out — auto-exploitation being more efficient than external exploitation because a deceptive feeling of freedom accompanies it.
Mark Fisher — Capitalist Realism (2009)
Fisher’s central concept: capitalism has become the only conceivable political-economic system — not merely dominant, but unimaginable to surpass, even after crises like 2008 that expose its failures.
Georges Bataille — The Accursed Share (1949)
Bataille’s theory holds that every economy produces a surplus — an “accursed share” — that must either be spent knowingly in arts, non-procreative sexuality, and spectacle, or it erupts catastrophically, most often in war. His concept of dépense (expenditure without return) is the antithesis of capitalist accumulation logic.
Background / Classical Hedonism
For the Epicurean and ancient context, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has solid entries:
Taged as/in; aesthetics, capitalism, consumer culture, critical theory, Desire, hedonism, modernity, Philosophy, psychoanalysis, Social Critique#writtenby:
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Vorschau: Die kommenden drei Monate im HAU am Ufer
Neue Highlights am HAU: Zwischen Dinnerparty, Ritual, Erinnerung und Widerstand zeigen internationale Künstler*innen bewegende Arbeiten bis zum Sommer.
Liebe*r Leser*in,
am Theater schauen wir immer mit einem Auge auf das Programm in den nächsten Tagen, während das andere bereits die Schwerpunkte der kommenden Monate anvisiert. Damit auch du längerfristig planen kannst und informiert bist, was in dieser Spielzeit noch kommt, teilen die HAU-Kurator*innen in diesem Mailing ihre Highlights mit dir.
“Roses Rising – The Dinner
Terminlich ganz nah ist schon die neue Arbeit von Leila Hekmat. Ihre erste Theaterproduktion “Gloriette” im Dezember 2024 war ein musikalisches Lustspiel voller Wortwitz, Sex und detailreicher Kostüme. Nun bringt die in Berlin lebende bildende Künstlerin und Regisseurin mit “Roses Rising – The Dinner” (15.–18.4. / HAU1) eine rauschhafte Dinnerparty, die in wahnhafte Revolutionsfantasien kippt, auf die HAU1-Bühne.
“FRANK” – Kurzform für Frankenstein
Foto: Cherish Menzo “FRANK”, © Bas de Brouwer Cherish Menzo gehört aktuell zu den einflussreichsten Stimmen der jüngeren europäischen Performance- und Tanzszene. In “FRANK” – Kurzform für Frankenstein – (12.+13.5. / HAU2) untersucht die in den Niederlanden lebende Choreografin und Tänzerin die Figur des Monsters und blickt aus einer Schwarzen Perspektive auf den Körper und dessen Verzerrungen. Gemeinsam mit Omagbitse Omagbemi (zuletzt in Meg Stuarts “Glitch Witch” im HAU2 zu erleben), Mulunesh und Malick Cissé – Performer*innen unterschiedlicher Generationen – entwickelt sie eine Arbeit zwischen Ritual, Apokalypse und Karneval.
Mi madre y el dinero
Foto: Anacarsis Ramos / Pornotráfico “Mi Madre y el dinero”, © CITRU Gabriel Morales Ebenfalls zum ersten Mal am HAU: Anacarsis Ramos / Pornotráfico. Mit “Mi madre y el dinero” (17.+18.6. / HAU3 – VVK-Beginn am 4.5.) bringt der Regisseur zusammen mit seiner Mutter Josefina Orlaineta eine berührende dokumentarische Theaterarbeit auf die Bühne des HAU3. Über sechs Jahrzehnte hinweg hat Orlaineta in Mexiko mehr als 40 Jobs ausgeübt. Nun erzählt sie im Dialog mit ihrem Sohn auf der Bühne von ihrem Leben als Arbeiterin und Mutter. Dabei verhandeln sie zusammen Fragen von Klasse und Prekariat, die Durchdringung familiärer Räume durch Arbeit sowie die komplexe Verantwortung, die Geschichte eines anderen Menschen zu erzählen.
“Told by My Mother”
Foto: Ali Charour “Told by my my Mother”, © Raynaud de Lage Nach “Iza Hawa” und “When I Saw the Sea” zeigen wir nun auch “Told by My Mother”(6.+7.6. / HAU2) von Ali Chahrour. Nach ihrer Premiere 2021 war die Performance auf zahlreichen internationalen Bühnen zu sehen, zum letzten Mal wird sie nun in Berlin gezeigt. “Told by My Mother” ist eine Hommage an Mütter, ihre Widerstandskraft und ihr Ringen. Vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Kriegssituation im Libanon gewinnt die Arbeit zusätzliche Dringlichkeit und Resonanz.
“A Song for Esther”
Foto: Candice Breitz “A Song for Esther”, © Susanne Brill Am selben Wochenende zeigen wir eine musikalische Performance von Candice Breitz. “A Song for Esther” (6.+7.6. / HAU1) ist der antifaschistischen Aktivistin und Musikerin Esther Bejarano gewidmet, die 1924 im Saarland in eine jüdische Familie geboren wurde und Auschwitz überlebte. Neben Briefen von Breitz an Bejarano interpretiert ein Line-up internationaler Künstler*innen jeweils einen Song. So entsteht ein vielstimmiger Abend zwischen Konzert, Gedenken und künstlerischer Reflexion, der nach den Handlungsmöglichkeiten von Kunst in Zeiten von Gewalt und Repression fragt.
