5 ms·

No, it's not fair that my subscription money is mostly allocated by other users' listening patterns, not by mine.

lucb1e 6y ago
It also works the other way, though. If someone else listens to 1 song of artist A once a month and you play artist B more than once a month, a larger chunk of the total will be going to artist B. And in aggregate things will work out, since an average listener will listen to a random song an average number of times. Broken down to an individual level you can claim that a smaller artist gets less but if that artist's listeners actually play more than the average number of songs an average subscriber plays, then they get a larger percentage instead. That seems like random variation to me. I'm not sure if it's unfair. If you think artist B is more deserving of your money than artist A despite B being listened to fewer times, then yeah this would be unfair. I'm just not sure why you would say that they deserve your money more than an artist that people listened to more often.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  When I buy a Mechina album on Bandcamp, my money does not go to Nickelback instead. Can you explain how this system currently used by Bandcamp is unfair? If I wanted to get the same behavior from Spotify, I would need to leave devices streaming at all hours, because I am competing for amount of streams against restaurants and gyms that buy a single Spotify subscription and leave it on constantly.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    > I am competing for amount of streams against restaurants and gyms that buy a single Spotify subscription and leave it on constantly Yeah, there's a reason that that's illegal, but it being illegal doesn't change reality, so you're right. I hadn't considered this in previous comments until u/kgermino pointed it out in [1]. I see your point better now. I still stand by that "more listens resulting in more money" isn't necessarily bad, but that the way of counting who gets actively listened to might need revising. Another solution to the problem is the (let's call it) Bandcamp model. I'm not opposed to that, I'm just wondering if that will solve any issues, given that I perceive the problem not as "we should pay per subscriber listening to an artist instead of per number of plays" but instead "we should not pay for illegitimate plays." It does also make me wonder if Spotify considered this and, if yes, why they rejected it. I guess more popular artists are more important to Spotify's survival and therefore they can demand more money under the guise of it being all fair? It's quite an allegation but that's the only thing I can think of. But then, I've been wrong before :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25025522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25025522

It also works the other way, though. If someone else listens to 1 song of artist A once a month and you play artist B more than once a month, a larger chunk of the total will be going to artist B. And in aggregate things will work out, since an average listener will listen to a random song an average number of times. Broken down to an individual level you can claim that a smaller artist gets less but if that artist's listeners actually play more than the average number of songs an average subscriber plays, then they get a larger percentage instead. That seems like random variation to me. I'm not sure if it's unfair. If you think artist B is more deserving of your money than artist A despite B being listened to fewer times, then yeah this would be unfair. I'm just not sure why you would say that they deserve your money more than an artist that people listened to more often.

anonymoushn 6y ago
When I buy a Mechina album on Bandcamp, my money does not go to Nickelback instead. Can you explain how this system currently used by Bandcamp is unfair? If I wanted to get the same behavior from Spotify, I would need to leave devices streaming at all hours, because I am competing for amount of streams against restaurants and gyms that buy a single Spotify subscription and leave it on constantly.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  > I am competing for amount of streams against restaurants and gyms that buy a single Spotify subscription and leave it on constantly Yeah, there's a reason that that's illegal, but it being illegal doesn't change reality, so you're right. I hadn't considered this in previous comments until u/kgermino pointed it out in [1]. I see your point better now. I still stand by that "more listens resulting in more money" isn't necessarily bad, but that the way of counting who gets actively listened to might need revising. Another solution to the problem is the (let's call it) Bandcamp model. I'm not opposed to that, I'm just wondering if that will solve any issues, given that I perceive the problem not as "we should pay per subscriber listening to an artist instead of per number of plays" but instead "we should not pay for illegitimate plays." It does also make me wonder if Spotify considered this and, if yes, why they rejected it. I guess more popular artists are more important to Spotify's survival and therefore they can demand more money under the guise of it being all fair? It's quite an allegation but that's the only thing I can think of. But then, I've been wrong before :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25025522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25025522