4 ms·

Well, before spotify they made zero money from me and a lot of other people. Spotify also allowed a lot more people to publish their music. Increased supply and

by zirgs 3y ago

Well, before spotify they made zero money from me and a lot of other people. Spotify also allowed a lot more people to publish their music. Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. 1999 with its overpriced CDs is never coming back.

cubefox 3y ago
> Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. The "supply" of music, including music sold on CDs, is equally unlimited. What leads to the low Spotify price is that they have to compete with music piracy. CD prices weren't higher because CDs were expensive to manufacture and therefore limited in supply -- they weren't. Instead, they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against piracy.
- toyg 3y ago
  > they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against piracy. Bull. Any reasonably-sized town had at least one "dodgy" seller of pirated CDs. CDs were expensive because they were fundamentally a vanity item, with sleeves and goodies. That empowered middlemen and official distribution chains which, in developed countries, is typically where profit accumulates. Artists themselves, under contract with labels, couldn't buy CDs at cost to sell at concerts - labels were pressured to protect the distribution chains. CDs made middlemen rich, not artists.
- realusername 3y ago
  You had more piracy during the CD era than anything you can imagine right now. Basically every town had a pirated CD shop, everybody knew somebody to call to get some pirated CDs, it was a full business.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Not in my country. Our police apparently prevented such shops.
    - realusername 3y ago
      Maybe you were in a police heavy country then. I remember pretty much everybody having a mix of pirated and real CDs at home.
- zirgs 3y ago
  By "increased supply" I meant - more artists were able to offer their music on the service. So each artist has a way bigger competition now. It was much harder to release a CD or get your songs on radio than get on spotify, bandcamp and youtube.

by zirgs 3y ago

cubefox 3y ago

> Increased supply and higher competition leads to lower prices. The "supply" of music, including music sold on CDs, is equally unlimited. What leads to the low Spotify price is that they have to compete with music piracy. CD prices weren't higher because CDs were expensive to manufacture and therefore limited in supply -- they weren't. Instead, they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against piracy.

toyg 3y ago
> they were more expensive because they didn't have to compete against piracy. Bull. Any reasonably-sized town had at least one "dodgy" seller of pirated CDs. CDs were expensive because they were fundamentally a vanity item, with sleeves and goodies. That empowered middlemen and official distribution chains which, in developed countries, is typically where profit accumulates. Artists themselves, under contract with labels, couldn't buy CDs at cost to sell at concerts - labels were pressured to protect the distribution chains. CDs made middlemen rich, not artists.
realusername 3y ago
You had more piracy during the CD era than anything you can imagine right now. Basically every town had a pirated CD shop, everybody knew somebody to call to get some pirated CDs, it was a full business.
- cubefox 3y ago
  Not in my country. Our police apparently prevented such shops.
  - realusername 3y ago
    Maybe you were in a police heavy country then. I remember pretty much everybody having a mix of pirated and real CDs at home.
zirgs 3y ago
By "increased supply" I meant - more artists were able to offer their music on the service. So each artist has a way bigger competition now. It was much harder to release a CD or get your songs on radio than get on spotify, bandcamp and youtube.