“Wait to Be Seated”
Foto: She She Pop “Oratorium”, © Benjamin Krieg Berliner Künstler*innen sind in den kommenden Monaten mit drei großen Wiederaufnahmen am HAU zu sehen. Für diese zwei Produktionen haben sich She She Pop Gäste hinzugeholt, um Vorstellungen vom sozialen Miteinander zu befragen: “Wait to Be Seated” (20.+21.5. / HAU2) kehrt nach einer internationalen Tour ans HAU zurück und untersucht gemeinsam mit dem feministischen Sandbox Collective aus Bangalore Regeln und Machtdynamiken zwischen Gast und Gastgeber*in. Und im 2018 entstandenen Klassiker “Oratorium” (20.+21.6. – VVK-Beginn am 4.5.) nimmt das Kollektiv zusammen mit einem Chor Eigentumsfragen in den Blick und zerrt dessen Versprechen und Widersprüche auf die Bühne.
“Leben im Liegen”
“Leben im Liegen” (6.–8.5. / HAU1) von Christiane Rösinger hat im letzten Jahr sehr erfolgreich Premiere gefeiert und spricht nicht nur die Menschen in der sogenannten “Alterspubertät” an (“Das ist die Zeit des jungen Alters zwischen 60 und 75, wenn man sich an das Altsein gewöhnen muss, während man sich noch gar nicht alt fühlt.”), sondern alle, die der immer schneller werdenden Welt etwas Müßiggang entgegensetzen wollen.
“Memory Distortion”
Foto: Nicoleta Esinencu & teatru-spălătorie “Memory Distortion”, © Ramin Mazur Die frisch mit dem renommierten ITI-Preis ausgezeichnete Nicoleta Esinencu hat gemeinsam mit ihrem Kollektiv teatru-spălătorie nach vielen Jahren wieder eine Arbeit in Chișinău entwickelt. “Memory Distortion” (10.+11.6. / HAU2 – VVK-Beginn am 4.5.) ist nun erstmals außerhalb Moldawiens am HAU zu sehen. Aus gelöschten, überschriebenen und wiedergefundenen Spuren entsteht ein Text, der persönliche Geschichten mit Krieg, Migration, Nationalismus und verdrängter Gewalt verschränkt, koloniale Machtdynamiken innerhalb Europas sichtbar macht und all dies mit dem für teatru-spălătorie charakteristischen Witz und einer politischen Dringlichkeit verbindet.
“Der Soldat. Ein Übergangsritual”
Foto: Julian Warner “Der Soldat”, © Julie Folly “Kunst ist eine Waffe”, sagt Julian Warner in seiner aktuellen Performance “Der Soldat. Ein Übergangsritual”. (16.+17.6. / HAU2 – VVK-Beginn am 4.5.). Ausgehend von Frantz Fanons wegweisendem und bis heute viel diskutiertem Denken über antikoloniale Gewalt erzählt die Performance von einem Schwarzen Künstler, der feststellt, dass er zum Soldaten geworden ist. Gemeinsam mit Markus Acher (The Notwist) am Live-Schlagzeug entsteht ein sprachlich und musikalisch mitreißender Abend.
Und zum Abschluss der Saison solltest du dir noch diese Termine merken: Unser Festival “Berlin bleibt” geht vom 26.6.–5.7. in die fünfte Runde, und Tanz im August findet in diesem Jahr vom 13.–29.8. statt, der Vorverkauf für die ersten Produktionen beginnt bereits am 14.4.Hebbel-Theater Berlin Gesellschaft mbH
HAU Hebbel am Ufer
Stresemannstr. 29
10963 Berlin
www.hebbel-am-ufer.deKontakt
E-Mail: tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Telefon: +49 (0) 30 259 004 27 (ab 15 Uhr)
Telefax: +49 (0) 30 259 004 49Taged as/in; berlin, berlin events, Bühne, Choreografie, Festival, Hau Hebbel am Ufer, Kultur, Kulturleben, Kunst, Kunstszene, liveart, performance, Performancekunst, Tanz, Theater, Zeitgenössisch#writtenby:
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Die Neuköllner Oper im April: NO NOISE NO SILENCE
Krisen überall – wie fühlen, ohne abzustumpfen? NOISE singt gegen den Untergang, LAST EXIT EUROPA fragt: Wohin treibt ein erschöpfter Kontinent?
Liebes Publikum,
Klimakatastrophe, Kriege, Faschismus: ein Blick aufs Handy oder in die Nachrichten, kann schon den Blutdruck erhöhen. Wie mit diesem Stress umgehen, ohne abzustumpfen? Das Kollektiv Club Gewalt nimmt sich in der Performance-Oper NOISE dieser Frage an.
Virtuos, humorvoll, unbequem und verspielt singen sie aus voller Lunge gegen die Weltuntergangsprognosen an. Krisengebeutelt ist auch Europa: Einst geraubte Königstocher, dreht sie sich – verkörpert durch Cora Peter Frost – in Laura Laabs Aktualisierung des Mythos mit LAST EXIT EUROPA zur Musik von Leo Solter an der Pole-Dance-Stange. Wie geht es ihr eigentlich? Und wo will sie hin?
