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> Spotify should work put who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividin

> Spotify should work put who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays. I'm not sure this is really fairer, or practical. Listeners that listen to less music (well, fewer artists at least, but that feels like its often going to correlate) being more valuable feels like it creates weird patterns and incentives. If you only listened to one song in a month, should that band get your full subscription cut? What if you listened to no songs, but didn't cancel? In any case, I imagine there's an aggregate effect where the whole pool of spotify listeners habits ends up being something that approximates a normal distribution and paying per-user vs paying per-stream would end up basically the same. You listen to 40 niche artists one month, 10000 other people listen to 40 popular ones, the popular ones get 10000x the revenue... There are bands with thousands of monthly listeners, and then ones with tens of millions of monthly listeners. The few in the latter bucket are gonna dominate the payouts.

jonplackett 6y ago
Basically my opinion is, yeah! Why not? If I only listen to one band, have my money! Why does anyone else deserve it any more than they do? Or if you want Spotify could do it over the year rather than the month so it’s less extreme. I just want my money to go only to bands I listen to. Is that so crazy? If I listen to no music, maybe then it can just go based on my average listening history, or last month. Don’t let a few edge cases put you off a much fairer way of distributing the money in general.
- enobrev 6y ago
  I have to agree. I'm not sure I understand why any other artist should receive that subscription money if I paid for a service abd only listened to a single artist. The service got their cut. Shouldn't the artist make their money for my listening preference? I clearly would not have paid for that service if that band wasn't there to listen to. Beyond fair, it seems well deserved. The opposite of that is strange to me. Seems akin to buying a record at a record store and having my money go to other artists because people usually buy their records.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    > Seems akin to buying a record at a record store and having my money go to other artists because people usually buy their records. When you spell it out like that it shows just how insane it is!
    - phillipseamore 6y ago
      We'll technically most of the revenue from record sales goes to the label, which they usually use a part of to find and sign new artists (so other artists do benefit).
      - jonplackett 6y ago
        Ha, you’re probably right! I bet that’s what the main problem is anyway! I’ve been trying to work out some math and forgetting they’re all getting totally screwed but the label!
      - enobrev 6y ago
        It's definitely true that the label gets the majority, and Spotify in this case, but there is (usually) a per-record cut for the artist in the physical album version of this transaction.
mortenjorck 6y ago
> If you only listened to one song in a month, should that band get your full subscription cut? I don't understand why this hypothetical would be an argument against user-centric payments. If you only listened to one band in a month, what claim does any other band have on your (net of Spotify's cut) payment?
- kazinator 6y ago
  What if you didn't just listen to one band for a month? If you mostly listened to one band, but then also to another band just once, should it be 50:50? If not, then you're somehow going by number of plays. (Definitely though, only those two artists should get any of your money, no matter how it is sliced.)
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    Yeah exactly. I’m just using the one band thing as an extreme example. My money would just get split between who I listen to.
    - nefitty 6y ago
      There’s some evidence that current streaming habits are actually affecting how music is produced. For example, it seems most listeners will spend a few seconds listening to a second before deciding whether to skip it, so intro sections in pop music are disappearing. If your money was split between what you listened to, wouldn’t it make sense to split by time listened or length of the tracks? That might start incentivizing musicians to create inordinately longer songs to try to get a bigger slice of your money... hmm...
      - piva00 6y ago
        Listening habits has always shaped how music is made. David Byrne explains that quite well in "How Music Works", his take on the history of how music is made and how it sounds being correlated how it was usually played is quite interesting. Tribal music could be more beat/drum focused as those are played in open air, where the bass sounds can propagate without room interference. Going from there to the point where he talks about concert halls and how different architectures (from cathedrals to halls designed for orchestras) shaped how music was made to sound in that kind of room. And later on how recordings have changed all of that. So music has been shaped and will continuously be shaped by how people listen to it. Nowadays music is a very personal experience, listening at home, on our headphones, we experience it outside of the context it's existed for millenia before good recordings were possible. Where the experience of listening live music was always attached to the place it was played. Now we listen to it completely devoid of space, this shapes the kind of music made, how it sounds and so on.
kazinator 6y ago
What the system should reward is material that is actively chosen by users. Whenever the system chooses a track, that should not be rewarded as much (or perhaps not at all) compared to when the user chooses a track.
coldtea 6y ago
>If you only listened to one song in a month, should that band get your full subscription cut? Yes, totally. That's why I pay my subscription. >What if you listened to no songs, but didn't cancel? Then the money from those should be put in a pool and handed to artists with actual streams that month, proportionally...
srg0 6y ago
If there's a niche artist which has a 1000 dedicated and loyal listeners, that's an audience paying $10k per month to listen mostly to their music. The platforms and the labels should get their cut, sure, taxes paid, and so on, but if the system is fair this kind of revenue may suffice for a small indie artist to make a living. How many listeners should an artist have to break into four digits monthly?

