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Spotify siphons yet more income artists should be getting into corporate coffers and Daniel Ek's bank account. No music lover should be using Spotify. They are

Spotify siphons yet more income artists should be getting into corporate coffers and Daniel Ek's bank account. No music lover should be using Spotify. They are notorious for driving the downward trend in streaming payments to artists. They are arguably worse than the worst of the old Music Industry we were taught to hate in "tech disruptor culture 1.0". Bandcamp revenue goes straight to artists, largely. I got 89 out of 99 dollars paid on a release of mine.

leoh 2y ago
Good to point out and I’m with you but… fwiw… I think the intersection of people that are upset about a free recommendation API being cancelled and people who want a music platform that pays artists fairly is essentially zero. So yeah
blitzar 2y ago
> arguably worse than the worst of the old <insert industry> we were taught to hate in "tech disruptor culture 1.0" Always has been (meme)
kotaKat 2y ago
Whatever happened to "app fairness"? Oh, right -- Fairness For Me, Not For Thee.
rightbyte 2y ago
If I had bought a CD every 2nd month for 10 years I would have had 60 albums. That is about what Spotify costs. Spotify has been making the music field even more winner takes it all than the old status quo.
- rchaud 2y ago
  The economics of the music industry were always heavily tilted to the record labels, but Spotify somehow took it even further. Their CEO is a billionnaire for what? Being an unprofitable middle-man that pays $1 to the labels for every $0.80 they get?
  - piva00 2y ago
    It pays US$0.70 for every US$1 it gets, it's in their financial reports quite easily to see.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Did you honestly buy music so infrequently, or did I buy music more than the normal person? In high school, I'd buy an album/CD a week. That wasn't just new releases but also meant including back catalog to fill in the collection. Are we just opposite ends of the music acquisition spectrum?
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    Even a CD every other month sounds high to me, buying a CD a week sounds insane to me, where would you even put them all? I owned like... 6 CDs total before I started downloading MP3s. I would just listen to the radio. My friends were the same, they only owned albums from their very favorite bands.
    - rightbyte 2y ago
      Singles were a thing though. I think they were priced at like a fifth of an album?
      - dylan604 2y ago
        And took up exactly the same amount of space.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      Generational differences I guess. MP3s did not become a thing until way after I was out of college. I used my weekly lunch allowance to buy a CD for that week. Most CDs of back catalog content was $9-$15. The >$20 prices weren't that common for typical releases. Of course some special release with multiple discs were priced higher. Where did I put them? I just had stacks of them like everyone else. Now, they are just in boxes labeled CDs. Most of the time, they were in a CD player in the car, in the disc changers, in the Walkman, etc. Lots of people would toss the case, and put the disc/liners in a flip book to reduce space. When you are into music, you deal with it. Like drummers. Where would you even put the drum set? What a silly question honestly.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
explain 2y ago
Spotify pays 70% of revenue to music rights holders. They aren't profitable.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Small bands can't have fans revenue from recordings in the same way as before, since they share pot with Tailor Swift and bot farms. It doesn't matter if its 70 or 99.99%.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    Spotify is a way to get famous. It's not meant to make big money. Once you are famous you can go on festivals. That's how streaming works in my country. When enough people know your songs you can get 5k people to show up at your live gig. It sucks for the autistic artists who want to make music in his basement I guess.
- jmpz 2y ago
  They are: https://www.statista.com/chart/26773/profitability-development-of-spotify/ https://www.statista.com/chart/26773/profitability-developme...
  - explain 2y ago
    Maybe, for the first time ever. Though historically when Spotify has come close to making a profit, record labels see it as an opportunity to demand more or pull out.
    - oh_fiddlesticks 2y ago
      Many companies, for example, Amazon during its rise to power, will choose to not profit and instead reinvest in business growth and avoid tax. When there is profit, there is more tax; As i understand it, if all the revenue is allocated to expenses, it will benefit from large tax exemptions. It's sort of like running a for-profit entity as if it were a non-profit entity, though by choice and not mandate.
tekla 2y ago
Selling music itself pretty much never benefits anyone in a significant way outside the top 1% of bands/whatever pop music. This is why any touring band asks you to buy merch, they eat on the money from merch
AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
How has Bandcamp been after the last acquisition for the artists? We (end users) were all predicting its downfall, but so far the new owners haven't done anything especially egregious yet, other than laying off a bunch of staff. I've still got my hand on the trigger waiting to download my entire library as lossless FLAC and jump ship, but so far it seems like it's been mostly business as usual.
turbojet1321 2y ago
I'll open by saying that I've bought about 50 albums from bandcamp and qobuz this year, so broadly, I'm with you about supporting artists. However, the whole "Spotify is terrible for artists" argument seems ill considered. Terrible compared to what? I lot of what I buy is relatively niche artists on relatively niche labels, who would never have been signed to a major and would never had had international distribution. These artists can't make a living through streaming, sure, but I don't think they could have made a living in the old world, either. I still have a Spotify subscription - mostly for the family - but I use it to listen to albums before deciding to buy them. I'd buy a lot less if I couldn't vet it on Spotify first. A lot of artists seem to think that they're entitled to make a living off their art, which seems to me to completely misunderstand the history of the music industry.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > A lot of artists seem to think that they're entitled to make a living off their art, which seems to me to completely misunderstand the history of the music industry. Or just the history of value in general. People definitely love music and will pay for it, but not for everyone who makes music.
Kiro 2y ago
If you don't want to abolish copyright you can't call yourself a hacker. Why should artists be a protected class?