Unterhaltsame und inspirierende Musiktheaterereignisse wünscht
Ihre Neuköllner OperNOISE Eine Kollapsfantasie von Club Gewalt
Wir leben in Zeiten der Polykrise. Die Nachrichtenlage lässt sich kaum noch verarbeiten und versetzt in permanenten Stress. Wie können unsere Sinne lernen, mit dieser Überforderung umzugehen, ohne abzustumpfen? In der intensiv-immersiven Performance-Oper NOISE taucht Club Gewalt, inspiriert von Noise-Music, Musical und der Vokalkunst Meredith Monks, mit dem Publikum ein in das Rauschen der Weltuntergangsprognosen – und singt aus voller Lunge dagegen an. Das Ziel: Wieder lieben zu lernen, ein Mensch zu sein.
NO NOISE NO SILENCE
Club Gewalt ist ein musikbasiertes Performance-Kollektiv aus Rotterdam. Aus dem Widerstand gegen Ungerechtigkeit und der Liebe für das Zusammensein heraus machen, komponieren, produzieren und performen sie ihre eigenen Werke: von feministischen Punk-Weihnachtsmusicals und trübsinnigen Opern zum Thema institutioneller Rassismus bis hin zu Clubabenden in Museen und politischen Slutpop-Konzerten. Immer musikalisch virtuos, mit Witz und irgendwie unbequem. MEHR
LAST EXIT EUROPA
Von Laura Laabs (Text) und Leo Solter (Musik)
Europa: ein Kontinent, eine Idee, ein Machtzentrum. Von Festung über Freihandelszone zu Freudenfunken – und zurück. Ist das Utopie oder kann das weg? Aber auch: eine geraubte Königstochter und eine Tänzerin an der Stange, die schon alles gesehen hat. Was ist aus ihr geworden, nach über zweitausend Jahren in Geiselhaft verschiedener Ideologien, Diktatoren und Hoffnungsträger? Wie geht es ihr? Und wo steckt sie überhaupt?
NO MYTH NO CASH
Hallo, Europa, hörst du die Signale? Dort, in einem entlegenen Truckstopp, irgendwo am Rande der Freiheitsautobahn, gleich beim geschlossenen Schlagbaum, blinkt noch matt der Spieleautomat, leiert die letzte Jukebox des alten Kontinents, fällt Brechts Groschen vergeblich in den Plüschtiergreifer.
Hier, an der Gogo-Stange, dreht sich Nacht für Nacht eine müde Tänzerin, der Lack ist nicht nur an den Nägeln ab. Doch das Herz trägt sie auf der Zunge und sie singt den Schlaflosen, den Versprengten, den Resten des Abendlandes ihre Lieder – von Unterwerfung und Ermächtigung. MEHR
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SOMMERNACHTSTRAUM
Vom 15. bis 18. Mai 2026
Musiktheater von NO Jung, Bjørn de Wildt, Yuval Halpern und Bahar Meriç
Sie kommen wieder zusammen. Wie jedes Jahr. Für eine Probe. Für Ein Sommernachtstraum. Man kennt die Rollen. Man kennt die Rituale. Und doch liegt etwas in der Luft, das nicht zum Stück gehört. Denn es gab einen letzten Sommer. Und niemand spricht gern darüber. Was als Probe beginnt, kippt in eine Nacht, die niemand geplant hat. Ein Flackern im Licht. Stimmen im Dunkeln. Ein Esel. Oder das, was er auslöst.
NO DREAM NO PLAY
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SOMMERNACHTSTRAUM verbindet Shakespeare mit Slasher-Vibes. Tanz wird zur Jagd. Chorgesang zum Gerücht. Musik wird zum erhöhten Puls. Irgendwann stellt sich nicht mehr nur die Frage, wie man Shakespeare heute spielt, sondern: Was passiert, wenn eine Gruppe sich selbst nicht mehr ausweichen kann. Wenn Liebe, Eifersucht, Scham und Schuld plötzlich einen Körper bekommen.
Ein Musiktheaterabend zwischen Tanz, Szene, Song und Collage. Komisch, präzise, unheimlich. Und vielleicht zu nah dran. MEHR
Studi & Azubi Ticketmarkt
Wir sind dabei! Ihr liebt Theater und seid an einer Universität oder (Fach-)Hochschule immatrikuliert oder in der Ausbildung? Auf dem Studi & Azubi Ticketmarkt gibt es ermäßigte Tickets für Vorstellungen der Berliner Theater, Opern und Konzerthäuser zu kaufen. Einfach am 23. April nachmittags ins Foyer des Podewil kommen, von Stand zu Stand der Bühnen schlendern und dabei die Programme der neuen Spielzeit mit tollen Theater-, Tanz-, Musik- und Show-Erlebnissen entdecken. Wir sind dabei und freuen uns auf euch! MEHR
Neuköllner Oper e.V.
Karl-Marx-Str. 131-133
Berlin 12043, GermanyCopyright © 2024 Neuköllner Oper e.V.
Taged as/in; Bahar Meriç, berlin, Bjørn de Wildt, clubgewalt, cora peter frost, Europa, Kultur, Kunst, laura laabs, leo solter, Musik, Neuköllner Oper, Oper, performance, Premiere, Theater, Yuval Halpern#writtenby:
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Maxim Gorki Theater im April: Die Programm Highlight
April im Gorki: Letzte Premiere der Intendanz, Gedenken an die Aghet, Konzerte, Lesungen und sieben Dernieren – ein intensiver Theatermonat.
