> They seemingly don't understand the business they're in... at all. Do you know any musicians? Like, real musicians, for whom music is their life and their li

> They seemingly don't understand the business they're in... at all. Do you know any musicians? Like, real musicians, for whom music is their life and their life's work, not dabblers? Typically these are not shrewd business types. They don't hold a lot of negotiating power; if they're lucky enough to get a chance with a label deal they often don't push back on the terms very much at all. Labels are notoriously predatory in this regard, particularly mainstream large companies. All they want is a fair shake. They see themselves and their fellow artists being screwed continually, while people that have nothing to do with their hard work, long nights, and passionate effort make money off their backs. For every artist that learns, there are ten more willing to take their place just for a tiny sliver of a chance at popularity. The solution here is to do whatever we want to continue the slow work towards destroying mainstream labels. Indie labels still offer a reasonable value proposition in terms of the promotion and recording work they do in exchange for a share of the proceeds; mainstream labels don't. Like most media industries, they're headed by parenthetical elites, cosmopolitan types who have no loyalty to anything but profit, and will squeeze out every drop no matter the impact to the actual working artists. Fuck 'em. Don't listen to mainstream music. Support indie artists and labels; buy direct wherever possible. If anything, the protest should be to make it trivial to directly host your music with Spotify for a nominal hosting fee, so that all revenue can go direct to the artist, rather than having to go through a 3rd party service.