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This article and a lot of comments here don't understand the business reasons why this happening. Everyone rings their hands and says why can't we just have ev
by dasil003 5y ago
This article and a lot of comments here don't understand the business reasons why this happening. Everyone rings their hands and says why can't we just have everything in one place for a "reasonable" price like Spotify?
Well first of all, Spotify is no panacea, artists and labels don't really like it but they have no choice because they need distribution in order to sell albums/concert tickets. Even the largest artists like Taylor Swift who has protested against low Spotify royalties only temporarily took some material off Spotify, and ended up putting it back because in the end she looks like the bad guy to her fans if they can't stream her on Spotify like everything else they listen to.
Netflix was originally hoping to corner the market in a similar way, and they had a good first step with the Starz deal in 2008. However video is different and those rightsholders had full view of what happened in the music industry, so they were not about to make the mistake of ceding all power to a middle man. By the time Starz deal expired in 2012 it was clear that Netflix could never get all content because rightsholders would not let it happen. Similarly, the industry realized they need their own distribution. So Netflix and HBO entered a race to become each other. Since then the technology has only commodified which has allowed more rightsholders to get into the game.
Is this bad for consumers? Sure, but "the industry" is not a monolithic entity, and they certainly will do everything it takes to avoid becoming dependent on a single distributor with too much power like Spotify. It doesn't matter how many angry nerds complain on the internet, these companies will continue acting in their own self-interest, and the market carrying capacity for streaming services is probably way higher than most consumers want to admit. The only thing that will turn this around is by services dying because people don't pay for them, and I don't see that happening any time soon.
- naasking 5y ago> Even the largest artists like Taylor Swift who has protested against low Spotify royalties only temporarily took some material off Spotify, and ended up putting it back because in the end she looks like the bad guy to her fans if they can't stream her on Spotify like everything else they listen to. Artists probably need to stop seeing royalties as a viable income stream and instead see it as publicity for their tours where they actually make money.
- bsder 5y agoSmart artists have already internalized this. I remember an interview with the lead singer(?) of a hard rock/metal band where the interviewer asked when their next tour was coming up and his response was "LOL! I can go on tour and lose money or stay here, play the occasional local gig, and charge $100/hour to do tattoos. When do you think our next tour is going to be?"
- xref 5y agoI hope they’d make a lot more than $100/hr doing a concert. Otherwise they sound like, you know, a local band without any real following.
- bsder 5y agoPomplamoose would like a word: https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-67435851ba37 https://medium.com/@jackconte/pomplamoose-2014-tour-profits-... These concerts were roughly 300-500 person venues. And it looks like they did a good job filling them up. And they lost money. So, not only was their salary not $100/hr, it was, in fact, negative dollars per hour.
- nottorp 5y ago> This article and a lot of comments here don't understand the business reasons why this happening. I'm a potential customer. I don't care about their business reasons. I'll subscribe to 1-2 streaming services and if something interesting comes up on the others i'll just torrent it. End of story. Edit: actually that would be my point of view if modern content wouldn't be so crappy on average. These days I'm more likely to subscribe to 1-2 services and ignore both those and the ones I'm not paying for...