Am 18/April zeigt das Maxim Gorki Theater ein brandneues Bühnenstück: KASSANDRA OR SONGS OF THE CANARIES von Marta Górnicka. Es wird die letzte Premiere der Intendanz von Shermin Langhoff am GOЯKI sein. Ein Abgesang also. Früher nahmen Bergleute Kanarienvögel mit in den Berg. Sobald diese aufhörten zu singen, wussten die Arbeiter unter Tage, dass die Atemluft knapp wurde.
KASSANDRA OR SONGS OF THE CANARIES
Die polnische Autorin und Regisseurin Marta Górnicka beeindruckt ihr Publikum immer wieder mit Sprechchören, die sie von den letzten Reihen des Parketts aus dirigiert. Dieses Mal bringt sie eine Gruppe von 24 Menschen zusammen, die verschiedene Generationen, Sprachen, Fähigkeiten und Lebenserfahrungen umfasst – darunter die jüngsten und ältesten Rapperinnen Berlins, Kinder, Jugendliche und viele mehr.
Als Kassandra-Chor schreiben diese 24 zeitgenössischen Stimmen eine neu interpretierte, vielstimmige Geschichte von Kassandra. Kassandra sagte den Untergang Trojas voraus. Niemand glaubte ihr. Heute gibt es etliche Kassandren: Klimakrise, Ölpreis, Zusammenbruch Europas, die weltweite Welle der alten machtgierigen Männer usw. … Ausgelöschte Städte, Kriegstrümmer, überflutete und verdorrte Landschaften sind zur Kulisse unseres Denkens geworden.
Die Vorhersagen und Warnungen, die wir ignorierten, hallen darin wider. Die Kanarienvögel werden dringend gebraucht. Sie sagen uns, wie viel Zeit wir noch haben und helfen uns nicht aufzuhören, zu singen, zu sprechen, uns zu Wort zu melden. Und etwas zu tun.
Festival: 100 + 10 – Armenian Allegories
Im letzten Jahr eröffneten wir am 24/April unser Festival 100 + 10 – Armenian Allegories, das dem Gedenken an die Aghet – »die Katastrophe«, wie die Armenier*innen den an ihnen begangenen Völkermord nennen – gewidmet war. In diesem Jahr wollen wir mit drei Veranstaltungen zwischen dem 19/ und 24/April an den Genozid erinnern.
Am 19/April wird es auf der großen Bühne ein Konzert der Urban-Diaspora-Band COLLECTIF MEDZ BAZARgeben, die sich aus Musiker*innen armenischer und türkischer Herkunft zusammensetzt. Ausgehend von ihren jeweiligen Kulturen und Traditionen schaffen die Mitglieder des Kollektivs außergewöhnliche Arrangements traditioneller und zeitgenössischer Musik sowie eigene Kompositionen.
DONATION
Am 24/April zeigen wir im großen Haus erneut und zum vorletzten Mal DONATION von Arsinée Khanjian und Atom Egoyan. Die berühmte armenisch-kanadische Schauspielerin Arsinée Khanjian möchte darin die Kostüme, die ihr Ehemann Atom Egoyan für seinen Film Ararat über den Völkermord von 1915 an den Armenier*innen herstellen ließ, spenden.
Sie sollen die Erinnerung an das, was damals geschah, bewahren. Inzwischen hat es wieder Versuche gegeben, das armenische Volk zu vernichten. Zudem ist Khanjian persönlich schwer erkrankt. Emotionale Intimität und mörderische Politik verbinden sich in einer ergreifenden Komposition. Genau dafür gibt es Theater.
Rausch
Am selben Abend, dem des 24/April, stellt Nuran David Calis im Studio Я um 21:00 seinen zweiten Roman RAUSCH vor. Darin schildert der bekannte Theater- und Film-Autor und -Regisseur, wie sein armenischer Vater, als Gießereiarbeiter, und seine jüdische Mutter, als Reinigungskraft, aus der Türkei nach Deutschland flohen und dafür kämpften, hier leben zu dürfen.
Mit Rausch setzt Nuran David Calis seine Auseinandersetzung mit Herkunft, Zugehörigkeit und gesellschaftlicher Spannung konsequent fort und bündelt dies in der atemlosen Suche seiner Protagonist*innen nach Identität – einer doppelbödigen und eindringlichen Geschichte aus der Herzkammer unserer Landes.
MELY KIYAK HAT KUNST
In der Reihe MELY KIYAK HAT KUNST ist dieses Mal Navid Kermani zu Gast bei unserer langjährigen Theaterkolumnistin. Navid Kermani wurde 1967 als Kind iranischer Einwanderer in Siegen geboren; es wurde einer der bekanntesten deutschen Intellektuellen aus ihm. 2015 erhielt er den Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels.
In seinem 2018 erschienenen gleichnamigen Buch ist Navid Kermani Entlang den Gräben gereist, die sich gegenwärtig in Europa neu auftun: von seiner Heimatstadt Köln gen Osten bis nach Isfahan, die Heimat seiner Eltern. Kermani analysiert die Welt, er erzählt von ihr. Er sieht sie sich an. Und wird uns u.a. davon am 26/April im Studio Я berichten.
Natürlich wird an diesem Abend auch wieder musiziert. Mely Kiyak konnte für ihren Salon keinen Geringeren als Tristan Brusch gewinnen, der mit seinem aktuellen Album Am Anfang gerade durch die Decke Deutschlands in die Herzen seines Publikum schießt.
