5 ms·

I’m trying to muster sympathy for someone who tried to make a quick buck putting garbage into the world, but I just can’t get there.

by pohl 2y ago

blitzar 2y ago
He extracted the money from parasites. We tolerate, even celebrate, radiation poisoning when it is killing cancer cells and allowing a person to live.
- BigParm 2y ago
  I love when corpos get scammed or stolen from. They know that the game is "take what you can" and it's about time the plebs learned that too.
  - zaptrem 2y ago
    Streaming royalties are paid from a (majority) portion of subscription revenue. They didn’t steal from Spotify, they stole from musicians. In a way, the same tends to be true whenever people take from “corpos.” That money ultimately comes from people in some form.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      No, they mostly stole from Spotify, then fron the top 100 distributors. Then the artists maybe lost pennies on this scheme. Worst part is that Spotify gained a lot more than 10m from letting this go on for 7 years. I doubt they weren't aware of this, but allowed it becsuse those bots let them attract a lot more than $10m worth of viewers. That's why I have no sympathy.
      - zaptrem 2y ago
        Can you provide any reasoning or evidence for this beyond “No, you’re wrong?” Here’s mine: “ Unlike physical sales or downloads, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the artist's "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify Spotify didn’t make a single cent less than they usually do because of this.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Reasoning: this happened for 7 years. And I'd be shocked if no one was actually privy of this happening years prior. Like every other 2010's tech operation, bots can be used to attract real users, at which point the bots can be sunsetted a bit and then attract real investors. market capture was more important then profitability in the 2010's, so even if they lost money from this overall, they gained something much more important for a company: a brand. That brand is where you start to become "too big to fail". This is basically a 3rd party helping with the first step. If you want to look at raw revenue over 7 years, maybe Spotify made less. But they definitely profitted by time by allowing it to go on until it was not longer useful (especially now. As Spotify is using music to train their own AI models. Ai generated music will just mess up the model). ---------------- Do I have any hard evidence Spotify specifically does this? Not on hand, but I wouldn't be surprised if I can actually dig up Spotify dirt. This is documented for several other large scale tech companies. I'd honestly be surprised if Spotify was a special case. I hope that explanation suffices, or is at least more satifactory than what you interpreted as "no, you're wrong".
        zaptrem 2y ago
        While I expected you to try to explain how the scammers "mostly stole from Spotify," (which was the claim I disagreed with) you instead put forth a theory to how their scam instead benefited Spotify (which I never made any claims about, nor disputed your claims). Can you explain how they stole from Spotify if the revenue pool they stole from (70% royalty pool) would never have gone to Spotify in the first place?
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Spotify isn't a parasite... it is an amazing service that connects listeners with musicians, and has excellent methods to help people discover new music they will likely enjoy. It pays artists little because it charges users little- so anyone can afford to listen to music, but unlike the radio or pirating, their listen actually sends money to the artist. I've discovered, and become a concert ticket buying fan of a huge number of small time artists that would have been nearly impossible to find or listen to without spotify. No artist is forced to list songs on spotify, if a non-spotify method worked better for them to get fans and income, they don't need to put songs on there- yet I find most artists do have their music on there.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > It pays artists little because it charges users little And yet services like Tidal can afford to pay artists 4-6 times more for the same amount of streaming.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      I don't find that surprising. I did a free trial of Tidal and only found about 1/10th of the artists I like on there, so for the same subscription fee I either listened to music a lot less, or listened to the same artists and songs a lot more. Either way, that is a much bigger fraction of my subscription fees for each individual artist. I loved the software and high audio quality, but it just wasn't usable because it didn't have the music I wanted to listen to. From what I've heard, about 70% of a Spotify subscription pays directly for content to the rights holders, and it is mostly distributed in proportion to 'listens.' This does mean that most of the money goes to a tiny number of extremely popular artists, but that seems more like a social dynamic that always existed with pop music, and not Spotify's fault.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >This does mean that most of the money goes to a tiny number of extremely popular artists, but that seems more like a social dynamic that always existed with pop music, and not Spotify's fault. And society. Oh well, billionaires are just a social dynamic. Can't all be rich, best to just accept being poor as rent rises.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
6510 2y ago
I need to hear the music first.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Exactly. Let's hear what HAL's got. I listen to a lot of EDM on Spotify while working, and nobody has ever accused me of tasteful discernment when it comes to music. I suspect it's only a matter of time before I 'like' an AI-composed song that no one else has ever heard before, after a bot uploads it automatically as part of some kind of scam and Spotify recommends it based on my previous likes. Borges more-or-less said this would happen, so when it does, I won't be able to say I wasn't warned.
  - brcmthrowaway 2y ago
    What EDM
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VAxTzh4aIiePrxfQ8BLw?si=7d67c545d63440a4 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VAxTzh4aIiePrxfQ8BLw?si=...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

I’m trying to muster sympathy for someone who tried to make a quick buck putting garbage into the world, but I just can’t get there.

by pohl 2y ago

I’m trying to muster sympathy for someone who tried to make a quick buck putting garbage into the world, but I just can’t get there.

blitzar 2y ago

He extracted the money from parasites. We tolerate, even celebrate, radiation poisoning when it is killing cancer cells and allowing a person to live.

