Anghami Punishes Lebanese Users Amid Crisis
May 8, 2023
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It is not right to defame a Lebanese company that has managed to sail far in the international world on its own. Anghami started in Lebanon several years ago and thanks to the vision of its founders Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun, the company grew with determination and competed with global platforms.
Today, it has become the largest platform for music distribution and streaming in the Arab world. I have followed Anghami as a fan and user since its early years. While most of my classmates listened to music through iTunes or downloaded songs from the internet, I was among the few who used the free Anghami app to listen to the music I love with some ads. The app had a large collection of international songs and a small number of Arabic songs.
Anghami grew and so did its audience, surpassing my generation and even Lebanon, and reaching the entire Arab world. However, the Lebanese audience remained loyal to Anghami through all stages and fluctuations, even when Rotana withdrew its songs from the app (almost all Arabic songs) in favor of another app.
Unlike a large number of fans abroad, the Lebanese audience did not move to other apps. Even during the economic crises that hit the Lebanese people hard, a considerable number of users still used the app daily, despite the difficulty of subscriptions and high prices.Anghami did not reciprocate the same treatment to its Lebanese audience.
The Lebanese audience woke up last week to a message from Anghami informing them that they could no longer listen to complete songs, but only 30 seconds of the song (for Anghami Plus subscribers through phone companies). The company justified this step “due to the current conditions in Lebanon”.
Instead of helping the Lebanese people during their difficult circumstances, the company, which recently moved from Beirut to Abu Dhabi, decided to punish them as well, just like state institutions, generator owners, and water tankers do. It failed to understand the difficult stage, as the Lebanese people did with the difficult stages the company went through.
We know that Anghami is a profitable company and has a responsibility to maintain its interests, and we are among the strongest defenders of free economies. However, sometimes social responsibility lies in investing in the future of a particular market, and a company with feelings and a big heart will be treated with love and loyalty from the public. Today, the Lebanese will remember while listening to their favorite songs on Spotify, that Anghami, which they loved and considered its success as theirs, let them down during their difficult days and punished them for their poverty and crisis.