Buch: Zekamerone
Maxim Znak kommt am 25/April ins GOЯKI. Das GOЯKI stellte im Februar 2023 gemeinsam mit Herta Müller Zekamerone, das erste Buch des belarussischen Autors vor, der zugleich Anwalt von Bürgerrechtlerin Maria Kalesnikava ist. Eine der letzten Nachrichten, die Znak im Gefängnis erreichten, bevor er vollkommen isoliert wurde.
Seit Dezember sind Maxim Znak und Maria Kalesnikava in Freiheit und werden nun persönlich mit Herta Müller, moderiert von Alice Bota, über die Situation in Belarus, die Literatur, das Schreiben und Lesen sprechen und aus ZEKAMERONE und ganz neuen Texten von Znak vortragen.
Re: ANDROGYNOUS. PORTRAIT OF A NAKED DANCER
Ein besonderes Stück kommt zurück auf die Bühne, allerdings nicht in Berlin: ANDROGYNOUS. PORTRAIT OF A NAKED DANCER. Das Gorki zeigt im April im toskanischen Prato, UNSER DEUTSCHLANDMÄRCHEN in einer der größten Stadt der Welt, in Shanghai. Die Ausstellung STRESEMANNSTRASSE 30 – EINE INVENTUR wird Ende April in Singapur zu sehen sein.
Zum letzten Mal im April
Leider wird es auch im April wieder mehrere Dernieren geben. Wir verabschieden uns von sieben Stücken. Im Studio Я von DIE LEGENDE VON PAUL UND PAULA, TO BE IN A TIME OF WAR, BLUES IN SCHWARZ WEISS, BACKYARD (A FIELD TO SEARCH) und auf der Bühne von DER UNTERTAN, POP, PEIN, PARAGRAPHEN sowie – und das birgt eine gewisse Ironie in sich – UND SICHER IST MIT MIR DIE WELT VERSCHWUNDEN. Für das GOЯKI wird das hoffentlich nicht gelten.
Das gesamte April-Programm finden Sie unter www.gorki.de
Taged as/in; Aghet, berlin, Derniere, Erinnerung, Kassandra, Konzert, Kultur, Kulturleben, Kunst, Lesung, Marta Górnicka, Maxim Gorki Theater, Politik, Premiere, Shermin Langhoff, Theater#writtenby:
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l’Opificio at Salone del Mobile 2026 Milan
l’Opificio unveils three refined collections by Chiara Andreatti at Milan Design Week 2026, blending poetic textures, graphic signs and timeless elegance.
For the Milan Design Week 2026, l’Opificio – a company specializing in the creation and production of fabrics for interiors and textile accessories – presents at Salone del Mobile.Milano. This event is located at Pavilion 13, Stand D51, Fiera Milano Rho. They introduce a new collaboration with designer Chiara Andreatti, who is the author of three original collections. These collections are Incisa, Signum and Fiora. They interpret the company’s textile identity through a refined, essential and distinctly contemporary perspective.
three new textile collections designed by Chiara Andreatti
Incisa originates from a rarefied natural inspiration. It is suspended between a marbled effect and the surface of bark. Irregular and slightly inclined marks alternate in an organic balance. This generates depth and a continuous visual movement. Signum translates a more graphic and archetypal imagery, evoking a primordial script made of doubled and slightly misaligned forms capable of producing chromatic vibration and dynamic tension across the surface.
Fiora introduces a more poetic dimension. It comes with a floral pattern featuring a soft, textured, and nuanced stroke. This is born from a grease-chalk gesture that preserves spontaneity and delicacy. Brushstrokes blend into adjacent shades, creating a diffused luminosity. This luminosity is never merely decorative but strongly atmospheric.
Alongside these new proposals, l’Opificio renews its Velvet Icons with the restyling of the iconic Silk Velvet and Cotton Velvet collections, a foundational part of the company’s identity. The updated colour palette enhances their natural brilliance and material richness, offering new chromatic combinations for architects and interior designers.
STUDIOTAMAT
The design of the l’Opificio stand at the Salone is entrusted to STUDIOTAMAT. They transform the exhibition space into a contemporary textile workshop. The creative process becomes an integral part of the narrative.
During Fuorisalone, l’Opificio products will also be featured within Artemest’s “L’Appartamento” at Palazzo Donizetti (Via Gaetano Donizetti 48, Porta Venezia Design District), as well as at the Galimberti Nino showroom (Via Cino del Duca 2, Durini Design District).
In parallel, from April 4 to 30, at l’Opificio’s showroom in Turin (Via Martiri della Libertà 42), “Traiettorie Celesti” takes shape. This is within the framework of MiTo Design Connections 2026. It is a project by Pepita Design, developed by Mabo and l’Opificio. The project transforms the space into an immersive landscape inspired by the passage of comets.
MILAN DESIGN WEEK: 21—26 APRIL 2026
Project: l’Opificio
Collections: “INCISA, SIGNUM and FIORA” by Chiara Andreatti
“VELVET ICONS” by l’OpificioWhere: Pavilion 13, Stand D51
Fiera Milano in RhoWhen: 21—26 April 2026
Opening hours: April 22—26: 9:30 am – 6:30 pm (public)
Set-up: STUDIOTAMAT
Links: www.lopificio.it/it
Photography: © Francesca FerrariMINTLIST.INFO — IG — FB
Copyright © 2026, MINT LIST, All rights reserved
Taged as/in; Artemest, Chiara Andreatti, Fiora, Fuorisalone, Incisa, lOpificio, Mabo, Milan, Pepita Design, Salone del Mobile, Signum, STUDIOTAMAT, Turin, Velvet Icons#writtenby:
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Neues Konzept: „Intermezzo. Revisiting Helmut Newton“
Die Helmut Newton Foundation präsentiert mit „Intermezzo“ eine filmische Neuinszenierung der Dauerausstellung und eröffnet neue Perspektiven auf Werk und Leben.
