4 ms·

Fuck Spotify. They've played a major role in drastically reducing any chance of significant revenue flowing to musicians, in complete contrast to Bandcamp. Peo

Fuck Spotify. They've played a major role in drastically reducing any chance of significant revenue flowing to musicians, in complete contrast to Bandcamp. People hearing your music is nice and all (I like it when people hear my stuff on BC), but it is orthogonal to the revenue that used to be associated with making recorded music available. There's far, far more music out there than anyone will ever be able to listen to, and I consider the possibility of even 1 paid milkshake for a musician much more important than some random number of listeners who heard the track on Spotify. I appreciate that you may see things differently, but I think that you're wrong.

Applejinx 3y ago
THANK you. Spotify is no Bandcamp substitute. Not even close. Not even remotely the same category of thing. Yikes.
nomel 3y ago
> People hearing your music is nice and all As a listener, this is my entire concern, use case, and reason for paying for a streaming site: finding new music to listen to. I don't think I'm unique. Artists should get more, which is why I pay for Spotify Premium, but the use case of a listener is important. Bandcamp doesn't address that, for me.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  There is more music on Bandcamp than you could listen to in a lifetime. More comes out in a week than you could (probably) listen to in a week. So when you sayd "finding new music to listen to", there's a hidden implication in there: you want to find new music that is on Spotify (which in turn implies things like major labels, artists seeking or expecting breakout etc. Bandcamp is an amazing resource for discovering new music, but a subset of all new music, just as Spotify is. It's fine to say you prefer what you can find on Spotify, just don't make the claim that Bandcamp somehow isn't up for this general task.
  - nomel 3y ago
    I'll rephrase: I don't want to find the music. I want recommendation of music that I might like. I want a mostly passive experience, where I can click a like button to get more like that, added to feed. I don't want to actively search, because I'm doing other things when I listen to music. If I find a song that interests me, I'll listen to the songs "radio" to find similar artists. This is an acceptable use pattern. > which in turn implies things like major labels, artists seeking or expecting breakout etc. This is nonsensical [1]. I follow YouTubers have their music on Spotify. Some are just spoof songs. [1] https://artists.spotify.com/en/get-started https://artists.spotify.com/en/get-started
  - jmye 3y ago
    I’m unaware of anything on Bandcamp that is remotely as useful to me as the auto-built playlists and artist/song radio tools in Spotify. That there’s “a lot” of music on either platform is meaningless if the tools to find things I’d like don’t work for me. I get the compensation model sucks for artists. I try to buy things from bands I like. But ultimately, if artists don’t like the Spotify model, they should pull their music - but I’m going to continue to use a platform that gives me access to everything I’d ever want to hear for like, $10/mo.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      > but I’m going to continue to use a platform that gives me access to everything I’d ever want to hear for like, $10/mo. I'm going to continue to use a platform that can only cost as little as it does because the people who create the art that motivates the entire existence of the platform get paid essentially nothing well, uh, bravo, I guess.
      - jmye 3y ago
        Then they should pull their music. You know, the part I said that you cut off so you could what, poorly paraphrase my position as negatively as possible? To what end? Was your day that bad that you needed to make someone else look little to feel better about it? But uh, bravo, I guess.
- waveBidder 3y ago
  does Spotify pay artists more for listens on premium? I seriously doubt it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - nomel 3y ago
    All the revenue goes into a big pot, then split up [1]. That pot is 95% premium users [2]. [1] https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ [2] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spotify-makes-internet-music-make-money.asp#:~:text=Spotify%20Segment%20Breakdown%3A%20Revenue%3A%20Premium,%2DSupported%20Services%2C%205%25 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spoti....
    - vintermann 3y ago
      It's separate pots for ad listens vs. subscriber listens. AFAIK there are also separate pots by country, since subscription fees and profitability of ad markets vary widely by country.
      - nomel 3y ago
        Do you have a reference for this? If the pots are different, what's the practical difference, when the majority of the profits, and payout, comes from premium?
  - vintermann 3y ago
    This is easy to check. Yes, premium listens are pooled separately from ad-supported listens. If an artist is extremely popular with ad-supported listeners, that doesn't let them eat into the pool of payments from premium listeners. Note, however, that listens are pooled by country, not per user. So premium accounts running background music in a hair salon 6 days a week will decide where your subscription money goes far more than the music you listen to. Originally, this was because the big record companies demanded it. Now, the record companies are having second thoughts, but Spotify, which has adapted to the funding key favouring background music, are the ones resisting.
fomine3 3y ago
Buy on Bandcamp but also listen on Spotify, isn't it perfect for both?
jemmyw 3y ago
I think you've identified the major problem for musicians: there's so much music available today that the value of writing more has crashed. The value to listeners is now in the delivery infrastructure and recommendations.
- simpaticoder 3y ago
  The population of music lovers, people that have favorite bands, genres, albums, want more music. Those who listen passively and do not own or care about albums and don't go to concerts etc. can be safely ignored; Spotify is fine for them.
  - nomel 3y ago
    > Those who listen passively and do not own or care about albums I see it very differently. I care about good music. There's an incredible amount of good music out there, and it's rare that an album is full of it. Your definition of "good" may vary, but mine isn't really influenced by the artist. Most albums are mostly not-good-music. I'm picky, and look at unrelated songs independently. This is why I don't really care for albums. I feel no debt to a single artist or a nothing-more-than-release-time-related collection of music, which is what most are. Some albums I do considered a complete, single, work, but that's relatively rare. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories is a good example, in my opinion. I don't see what concerts have to do with anything. Those are often related to luck and finances/privilege.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    Ah the no true Scotsman argument. I have favorite bands and genres, I support local bands when I find them, I go to concerts when I'm able, though I don't live in an ideal location for it. I play music and I try to get together with others to play. And I use Spotify. I'm not interested in owning albums, you can stream an album or individual songs. I spent years buying music, ripping the CDs, organizing files, etc. I'm very glad that I don't need to bother any more. I don't own the medium the music is stored on, I don't really get why it matters.
    - 3y ago
vintermann 3y ago
You know what Glenn Jones (American guitarist), Talisk (Scottish folk), Tonbruket (Swedish jazz), Daniel Herskedal (Norwegian jazz, tuba), The Books (New York, sound collage), Yom (French klezmer clarinetist), Kongero (Swedish folk a cappella), and Naragonia (Belgian accordion folk) have in common? That 1. I supported them on Bandcamp 2. I would never have found them if it wasn't for Spotify's discover weekly. I could list a lot more artists for which this is true. It's not even counting the ones I found indirectly. This is maybe something artists should be aware of when they think they get such a good deal from Bandcamp and such a bad deal from Spotify. It's not as simple as that. I'm sure it's true that most people who promise you "exposure" are trying to exploit you, but that doesn't mean you can ignore how you actually got in front of the audience you have.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  The problem with this angle is that Bandcamp also has discovery features through which you may have found a different (or maybe an overlapping) 8 artists too. There's a good chance they would not be the same, and there's a argument that it might feel more difficult (Spotify appears to work VERY hard at getting better at prediction, Bandcamp is more like human curation, which is to say less reliable but also occasionally more serendipitous).
  - vintermann 3y ago
    I see that indirectly, Spotify likes to recommend me stuff that has gotten attention from a few specific human curators: NPR desk concerts, the Mark Radcliffe Folk sessions (a BBC program I believe), and A Prairie Home Companion. So it's not an either-or, I would not even have heard of those curators without Spotify. But some of the best stuff Spotify has found for me, has had ridiculously few plays and no obvious human curator connection. Bandcamp just isn't in the same league, and I'd say Spotify is far better on serendipity too. It's far from predictable what it will recommend, there's not many human curators you can say that about (including the three I mentioned).

