Stupid question What exactly did Taylor Swift do that people are praising her.

[mythology]

4. Apple is launching a new music service similar to something like Spotify

$10 a month per person, or $15 for a family account with an introductory 3 month free trial. Apple negotiated an agreement with the major record labels to not pay royalties for that 3 month period, I believe for a slightly higher rate after 3 months than Spotify pays.

Taylor Swift, being a very popular artist who isn't on one of the big 5 music labels, as well as a number of artists on smaller independent music labels, objected to the idea that their work was going to be given away for free.

Granted it still doesn't get around the generally horrible contracts with the record labels which means that artists get roughly nothing from services like Spotify, but it's a start.