Neukonzeption der Dauerausstellung
Nach über 20 Jahren wird die Dauerausstellung im Erdgeschoss der Helmut Newton Foundation grundlegend transformiert. Die ursprüngliche Idee – Einblicke in das Leben von Helmut und June Newton zu geben – bleibt erhalten, wird jedoch inhaltlich und visuell neu gedacht.
Die Wechselausstellungen im ersten Obergeschoss setzen weiterhin zweimal jährlich neue Kontexte für die Werke von Helmut Newton und Alice Springs.
Das filmische „Intermezzo“
Im Zentrum steht ein immersiver Filmraum: Acht Projektoren zeigen einen Film auf vier Leinwänden in einem Endlos-Loop. Die Produktion basiert teilweise auf einem Filmporträt für eine Ausstellung in A Coruña und wurde durch bislang unveröffentlichtes Material ergänzt. Dazu zählen unter anderem neu erschlossene Archivaufnahmen von June Newton.
Alice Springs, Helmut in pumps, Monte Carlo 1987 © Helmut Newton Foundation Erstmals sind Interviews mit zahlreichen Zeitzeugen in Berlin zu sehen, darunter Philippe Garner, Carla Sozzani, Jenny Capitain, Violetta Sanchez und Matthias Harder.
Neue Präsentation der Magazine und Plakate
Im hinteren Ausstellungsbereich bleiben rund 100 Ausstellungsplakate Newtons erhalten, jedoch in neuer Anordnung und ergänzt durch Arbeiten von Alice Springs.
Die 16 Meter lange Vitrine zeigt nun eine neue Auswahl an Mode- und Lifestylemagazinen mit Editorials von Helmut Newton und Alice Springs, darunter: Jardin des Modes, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Egoïste, Stern, The New Yorker, Photo, Paris Match.
Diese Präsentation verdeutlicht die Entwicklung der Modefotografie sowie den Wandel des Frauenbildes von den 1950er-Jahren bis ins frühe 21. Jahrhundert.
Biografien und kuratorische Erweiterungen
Ergänzend werden großformatige Texttafeln mit illustrierten Biografien von Helmut und June Newton sowie Porträtfotografien der Stiftungsgründer gezeigt.
„Spotlight: Behind the Frame“
Alice Springs, Advertisement for Gitanes, Paris 1970 © Helmut Newton Foundation Ein neues kuratorisches Format rückt ikonische Fotografien in den Fokus, indem deren Entstehung und Verbreitung nachvollziehbar gemacht werden.
Den Auftakt bilden: „Rue Aubriot“ (1975) für die französische Vogue, sowie Alice Springs’ erste Fotografie: ein Werbebild für Gitanes-Zigaretten (1970). Zukünftig soll dieses Format auch von Gastkurator:innen weitergeführt werden und neue Perspektiven auf das Werk eröffnen. Zur Ausstellung
Intermezzo: Revisiting Helmut Newton
The Helmut Newton Foundation reimagines its permanent exhibition with “Intermezzo,” offering a cinematic and immersive perspective on Newton’s legacy.
After more than 20 years, the ground floor of the Helmut Newton Foundation permanent exhibition is undergoing a major transformation. While the core idea—presenting the lives of Helmut and June Newton—remains, the display is being fundamentally reimagined. Temporary exhibitions on the first floor will continue to contextualize works by Helmut Newton and Alice Springs twice a year.
The Cinematic “Intermezzo”
At the heart of the new concept is an immersive film installation: Eight projectors screen a film across four large surfaces in a continuous loop. The film is partly based on a previous production for an exhibition in A Coruña and expanded with previously unseen material, including newly digitized archives from June Newton.
For the first time in Berlin, visitors can experience interviews with key contemporaries such as Philippe Garner, Carla Sozzani, Jenny Capitain, Violetta Sanchez, and Matthias Harder.
New Display of Magazines and Posters
Around 100 exhibition posters by Newton remain on view in a redesigned setting, now complemented by posters from Alice Springs’ solo exhibitions. A 16-meter display case features a refreshed selection of fashion and lifestyle magazines, including: Jardin des Modes, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Egoïste, Stern, The New Yorker, Photo, Paris Match.
This installation traces the evolution of fashion photography and shifting representations of women from the late 1950s to the early 21st century.
Biographies and Curatorial Additions
Large-scale panels present illustrated biographies of Helmut and June Newton, alongside framed portrait photographs of the foundation’s founders.
“Spotlight: Behind the Frame”
A new curatorial format highlights iconic photographs by exploring their creation and distribution through contact sheets, publications, notes, and preparatory images.
The series launches with: “Rue Aubriot” (1975), created for French Vogue and Alice Springs’ first photograph: a Gitanes cigarette advertisement (1970). Future editions will involve guest curators, offering fresh perspectives on the artists’ work.