Applejinx 3y ago

THANK you. Spotify is no Bandcamp substitute. Not even close. Not even remotely the same category of thing. Yikes.

nomel 3y ago

> People hearing your music is nice and all As a listener, this is my entire concern, use case, and reason for paying for a streaming site: finding new music to listen to. I don't think I'm unique. Artists should get more, which is why I pay for Spotify Premium, but the use case of a listener is important. Bandcamp doesn't address that, for me.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
There is more music on Bandcamp than you could listen to in a lifetime. More comes out in a week than you could (probably) listen to in a week. So when you sayd "finding new music to listen to", there's a hidden implication in there: you want to find new music that is on Spotify (which in turn implies things like major labels, artists seeking or expecting breakout etc. Bandcamp is an amazing resource for discovering new music, but a subset of all new music, just as Spotify is. It's fine to say you prefer what you can find on Spotify, just don't make the claim that Bandcamp somehow isn't up for this general task.
- nomel 3y ago
  I'll rephrase: I don't want to find the music. I want recommendation of music that I might like. I want a mostly passive experience, where I can click a like button to get more like that, added to feed. I don't want to actively search, because I'm doing other things when I listen to music. If I find a song that interests me, I'll listen to the songs "radio" to find similar artists. This is an acceptable use pattern. > which in turn implies things like major labels, artists seeking or expecting breakout etc. This is nonsensical [1]. I follow YouTubers have their music on Spotify. Some are just spoof songs. [1] https://artists.spotify.com/en/get-started https://artists.spotify.com/en/get-started
- jmye 3y ago
  I’m unaware of anything on Bandcamp that is remotely as useful to me as the auto-built playlists and artist/song radio tools in Spotify. That there’s “a lot” of music on either platform is meaningless if the tools to find things I’d like don’t work for me. I get the compensation model sucks for artists. I try to buy things from bands I like. But ultimately, if artists don’t like the Spotify model, they should pull their music - but I’m going to continue to use a platform that gives me access to everything I’d ever want to hear for like, $10/mo.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    > but I’m going to continue to use a platform that gives me access to everything I’d ever want to hear for like, $10/mo. I'm going to continue to use a platform that can only cost as little as it does because the people who create the art that motivates the entire existence of the platform get paid essentially nothing well, uh, bravo, I guess.
    - jmye 3y ago
      Then they should pull their music. You know, the part I said that you cut off so you could what, poorly paraphrase my position as negatively as possible? To what end? Was your day that bad that you needed to make someone else look little to feel better about it? But uh, bravo, I guess.
waveBidder 3y ago
does Spotify pay artists more for listens on premium? I seriously doubt it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nomel 3y ago
  All the revenue goes into a big pot, then split up [1]. That pot is 95% premium users [2]. [1] https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ [2] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spotify-makes-internet-music-make-money.asp#:~:text=Spotify%20Segment%20Breakdown%3A%20Revenue%3A%20Premium,%2DSupported%20Services%2C%205%25 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120314/spoti....
  - vintermann 3y ago
    It's separate pots for ad listens vs. subscriber listens. AFAIK there are also separate pots by country, since subscription fees and profitability of ad markets vary widely by country.
    - nomel 3y ago
      Do you have a reference for this? If the pots are different, what's the practical difference, when the majority of the profits, and payout, comes from premium?
- vintermann 3y ago
  This is easy to check. Yes, premium listens are pooled separately from ad-supported listens. If an artist is extremely popular with ad-supported listeners, that doesn't let them eat into the pool of payments from premium listeners. Note, however, that listens are pooled by country, not per user. So premium accounts running background music in a hair salon 6 days a week will decide where your subscription money goes far more than the music you listen to. Originally, this was because the big record companies demanded it. Now, the record companies are having second thoughts, but Spotify, which has adapted to the funding key favouring background music, are the ones resisting.