jonplackett 6y ago

Basically my opinion is, yeah! Why not? If I only listen to one band, have my money! Why does anyone else deserve it any more than they do? Or if you want Spotify could do it over the year rather than the month so it’s less extreme. I just want my money to go only to bands I listen to. Is that so crazy? If I listen to no music, maybe then it can just go based on my average listening history, or last month. Don’t let a few edge cases put you off a much fairer way of distributing the money in general.

enobrev 6y ago
I have to agree. I'm not sure I understand why any other artist should receive that subscription money if I paid for a service abd only listened to a single artist. The service got their cut. Shouldn't the artist make their money for my listening preference? I clearly would not have paid for that service if that band wasn't there to listen to. Beyond fair, it seems well deserved. The opposite of that is strange to me. Seems akin to buying a record at a record store and having my money go to other artists because people usually buy their records.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  > Seems akin to buying a record at a record store and having my money go to other artists because people usually buy their records. When you spell it out like that it shows just how insane it is!
  - phillipseamore 6y ago
    We'll technically most of the revenue from record sales goes to the label, which they usually use a part of to find and sign new artists (so other artists do benefit).
    - jonplackett 6y ago
      Ha, you’re probably right! I bet that’s what the main problem is anyway! I’ve been trying to work out some math and forgetting they’re all getting totally screwed but the label!
    - enobrev 6y ago
      It's definitely true that the label gets the majority, and Spotify in this case, but there is (usually) a per-record cut for the artist in the physical album version of this transaction.

mortenjorck 6y ago

> If you only listened to one song in a month, should that band get your full subscription cut? I don't understand why this hypothetical would be an argument against user-centric payments. If you only listened to one band in a month, what claim does any other band have on your (net of Spotify's cut) payment?

kazinator 6y ago
What if you didn't just listen to one band for a month? If you mostly listened to one band, but then also to another band just once, should it be 50:50? If not, then you're somehow going by number of plays. (Definitely though, only those two artists should get any of your money, no matter how it is sliced.)
- jonplackett 6y ago
  Yeah exactly. I’m just using the one band thing as an extreme example. My money would just get split between who I listen to.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    There’s some evidence that current streaming habits are actually affecting how music is produced. For example, it seems most listeners will spend a few seconds listening to a second before deciding whether to skip it, so intro sections in pop music are disappearing. If your money was split between what you listened to, wouldn’t it make sense to split by time listened or length of the tracks? That might start incentivizing musicians to create inordinately longer songs to try to get a bigger slice of your money... hmm...
    - piva00 6y ago
      Listening habits has always shaped how music is made. David Byrne explains that quite well in "How Music Works", his take on the history of how music is made and how it sounds being correlated how it was usually played is quite interesting. Tribal music could be more beat/drum focused as those are played in open air, where the bass sounds can propagate without room interference. Going from there to the point where he talks about concert halls and how different architectures (from cathedrals to halls designed for orchestras) shaped how music was made to sound in that kind of room. And later on how recordings have changed all of that. So music has been shaped and will continuously be shaped by how people listen to it. Nowadays music is a very personal experience, listening at home, on our headphones, we experience it outside of the context it's existed for millenia before good recordings were possible. Where the experience of listening live music was always attached to the place it was played. Now we listen to it completely devoid of space, this shapes the kind of music made, how it sounds and so on.

kazinator 6y ago

What the system should reward is material that is actively chosen by users. Whenever the system chooses a track, that should not be rewarded as much (or perhaps not at all) compared to when the user chooses a track.

coldtea 6y ago

>If you only listened to one song in a month, should that band get your full subscription cut? Yes, totally. That's why I pay my subscription. >What if you listened to no songs, but didn't cancel? Then the money from those should be put in a pool and handed to artists with actual streams that month, proportionally...

srg0 6y ago

If there's a niche artist which has a 1000 dedicated and loyal listeners, that's an audience paying $10k per month to listen mostly to their music. The platforms and the labels should get their cut, sure, taxes paid, and so on, but if the system is fair this kind of revenue may suffice for a small indie artist to make a living. How many listeners should an artist have to break into four digits monthly?