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> Spotify has a near monopoly and they dictate the terms. People aren't buying a second subscription service or buying songs separately let alone buying a physi

> Spotify has a near monopoly and they dictate the terms. People aren't buying a second subscription service or buying songs separately let alone buying a physical album. That's not even close to being true. Google Music, Apple Music, Amazon Prime whatever it's called, regular ol' Youtube videos and playlists, services like last.fm or Pandora.. There are lots of ways to discover music that don't depend on record labels and their marketing. If your music is independent and you want to stay away from the man, you have to put work into marketing your music. That's the step that you'd normally hand off to the record label. At least now you actually have a viable way (lots, actually) of making money as opposed to the past when distribution was much more difficult.

exDM69 9y ago
> That's not even close to being true. Google Music, Apple Music, Amazon Prime whatever it's called, regular ol' Youtube videos and playlists The others have pretty small consumer base but more importantly, suffer from all the same issues as Spotify. To reach the widest audience, you need to be with all of those. Most consumers have only one music subscription service. That's what makes it a near monopoly for them. YouTube is a bit of an exception, and my favorite for niche and rare music and forgotten live performance recordings of more popular music. But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers.
- lovehashbrowns 9y ago
  That makes it a near monopoly for whom? Having a big chunk of the industry doesn't mean you have a monopoly, by the way. Anyone can freely choose from a number of music subscription services. There's no monopoly here. The monopoly probably lies in how licenses are handled, and that process comes before Spotify/Google Music/Apple Music/etc. It's an archaic system and what should be the blame here, not the streaming services we currently have. It's always comical to me how people will attack Spotify and co. for things that the record labels are directly responsible for, and after having screwed artists for decades. > But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers. Okay, this is not a great excuse. I think I understand what you mean by this. But if a musician doesn't want to follow the distribution channels that consumers prefer, then that's on the artist. If you want to take care of distribution for yourself and avoid any big labels, then you take responsibility for the success and failure of your music's distribution.
- zaphar 9y ago
  But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers. The question here is whether it's better at providing income for niche musicians than the alternatives. It has always been hard to make money doing niche music. Youtube has made it much easier. Complaining that it doesn't make it profitable enough is beside the question. Some products are never going to be profitable no matter what the distribution mechanism is. For those products it may be sufficient to make it possible for an artist to recoup some costs for their hobby.

exDM69 9y ago

> That's not even close to being true. Google Music, Apple Music, Amazon Prime whatever it's called, regular ol' Youtube videos and playlists The others have pretty small consumer base but more importantly, suffer from all the same issues as Spotify. To reach the widest audience, you need to be with all of those. Most consumers have only one music subscription service. That's what makes it a near monopoly for them. YouTube is a bit of an exception, and my favorite for niche and rare music and forgotten live performance recordings of more popular music. But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers.

lovehashbrowns 9y ago
That makes it a near monopoly for whom? Having a big chunk of the industry doesn't mean you have a monopoly, by the way. Anyone can freely choose from a number of music subscription services. There's no monopoly here. The monopoly probably lies in how licenses are handled, and that process comes before Spotify/Google Music/Apple Music/etc. It's an archaic system and what should be the blame here, not the streaming services we currently have. It's always comical to me how people will attack Spotify and co. for things that the record labels are directly responsible for, and after having screwed artists for decades. > But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers. Okay, this is not a great excuse. I think I understand what you mean by this. But if a musician doesn't want to follow the distribution channels that consumers prefer, then that's on the artist. If you want to take care of distribution for yourself and avoid any big labels, then you take responsibility for the success and failure of your music's distribution.
zaphar 9y ago
But YouTube is not very good for providing income for musicians who don't want to be predominantly 'tubers. The question here is whether it's better at providing income for niche musicians than the alternatives. It has always been hard to make money doing niche music. Youtube has made it much easier. Complaining that it doesn't make it profitable enough is beside the question. Some products are never going to be profitable no matter what the distribution mechanism is. For those products it may be sufficient to make it possible for an artist to recoup some costs for their hobby.