7 ms·

You're supporting the artists you listen to more uniformly (via spotify) though. If you and I listen to 1000 artists over the course of a year, and you spend $

You're supporting the artists you listen to more uniformly (via spotify) though. If you and I listen to 1000 artists over the course of a year, and you spend $1000/year on album purchases (let's say $10 each) while I subscribe to spotify, I pay $90 a year while supporting all of the artists I listen to, loosely based on how much I listen to them, while you much more significantly support up to 100 of the artists you listened to. I think what you're doing is better, don't get me wrong, but I can only afford $90 a year anyway. In your case though, you could support all the artists you listen to by paying for a spotify/itunes/whatever subscription and using that as your primary listening service, while also purchasing their music via bandcamp. You probably won't feel the additional subscription price. And I think most people who can afford $1000/year for music are not going to be using YouSpot, so I'm not sure why you're pointing out that people can leech off of spotify and then support the artists directly, when the above person said "please also support the artists" > You're better off listening to music however you please and buying albums on Bandcamp to support the artists; Yes, but most people can't afford this. It's good that YouSpot is available for people who can't even afford spotify (no one upthread said otherwise), and many people aren't going to be able to pay bandcamp $1000 per year to support maybe 10-50% of the artists they listen to. So please save your thesis for somewhere it's relevant. For the average person who can maybe comfortably afford $90 per year, a subscription service is a much more viable way to support the musicians they listen to than buying 4-9 albums

etaweb 3y ago
You say that it is better to pay 90$ for 1000$ worth of goods than to pay nothing. This is a false dilemma, there is a third choice that is paying only what you can afford. Paying only 9% of a physical good wouldn't make anyone less of a robber. A lot of people here would rather blame those who steal better than they do, than question the industry that allows artists work to be sold off. Furthermore, I would say that most people using Spotify and alike services do it only for convenience, but certainly not to "support the artists".
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  These aren't physical goods, and (my issues with the categorization of piracy as theft aside) given that we're talking about legally listening to music you have access to through a service you pay for, I don't even know how to engage with the suggestion that this is theft (on the part of the consumers anyway). If you have the means and inclination to pay more I strongly urge people to pay more also. There are issues with the intermediaries, but there is no practical way for people who can't afford $1000/yr to support the artists they like legally, while still being able to listen to them. So if your suggestion is that someone who can afford $90/year should only have access to the albums they can afford to purchase through bandcamp because those support the artists more directly, I strongly disagree. This just further creates a wedge between the wealthy and regular working class people. Are you suggesting poor people make do with the few albums they can purchase from bandcamp and then whatever they can listen to on the radio? On youtube? Because I fail to see how those are any less 'theft' than just paying spotify and listening there. edit: I'm actually legitimately confused about what your idea is here and I'd like to understand. It seems like we're both coming at this from an anti-capitalist perspective, but your idea that poor people should have reduced access to the arts doesn't seem to align with any anti-capitalist ideology I'm aware of. Or are you just opposed to the consolidation of the distribution channels which exploit the working class (artists in this case) but somehow haven't drawn the connection that this is a condition of late-stage capitalism? If so, I'd recommend listening to some content by the wonderful Cory Doctorow
  - hedora 3y ago
    Also, if, once a year, every spotify listener picked one band they liked at random, and paid them the amount of an annual Spotify subscription ($132), there'd be a hell of a lot more money in artist's pockets than there is currently. There are 8 million artists on Spotify, and 551 million monthly active users. That's $9000 per band on average per year. The 99.9th percentile band on Spotify makes $50K, and the 80th percentile artist makes $0. If we split the money across the 20% currently making any money at all, that's $45K per year per band. Therefore, the "pirate + directly pay one band at random" strategy would fund ~100 times more artists then Spotify does. Also, if Spotify went bankrupt tomorrow and 100% of their users switched to pure piracy, we'd only lose roughly 15K below-minimum-wage jobs globally. There are currently 36,000 Spotify listeners for every band being paid what would be a median income for one person. If a tiny fraction of them decided to go to concerts or donate to appropriate non-profits, etc, it'd be a net gain of jobs for artists. Note: There are only 220M premium subscriptions, so my numbers are a bit inflated. Ignoring the 330M ad supported listeners would lead to numbers that are too low. Also, I assumed people would pay for a spotify subscription which is more than the assumed $90. Maybe divide everything I said by two? Link to subscriber numbers: https://www.statista.com/chart/15697/spotify-user-growth/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15697/spotify-user-growth/

etaweb 3y ago

You say that it is better to pay 90$ for 1000$ worth of goods than to pay nothing. This is a false dilemma, there is a third choice that is paying only what you can afford. Paying only 9% of a physical good wouldn't make anyone less of a robber. A lot of people here would rather blame those who steal better than they do, than question the industry that allows artists work to be sold off. Furthermore, I would say that most people using Spotify and alike services do it only for convenience, but certainly not to "support the artists".

pcthrowaway 3y ago
These aren't physical goods, and (my issues with the categorization of piracy as theft aside) given that we're talking about legally listening to music you have access to through a service you pay for, I don't even know how to engage with the suggestion that this is theft (on the part of the consumers anyway). If you have the means and inclination to pay more I strongly urge people to pay more also. There are issues with the intermediaries, but there is no practical way for people who can't afford $1000/yr to support the artists they like legally, while still being able to listen to them. So if your suggestion is that someone who can afford $90/year should only have access to the albums they can afford to purchase through bandcamp because those support the artists more directly, I strongly disagree. This just further creates a wedge between the wealthy and regular working class people. Are you suggesting poor people make do with the few albums they can purchase from bandcamp and then whatever they can listen to on the radio? On youtube? Because I fail to see how those are any less 'theft' than just paying spotify and listening there. edit: I'm actually legitimately confused about what your idea is here and I'd like to understand. It seems like we're both coming at this from an anti-capitalist perspective, but your idea that poor people should have reduced access to the arts doesn't seem to align with any anti-capitalist ideology I'm aware of. Or are you just opposed to the consolidation of the distribution channels which exploit the working class (artists in this case) but somehow haven't drawn the connection that this is a condition of late-stage capitalism? If so, I'd recommend listening to some content by the wonderful Cory Doctorow
- hedora 3y ago
  Also, if, once a year, every spotify listener picked one band they liked at random, and paid them the amount of an annual Spotify subscription ($132), there'd be a hell of a lot more money in artist's pockets than there is currently. There are 8 million artists on Spotify, and 551 million monthly active users. That's $9000 per band on average per year. The 99.9th percentile band on Spotify makes $50K, and the 80th percentile artist makes $0. If we split the money across the 20% currently making any money at all, that's $45K per year per band. Therefore, the "pirate + directly pay one band at random" strategy would fund ~100 times more artists then Spotify does. Also, if Spotify went bankrupt tomorrow and 100% of their users switched to pure piracy, we'd only lose roughly 15K below-minimum-wage jobs globally. There are currently 36,000 Spotify listeners for every band being paid what would be a median income for one person. If a tiny fraction of them decided to go to concerts or donate to appropriate non-profits, etc, it'd be a net gain of jobs for artists. Note: There are only 220M premium subscriptions, so my numbers are a bit inflated. Ignoring the 330M ad supported listeners would lead to numbers that are too low. Also, I assumed people would pay for a spotify subscription which is more than the assumed $90. Maybe divide everything I said by two? Link to subscriber numbers: https://www.statista.com/chart/15697/spotify-user-growth/ https://www.statista.com/chart/15697/spotify-user-growth/