Taged as/in; Alice Springs, Archive, Art. Museum Fotografie, berlin, contemporary art, culture, event, exhibition, fashion, Film, Helmut Newton, Helmut Newton Foundation, Installation, Intermezzo, opening, Photography#writtenby:
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The Big Business of Charging More for Getting Less
How Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue perfected the slow extraction — turning beloved products into subscription traps whilst customers quietly paid the price.
There is a particular genius, if we must call it that, to the game now being played at scale across the technology and consumer goods industries. The rules are simple: raise prices incrementally, reduce features quietly, rebrand the resulting hollowness as a “streamlined experience,” and wait. The customers, burdened by inertia and switching costs, will almost certainly stay. The few who leave will be replaced by new users who have no memory of what the product used to be. Call it the slow extraction. Call it shrinkflation for the digital age. Or simply what it is: a systematic betrayal of the people who made these companies rich.
The strategy did not emerge from malice alone. It emerged from a specific convergence of market conditions: the maturation of once-hypergrowth platforms, the post-pandemic evaporation of cheap capital, and the relentless demand from investors for profitability over user goodwill. What was once funded by venture euphoria now has to be extracted from the people already inside the system.
“The customer is no longer the user to be delighted. The customer is the resource to be optimized.”
The anatomy of a price hike
Consider the streaming industry, which spent a decade building its audience on a promise so simple it felt almost naive: unlimited content for less than ten dollars a month. That promise was, of course, a loss leader — a land-grab disguised as a service. Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, and their peers understood that once a viewer’s watch history, playlist, and cultural habits were embedded in a platform, the cost of leaving became psychological as much as financial. They were not wrong. And now they are collecting.
Netflix has raised its standard plan price more than five times since 2014, added an advertising tier that effectively downgrades the experience for price-sensitive users, and eliminated the cheap entry point that once made the service a genuine alternative to cable.
Spotify, despite paying artists a fraction of a cent per stream and despite seventeen years of losses, recently increased prices in dozens of markets simultaneously. The justification offered — that users are getting “more value” — deserves to be examined with the same generosity one extends to a pickpocket explaining he needed the wallet more than you did.
Selected examples — paying more, receiving less
Netflix Eliminated cheapest ad-free plan; 5th price hike in a decade +87% since 2014 Adobe CC Buried annual cancellation fees; features moved to higher tiers Settled FTC lawsuit Twitter / X Free tier throttled; verification pay-walled; API closed Legacy features removed Amazon Prime Ads added to Prime Video without price reduction Pay again to remove LinkedIn Premium Repeated price increases; AI features justify new tier +40% in two years Apple One Bundled services raised together; iCloud storage plans hiked Lock-in by design The subscription trap
The more insidious element is not the price hike itself but the architecture built around it. Subscription models, when deployed honestly, offer genuine mutual benefit: predictable revenue for the company, continuous improvement for the user. What has evolved instead is something closer to a ransom structure.
Adobe made this explicit when the FTC sued the company in 2024 for hiding early-cancellation fees deep inside its sign-up flow — fees that could run to hundreds of dollars. The subscription was not designed to be cancelled. It was designed to make cancellation painful enough that most people would not bother.
Image by: Kedibone Isaac Makhumisane via Unsplash.com This is not an outlier. It is the template. “Dark patterns” — interface designs that manipulate users into purchases, renewals, and opt-ins they did not consciously choose — have been documented across hundreds of platforms. Roach motel design: easy to get in, nearly impossible to get out. The gym membership of the digital economy, scaled to hundreds of millions of users.
Artificial intelligence as the newest pretext
The arrival of generative AI has provided the industry with a remarkable new justification engine. Suddenly, every existing product that has added a chatbot button or an “AI-powered” summary feature is worth significantly more money. Microsoft raised the price of its 365 suite. Notion, Linear, and a cascade of productivity tools introduced AI add-ons priced at a premium — for features that, in most cases, users had not requested and will rarely use.
The AI tax, as it has come to be known informally, has the elegant property of being almost impossible to argue against: who could be opposed to artificial intelligence? The question of whether the AI feature actually improves the product for most users is swallowed by the ambient cultural prestige of the technology itself.
What is being sold is not intelligence. It is the idea of intelligence — a symbolic upgrade that costs the provider pennies in compute and returns many dollars in increased subscription revenue. The product has not substantially changed. The price has.
“Who could argue against artificial intelligence? The question of whether it improves the product is swallowed by the ambient cultural prestige of the technology.”
The loyalty penalty
Perhaps the most quietly infuriating dimension of this phenomenon is what economists call the loyalty penalty: the fact that long-term customers, the ones who stayed through the lean years and built a product’s reputation by word of mouth, are systematically charged more than new users. Every cable company, insurance provider, and subscription platform knows this. Newcomers receive promotional pricing. Loyal users, whose inertia and attachment make them captive, pay the full rate and often more. The reward for loyalty is extraction.
The tech industry, which long presented itself as the antithesis of rapacious old-media conglomerates, has reproduced this dynamic with a perfection that would impress any legacy telco. The user who has been on Spotify since 2012, who helped evangelize the platform to friends and family, who built fourteen years of listening history into its algorithm — that user is worth more to the company precisely because they are less likely to leave. They will pay the new price. They almost certainly already have.
What is owed
Regulation has been slow, for the usual reasons. Consumer protection agencies are under-resourced, technically outmatched, and operating under legal frameworks that predate the subscription economy by decades. The FTC’s action against Adobe was notable precisely because such actions are rare.