leoh 2y ago

Good to point out and I’m with you but… fwiw… I think the intersection of people that are upset about a free recommendation API being cancelled and people who want a music platform that pays artists fairly is essentially zero. So yeah

blitzar 2y ago

> arguably worse than the worst of the old <insert industry> we were taught to hate in "tech disruptor culture 1.0" Always has been (meme)

kotaKat 2y ago

Whatever happened to "app fairness"? Oh, right -- Fairness For Me, Not For Thee.

rightbyte 2y ago

If I had bought a CD every 2nd month for 10 years I would have had 60 albums. That is about what Spotify costs. Spotify has been making the music field even more winner takes it all than the old status quo.

rchaud 2y ago
The economics of the music industry were always heavily tilted to the record labels, but Spotify somehow took it even further. Their CEO is a billionnaire for what? Being an unprofitable middle-man that pays $1 to the labels for every $0.80 they get?
- piva00 2y ago
  It pays US$0.70 for every US$1 it gets, it's in their financial reports quite easily to see.
dylan604 2y ago
Did you honestly buy music so infrequently, or did I buy music more than the normal person? In high school, I'd buy an album/CD a week. That wasn't just new releases but also meant including back catalog to fill in the collection. Are we just opposite ends of the music acquisition spectrum?
- kalleboo 2y ago
  Even a CD every other month sounds high to me, buying a CD a week sounds insane to me, where would you even put them all? I owned like... 6 CDs total before I started downloading MP3s. I would just listen to the radio. My friends were the same, they only owned albums from their very favorite bands.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Singles were a thing though. I think they were priced at like a fifth of an album?
    - dylan604 2y ago
      And took up exactly the same amount of space.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Generational differences I guess. MP3s did not become a thing until way after I was out of college. I used my weekly lunch allowance to buy a CD for that week. Most CDs of back catalog content was $9-$15. The >$20 prices weren't that common for typical releases. Of course some special release with multiple discs were priced higher. Where did I put them? I just had stacks of them like everyone else. Now, they are just in boxes labeled CDs. Most of the time, they were in a CD player in the car, in the disc changers, in the Walkman, etc. Lots of people would toss the case, and put the disc/liners in a flip book to reduce space. When you are into music, you deal with it. Like drummers. Where would you even put the drum set? What a silly question honestly.
- rightbyte 2y ago

explain 2y ago

Spotify pays 70% of revenue to music rights holders. They aren't profitable.

rightbyte 2y ago
Small bands can't have fans revenue from recordings in the same way as before, since they share pot with Tailor Swift and bot farms. It doesn't matter if its 70 or 99.99%.
- Yeul 2y ago
  Spotify is a way to get famous. It's not meant to make big money. Once you are famous you can go on festivals. That's how streaming works in my country. When enough people know your songs you can get 5k people to show up at your live gig. It sucks for the autistic artists who want to make music in his basement I guess.
jmpz 2y ago
They are: https://www.statista.com/chart/26773/profitability-development-of-spotify/ https://www.statista.com/chart/26773/profitability-developme...
- explain 2y ago
  Maybe, for the first time ever. Though historically when Spotify has come close to making a profit, record labels see it as an opportunity to demand more or pull out.
  - oh_fiddlesticks 2y ago
    Many companies, for example, Amazon during its rise to power, will choose to not profit and instead reinvest in business growth and avoid tax. When there is profit, there is more tax; As i understand it, if all the revenue is allocated to expenses, it will benefit from large tax exemptions. It's sort of like running a for-profit entity as if it were a non-profit entity, though by choice and not mandate.

tekla 2y ago

Selling music itself pretty much never benefits anyone in a significant way outside the top 1% of bands/whatever pop music. This is why any touring band asks you to buy merch, they eat on the money from merch

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

How has Bandcamp been after the last acquisition for the artists? We (end users) were all predicting its downfall, but so far the new owners haven't done anything especially egregious yet, other than laying off a bunch of staff. I've still got my hand on the trigger waiting to download my entire library as lossless FLAC and jump ship, but so far it seems like it's been mostly business as usual.

turbojet1321 2y ago

I'll open by saying that I've bought about 50 albums from bandcamp and qobuz this year, so broadly, I'm with you about supporting artists. However, the whole "Spotify is terrible for artists" argument seems ill considered. Terrible compared to what? I lot of what I buy is relatively niche artists on relatively niche labels, who would never have been signed to a major and would never had had international distribution. These artists can't make a living through streaming, sure, but I don't think they could have made a living in the old world, either. I still have a Spotify subscription - mostly for the family - but I use it to listen to albums before deciding to buy them. I'd buy a lot less if I couldn't vet it on Spotify first. A lot of artists seem to think that they're entitled to make a living off their art, which seems to me to completely misunderstand the history of the music industry.

robertlagrant 2y ago
> A lot of artists seem to think that they're entitled to make a living off their art, which seems to me to completely misunderstand the history of the music industry. Or just the history of value in general. People definitely love music and will pay for it, but not for everyone who makes music.

Kiro 2y ago

If you don't want to abolish copyright you can't call yourself a hacker. Why should artists be a protected class?