BigParm 2y ago
I love when corpos get scammed or stolen from. They know that the game is "take what you can" and it's about time the plebs learned that too.
- zaptrem 2y ago
  Streaming royalties are paid from a (majority) portion of subscription revenue. They didn’t steal from Spotify, they stole from musicians. In a way, the same tends to be true whenever people take from “corpos.” That money ultimately comes from people in some form.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    No, they mostly stole from Spotify, then fron the top 100 distributors. Then the artists maybe lost pennies on this scheme. Worst part is that Spotify gained a lot more than 10m from letting this go on for 7 years. I doubt they weren't aware of this, but allowed it becsuse those bots let them attract a lot more than $10m worth of viewers. That's why I have no sympathy.
    - zaptrem 2y ago
      Can you provide any reasoning or evidence for this beyond “No, you’re wrong?” Here’s mine: “ Unlike physical sales or downloads, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the artist's "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify Spotify didn’t make a single cent less than they usually do because of this.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Reasoning: this happened for 7 years. And I'd be shocked if no one was actually privy of this happening years prior. Like every other 2010's tech operation, bots can be used to attract real users, at which point the bots can be sunsetted a bit and then attract real investors. market capture was more important then profitability in the 2010's, so even if they lost money from this overall, they gained something much more important for a company: a brand. That brand is where you start to become "too big to fail". This is basically a 3rd party helping with the first step. If you want to look at raw revenue over 7 years, maybe Spotify made less. But they definitely profitted by time by allowing it to go on until it was not longer useful (especially now. As Spotify is using music to train their own AI models. Ai generated music will just mess up the model). ---------------- Do I have any hard evidence Spotify specifically does this? Not on hand, but I wouldn't be surprised if I can actually dig up Spotify dirt. This is documented for several other large scale tech companies. I'd honestly be surprised if Spotify was a special case. I hope that explanation suffices, or is at least more satifactory than what you interpreted as "no, you're wrong".
        zaptrem 2y ago
        While I expected you to try to explain how the scammers "mostly stole from Spotify," (which was the claim I disagreed with) you instead put forth a theory to how their scam instead benefited Spotify (which I never made any claims about, nor disputed your claims). Can you explain how they stole from Spotify if the revenue pool they stole from (70% royalty pool) would never have gone to Spotify in the first place?
_yb2s 2y ago
Spotify isn't a parasite... it is an amazing service that connects listeners with musicians, and has excellent methods to help people discover new music they will likely enjoy. It pays artists little because it charges users little- so anyone can afford to listen to music, but unlike the radio or pirating, their listen actually sends money to the artist. I've discovered, and become a concert ticket buying fan of a huge number of small time artists that would have been nearly impossible to find or listen to without spotify. No artist is forced to list songs on spotify, if a non-spotify method worked better for them to get fans and income, they don't need to put songs on there- yet I find most artists do have their music on there.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > It pays artists little because it charges users little And yet services like Tidal can afford to pay artists 4-6 times more for the same amount of streaming.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    I don't find that surprising. I did a free trial of Tidal and only found about 1/10th of the artists I like on there, so for the same subscription fee I either listened to music a lot less, or listened to the same artists and songs a lot more. Either way, that is a much bigger fraction of my subscription fees for each individual artist. I loved the software and high audio quality, but it just wasn't usable because it didn't have the music I wanted to listen to. From what I've heard, about 70% of a Spotify subscription pays directly for content to the rights holders, and it is mostly distributed in proportion to 'listens.' This does mean that most of the money goes to a tiny number of extremely popular artists, but that seems more like a social dynamic that always existed with pop music, and not Spotify's fault.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >This does mean that most of the money goes to a tiny number of extremely popular artists, but that seems more like a social dynamic that always existed with pop music, and not Spotify's fault. And society. Oh well, billionaires are just a social dynamic. Can't all be rich, best to just accept being poor as rent rises.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

6510 2y ago

I need to hear the music first.

CamperBob2 2y ago
Exactly. Let's hear what HAL's got. I listen to a lot of EDM on Spotify while working, and nobody has ever accused me of tasteful discernment when it comes to music. I suspect it's only a matter of time before I 'like' an AI-composed song that no one else has ever heard before, after a bot uploads it automatically as part of some kind of scam and Spotify recommends it based on my previous likes. Borges more-or-less said this would happen, so when it does, I won't be able to say I wasn't warned.
- brcmthrowaway 2y ago
  What EDM
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VAxTzh4aIiePrxfQ8BLw?si=7d67c545d63440a4 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/09VAxTzh4aIiePrxfQ8BLw?si=...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]