Class-action litigation provides some deterrence but mostly enriches lawyers. Individual consumer choice, theoretically the corrective mechanism in a functioning market, is substantially impaired by the switching costs, data lock-in, and network effects these platforms have spent years engineering.
Image by: Rubenz Arizta via Unsplash.com None of this is to say that companies should not charge for their products, or that price increases are inherently illegitimate. It is to say that there is a difference between honest pricing and a strategy of deliberate obfuscation — between a company that raises prices transparently and stands behind the value it delivers, and one that quietly downgrades its product, hides its fees, engineers its off-ramps to be impassable, and dresses the whole exercise in the language of customer love.
The latter is not a pricing strategy. It is a relationship built on contempt. And the people inside it should recognize it for what it is.
Sources:
Netflix price history
- A 94% increase: A timeline of Netflix price hikes — Android Authority – Android Authority · July 2024, Standard plan up 94% in 12 years; price hike timeline since 2011
- Netflix Price Increases 2026: Every Plan Compared — JustCancel – JustCancel · February 2026, Netflix raised US prices 7 times since 2014; Standard plan 100% increase over 11 years; Basic plan eliminated 2024
- Netflix raises prices for all US plans — ABC News – ABC News · January 2025, January 2025 price hike; Standard rises to $17.99; 302 million subscribers
- Netflix Pricing Changes — PriceTimeline – PriceTimeline · updated continuously, Full historical pricing table, all tiers, all years
Spotify price increases
- Spotify price increased again — CNBC – CNBC · June 2024, Second US price hike in a year; individual plan to $11.99
- Adjusting Our Spotify Premium Prices — Spotify Newsroom – Spotify · July 2023, Official statement on 2023 simultaneous price increases across 50+ markets
- Spotify just announced another price hike. Here’s what’s really driving it — Fast Company – Fast Company · January 2026, Third US price hike since 2011; investor pressure as saturation approaches
Adobe FTC lawsuit & settlement
- FTC Takes Action Against Adobe — Federal Trade Commission – FTC.gov · June 2024, Official FTC complaint; hidden 50% early termination fee; deliberately obstructed cancellation
- Adobe Agrees to $150 Million Settlement — US Dept. of Justice – DOJ · 2025, 150M settlement; Adobe required to clearly disclose fees and provide easy cancellation going forward
- Adobe’s hidden early termination fee is “like heroin,” exec says — Top Class Actions – Top Class Actions · August 2024, Unredacted complaint revealed Adobe executive described ETF as “a bit like heroin for Adobe”
Amazon Prime Video ads
- Amazon to run ads with Prime Video — CBS News – CBS News · September 2023, Ads added to previously ad-free tier; paying to remove them amounts to 26–33% price increase
- Amazon to Hike Fee for Prime Video Ad-Free Tier to $5/month — Variety – Variety · March 2026, Ad-free surcharge raised again to $4.99/month; ad load has roughly doubled since launch
- Amazon Prime Video has ads now. Here’s how to stop them — PCWorld – PCWorld · updated 2026, Ad load doubled from ~2–3 min/hour at launch to ~4–6 min/hour by 2025
Dark patterns — research & regulation
- FTC/ICPEN/GPEN Results: Dark Patterns in Subscription Services — FTC – FTC.gov · July 2024, 76% of 642 subscription sites used at least one dark pattern; 67% used multiple; 27 authorities in 26 countries
- FTC study finds dark patterns used by majority of subscription apps — TechCrunch – TechCrunch · July 2024, 81% of sites prevented turning off auto-renewal; 70% provided no cancellation info; 66% required payment info for free trials
- Six dark patterns used to manipulate you when shopping online — OECD – OECD · September 2024, OECD taxonomy of dark patterns; EU Digital Services Act enshrines ban on dark patterns
Taged as/in; AI, Big Tech, Business, consumer critique, consumer protection, dark patterns, digital economy, Editorial, lock-inloyalty, marketing, penalty, price hike, pricing, regulation, shrinkflation, Streaming, subscription, subscription economy, technology#writtenby:
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New Almbum bypdqb – Future Traumatic Stress Disorder
pdqb’s Future Traumatic Stress Disorder fuses collapsed futures, unfinished pasts, and post-temporal dance – no two listeners hear the same.
Every tone on this record was sampled somewhere else: in collapsed futures, unfinished pasts, and inside stress loops that never resolved. The tracks are not composed – they are retrieved, stitched together from moments that already happened and moments that haven’t happened yet.
The music is unstable. It depends on who listens and in which dimension they are. The tracks re-arrange themselves, revealing different harmonics. They also reveal different fears and different exits. No listeners hear the same, even if they play it at the same time.
The überskilled Detroit remixers provide a solution for Earthbound listeners. These listeners are unable to time-travel or shapeshift. By filtering pdqb’s multidimensional signal through machine discipline, they force a temporary alignment. This creates a version of a track that sounds the same to most listeners. Only then does collective rhythm become possible, a shared timeline where bodies on a dancefloor move to the same future at once.
Details:
Artist: pdqb
Release: Future Traumatic Stress Disorder
Label: Synaptic Cliffs / SC 024
Release Date: March 27, 206pdqb is an entity without a fixed form, moving through multiple timelines at once, performing in all of them simultaneously.
Taged as/in; art, auditory, Dance, dimensions, Electronic, Experimental, futurism, motorcity, Music, Remix, signal, timeline, vinyl#writtenby:
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