fomine3 3y ago

Buy on Bandcamp but also listen on Spotify, isn't it perfect for both?

jemmyw 3y ago

I think you've identified the major problem for musicians: there's so much music available today that the value of writing more has crashed. The value to listeners is now in the delivery infrastructure and recommendations.

simpaticoder 3y ago
The population of music lovers, people that have favorite bands, genres, albums, want more music. Those who listen passively and do not own or care about albums and don't go to concerts etc. can be safely ignored; Spotify is fine for them.
- nomel 3y ago
  > Those who listen passively and do not own or care about albums I see it very differently. I care about good music. There's an incredible amount of good music out there, and it's rare that an album is full of it. Your definition of "good" may vary, but mine isn't really influenced by the artist. Most albums are mostly not-good-music. I'm picky, and look at unrelated songs independently. This is why I don't really care for albums. I feel no debt to a single artist or a nothing-more-than-release-time-related collection of music, which is what most are. Some albums I do considered a complete, single, work, but that's relatively rare. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories is a good example, in my opinion. I don't see what concerts have to do with anything. Those are often related to luck and finances/privilege.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  Ah the no true Scotsman argument. I have favorite bands and genres, I support local bands when I find them, I go to concerts when I'm able, though I don't live in an ideal location for it. I play music and I try to get together with others to play. And I use Spotify. I'm not interested in owning albums, you can stream an album or individual songs. I spent years buying music, ripping the CDs, organizing files, etc. I'm very glad that I don't need to bother any more. I don't own the medium the music is stored on, I don't really get why it matters.
  - 3y ago

vintermann 3y ago

You know what Glenn Jones (American guitarist), Talisk (Scottish folk), Tonbruket (Swedish jazz), Daniel Herskedal (Norwegian jazz, tuba), The Books (New York, sound collage), Yom (French klezmer clarinetist), Kongero (Swedish folk a cappella), and Naragonia (Belgian accordion folk) have in common? That 1. I supported them on Bandcamp 2. I would never have found them if it wasn't for Spotify's discover weekly. I could list a lot more artists for which this is true. It's not even counting the ones I found indirectly. This is maybe something artists should be aware of when they think they get such a good deal from Bandcamp and such a bad deal from Spotify. It's not as simple as that. I'm sure it's true that most people who promise you "exposure" are trying to exploit you, but that doesn't mean you can ignore how you actually got in front of the audience you have.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
The problem with this angle is that Bandcamp also has discovery features through which you may have found a different (or maybe an overlapping) 8 artists too. There's a good chance they would not be the same, and there's a argument that it might feel more difficult (Spotify appears to work VERY hard at getting better at prediction, Bandcamp is more like human curation, which is to say less reliable but also occasionally more serendipitous).
- vintermann 3y ago
  I see that indirectly, Spotify likes to recommend me stuff that has gotten attention from a few specific human curators: NPR desk concerts, the Mark Radcliffe Folk sessions (a BBC program I believe), and A Prairie Home Companion. So it's not an either-or, I would not even have heard of those curators without Spotify. But some of the best stuff Spotify has found for me, has had ridiculously few plays and no obvious human curator connection. Bandcamp just isn't in the same league, and I'd say Spotify is far better on serendipity too. It's far from predictable what it will recommend, there's not many human curators you can say that about (including the three I mentioned).