6 ms·

All these market places are finding new ways to extract money from the market. There is no incentive to stop until it only makes just enough sense for the conte

All these market places are finding new ways to extract money from the market. There is no incentive to stop until it only makes just enough sense for the content creators to not stop making content. As they are monopolies (mostly), there is no moving. All extra profits, efficiently, to them. This is happening with Airbnb, Amazon, Shopify, and now Spotify? We pay a cut to be in the platform, then we pay for marketing on the platform. It's obvious who holds the cards. Our feudal lords now have catchy names.

teej 6y ago
None of this money goes to Spotify.
- zwkrt 6y ago
  The point still stands. Spotify is providing a platform to further enhance the grip of capital.
  - teej 6y ago
    They provide a platform that lets users share playlists.
    - ausbah 6y ago
      and pay artists for letting them play their songs (or whenever a song is actually played, or some combination). which has a huge impact when they're one of few music hosting platforms people use
- texasbigdata 6y ago
  But it’s not clear the activity is not net beneficial to them.
satyrnein 6y ago
Everything can always be better, but this is the best it's ever been for content creators.
- colordrops 6y ago
  Why is this excuse always dragged out? History and precedent is orthogonal to objective and sufficient quality and fairness.
- chillfox 6y ago
  So? The only reason it's "the best it has ever been" is because people in the past didn't accept that argument as a good reason to stop improving things.
endisneigh 6y ago
I don't disagree with you, but are you aware of how things were before the vendors you listed existed? it used to be VERY difficult to get anywhere as a musician - at least now with YouTube and Spotify you can roll the "going viral" dice and better your chances with something good. I will also say that the issue is mainly human nature - any platform that gets critical mass will likely see people interested in money bubble to the top and eventually monetize.
- sthnblllII 6y ago
  Going viral is thanks to the internet, not big tech monopolies. These rent-seeking monopolies deliberately make it more difficult to go viral by prioritizing paid placement.
  - endisneigh 6y ago
    I don't disagree but the virality you speak of is heightened because of the centralization.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    In content, as in pandemics, exponential growth requires large populations. The ease of going viral is absolutely because of big tech companies. Nobody goes viral on a BBS.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >I don't disagree with you, but are you aware of how things were before the vendors you listed existed? it used to be VERY difficult to get anywhere as a musician If you were any good, I'd say it was the opposite. You could get signed and live off of 50-100K records sold per year (from Indie labels where you got a bigger share of your sales revenue) globally. You didn't have to compete with anybody in the world that had a guitar or some synth and an audio recorder, only comitted musicians with deals. The "company screwed me" stories of that era come mainly from suckers that got signed as starry eyed 17 year olds or something into major labels with crappy deals. And even those stories were somewhat overblown when it came to big bands (the company did made millions, but they did get plenty in advances too, enough to buy cars, houses, and support constant parties and a few drug addictions). Any small indie band/musician in the 80s to 00s has found the mp3/streaming era much worse with regards to industry income.
kortilla 6y ago
How is Amazon in that list? Seriously, there are tons of other viable options to sell online and in stores. You even listed an alternative! Last I checked for a vacation, VRBO still was a viable alternative for renting people’s homes. Then there are tons of other location specific real estate companies specializing in renting vacation homes. If you think there is no alternative to these big tech companies, you haven’t looked very hard.
sevencolors 6y ago
Marketing is always a necessary part of any endeavor that requires people to know about your product. Sometimes you get free marketing without any effort. But most times you need to put the work into to be noticed. This includes paying for services that help get the word out.
soheil 6y ago
If no platforms exist there is no means of distribution and there is less motivation to create. You can talk about feudal lords all you want, but the simple fact is without a marketplace no one is exchanging anything except in very ad-hoc manner. Here is a clip of what it might have been like in pre-agricultural revolution era [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8
SilverRed 6y ago
I don't really care tbh. Spotify is a non essential and easily replaceable service. If paid spots in playlists start to degrade my experience I can move to an alternate platform. If they don't degrade my experience, then thats great for the platform at no cost to me.

teej 6y ago

None of this money goes to Spotify.

zwkrt 6y ago
The point still stands. Spotify is providing a platform to further enhance the grip of capital.
- teej 6y ago
  They provide a platform that lets users share playlists.
  - ausbah 6y ago
    and pay artists for letting them play their songs (or whenever a song is actually played, or some combination). which has a huge impact when they're one of few music hosting platforms people use
texasbigdata 6y ago
But it’s not clear the activity is not net beneficial to them.

satyrnein 6y ago

Everything can always be better, but this is the best it's ever been for content creators.

colordrops 6y ago
Why is this excuse always dragged out? History and precedent is orthogonal to objective and sufficient quality and fairness.
chillfox 6y ago
So? The only reason it's "the best it has ever been" is because people in the past didn't accept that argument as a good reason to stop improving things.

endisneigh 6y ago

I don't disagree with you, but are you aware of how things were before the vendors you listed existed? it used to be VERY difficult to get anywhere as a musician - at least now with YouTube and Spotify you can roll the "going viral" dice and better your chances with something good. I will also say that the issue is mainly human nature - any platform that gets critical mass will likely see people interested in money bubble to the top and eventually monetize.

sthnblllII 6y ago
Going viral is thanks to the internet, not big tech monopolies. These rent-seeking monopolies deliberately make it more difficult to go viral by prioritizing paid placement.
- endisneigh 6y ago
  I don't disagree but the virality you speak of is heightened because of the centralization.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  In content, as in pandemics, exponential growth requires large populations. The ease of going viral is absolutely because of big tech companies. Nobody goes viral on a BBS.
coldtea 6y ago
>I don't disagree with you, but are you aware of how things were before the vendors you listed existed? it used to be VERY difficult to get anywhere as a musician If you were any good, I'd say it was the opposite. You could get signed and live off of 50-100K records sold per year (from Indie labels where you got a bigger share of your sales revenue) globally. You didn't have to compete with anybody in the world that had a guitar or some synth and an audio recorder, only comitted musicians with deals. The "company screwed me" stories of that era come mainly from suckers that got signed as starry eyed 17 year olds or something into major labels with crappy deals. And even those stories were somewhat overblown when it came to big bands (the company did made millions, but they did get plenty in advances too, enough to buy cars, houses, and support constant parties and a few drug addictions). Any small indie band/musician in the 80s to 00s has found the mp3/streaming era much worse with regards to industry income.

kortilla 6y ago

How is Amazon in that list? Seriously, there are tons of other viable options to sell online and in stores. You even listed an alternative! Last I checked for a vacation, VRBO still was a viable alternative for renting people’s homes. Then there are tons of other location specific real estate companies specializing in renting vacation homes. If you think there is no alternative to these big tech companies, you haven’t looked very hard.

sevencolors 6y ago

Marketing is always a necessary part of any endeavor that requires people to know about your product. Sometimes you get free marketing without any effort. But most times you need to put the work into to be noticed. This includes paying for services that help get the word out.

soheil 6y ago

If no platforms exist there is no means of distribution and there is less motivation to create. You can talk about feudal lords all you want, but the simple fact is without a marketplace no one is exchanging anything except in very ad-hoc manner. Here is a clip of what it might have been like in pre-agricultural revolution era [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjYt6Jm5j8

SilverRed 6y ago

I don't really care tbh. Spotify is a non essential and easily replaceable service. If paid spots in playlists start to degrade my experience I can move to an alternate platform. If they don't degrade my experience, then thats great for the platform at no cost to me.