Disliking Taylor Swift online is a death sentence …

Disliking Taylor Swift online is a death sentence. Not only will the offending dissenter draw the ire and electronic shame of tweens from around the world, but misguided supporters will often jump to her defense with little more in their arsenal than a: “Haters gonna shake shake shake (or whatever she sings)” type of response to confrontation.

But when she goes after a company? Her minions follow. Loyally. Without missing a step. That’s why she’s become such a powerful celebrity voice in the music industry — she commands attention (even, reluctantly, that of lowly bloggers such as ourselves) and is able to control the masses with a flick of her Twitter.

It’s repulsive. But it works.

She’s already made it a point to keep her music off of Spotify, and that’s ok — they’re doing fine without it. In going against her manipulatively good-natured exterior, however, she continues to attack the streaming service without much provocation — and really without supportive context.

"Apple treated me like I was a voice of a creative community that they actually cared about," Swift apparently tells Vanity Fair in its September issue cover story. "And I found it really ironic that the multi-billion-dollar company reacted to criticism with humility, and the startup with no cash flow reacted to criticism like a corporate machine."

For those not privy: Apple Music was set to launch its service in late June as a completely free 3-month trial — all while not paying artists anything during the period. The notion upset Taylor Swift so much so she penned an open letter. Predictably, Apple jumped on the PR opportunity and reversed its decision; it will pay the rights holders of songs now (read: labels). Though what percentage of $0 they plan on gifting to the artists is yet to be seen.

The kicker is Apple Music and Spotify are basically paying artists the same exact amount of money (per available numbers). Yet, Apple Music is Swift’s savior and Spotify is the wicked witch of the ‘Net? Interestingly enough, through all of this YouTube somehow skirts around the discussion with little more than a glance from experts and artists — a site which boasts free views while paying artists the big diddly (not much at all). You crafty devil you!

Is any of this making sense to anyone else? Because to us, it’s really not. It’s an obvious game of who can get their respective army to go where — and what behemoth can make the most in the process. Anyone following the shortened lead is a resulting pawn. Guilty!

Who knows, it’s yet to be seen how many people will actually stick around on Apple Music after the 3-month trial. We hope anyone paying attention is aware the ongoing battle is just Apple trying to convince us that its 70% of total revenues given to music owners is somehow more valuable than Spotify’s 70%, and won't jump to one service instead of the other just  because Taylor Swift says so. Let's not be that basic.

Realistically, unless musicians are privileged enough to manage their own music, like Swift, not a dime of the paltry revenue is going to end up under any mattress pad of a struggling musician anyways. Apple Music is  Spotify, Spotify is  Apple Music — it's just now becoming clear which one of them likely paid off a certain artist more to be the poster child of a free music craving mob. The resulting bitch-fest is clearly a back and forth between the gate-keepers — real artists are going to get screwed either way.