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I think people have a short memory. It was not that long ago that you’d have to pay 10+e for an album, where most of that would go to the record labels. Now I c

by deanc 2y ago

I think people have a short memory. It was not that long ago that you’d have to pay 10+e for an album, where most of that would go to the record labels. Now I can pay 10e a month and listen to almost every song ever made, and I’m not going to be willing to pay much more than that. Artists make their money with live events nowadays. Spotify’s average profit for the last 4 years is around 500m per year. Investors need to be paid and distributing some of that profit among a handful of top artists isn’t going to go a long way. So how do you suppose we pay the artists more royalties?

solardev 2y ago
(From a sibling comment of mine) I wish Spotify would let me "upgrade" individual albums to purchases. Like I'd still pay for my monthly sub, but if I particularly like a track or artist, I could buy that album for a discounted price (like $5, ideally) and the artist would get like 95% of that revenue. It doesn't really solve the problem of "your music is so generic nobody wants to buy it and nobody can tell you apart from the other similar artists", but maybe it doesn't need to? There's already enough excellent, good, and mediocre music out there to last me several lifetimes even if nothing else gets made. There's way more supply than demand. Everybody wants to be creative, I guess, but not everyone is actually good at it? Maybe it's OK for most of that music to fall by the wayside and only the 1% of the 1% to really make it. Streaming is a good proving ground, and upgrades could help the really good artists earn a bit more. To me it's not really that different from the infinite supply of shitty books, articles, games, movies, software etc. Most of it just isn't good enough to stand out.
- gruez 2y ago
  >I wish Spotify would let me "upgrade" individual albums to purchases. Like I'd still pay for my monthly sub, but if I particularly like a track or artist, I could buy that album for a discounted price (like $5, ideally) and the artist would get like 95% of that revenue. I don't get it, your proposal is that you want to be able to buy albums for less the usual price of $15-20 or whatever? Why would an artist want to do that? Or is the idea basically a tipping function where you "buy" an album for $5, but don't get anything in return?
- nosioptar 2y ago
  Qobuz allows purchasing some music (flac). Qobuz does have its share of problems. I often found its catalog lacking. Its plagued with edited versions of albums that aren't labelled as edited. It lacks filters. I'd like to filter out singles and just browse albums.
miunau 2y ago
If you're looking at Spotify's profit to redistribute, you're looking at the wrong places. The right places would be the payola agreements worth billions they already have in place with the major labels, and the fact that they explicitly allow bot plays to prop up the profits of said labels. Starting in January, they won't even tally royalties for songs that get less than 1000 streams- which means most of their catalog. They will just take the money, and consumers are ok with it because less than a thousand people per artist will care. But hey, it's convenient.
- deanc 2y ago
  Survival of the fittest? I really don't have a problem with this. Artistry is hard - not everyone can make it. 1000 plays is a failure - financially. It probably costs Spotify more to payout the transaction for such a low amount of plays than the amount they are paying out.
  - miunau 2y ago
    This is a non-excuse. All the accounting is done through distribution partners, not to individual artists, and they have computers available to calculate numbers. They have been doing it until now just fine while making money. So have literally all the other streaming platforms. Is a million times a thousand plays still nothing?
wat10000 2y ago
Artists have always made their money with live events. Back when people bought CDs, artists got a tiny fraction of a fraction of the sale price. These days they get a slightly larger fraction of a smaller price. A handful of artists at the top of the charts can make bank, and the rest struggle, as always. I don’t see any solution short of some massive government arts program. It comes down to supply and demand. Most musicians play for a love of music. They would (and many do) play music even if they got no money for it at all. That makes for a glut of musicians and a really low equilibrium price of labor. We see a similar phenomenon (on a much smaller scale) in tech with games. Lots of people really like making games. They’d do it for free. Getting paid for it at all is a dream. Result: pay is not great in that segment of the industry. Not many of us dream of adding some features to CRUD apps and as a result that pays better.

by deanc 2y ago

solardev 2y ago

(From a sibling comment of mine) I wish Spotify would let me "upgrade" individual albums to purchases. Like I'd still pay for my monthly sub, but if I particularly like a track or artist, I could buy that album for a discounted price (like $5, ideally) and the artist would get like 95% of that revenue. It doesn't really solve the problem of "your music is so generic nobody wants to buy it and nobody can tell you apart from the other similar artists", but maybe it doesn't need to? There's already enough excellent, good, and mediocre music out there to last me several lifetimes even if nothing else gets made. There's way more supply than demand. Everybody wants to be creative, I guess, but not everyone is actually good at it? Maybe it's OK for most of that music to fall by the wayside and only the 1% of the 1% to really make it. Streaming is a good proving ground, and upgrades could help the really good artists earn a bit more. To me it's not really that different from the infinite supply of shitty books, articles, games, movies, software etc. Most of it just isn't good enough to stand out.

gruez 2y ago
>I wish Spotify would let me "upgrade" individual albums to purchases. Like I'd still pay for my monthly sub, but if I particularly like a track or artist, I could buy that album for a discounted price (like $5, ideally) and the artist would get like 95% of that revenue. I don't get it, your proposal is that you want to be able to buy albums for less the usual price of $15-20 or whatever? Why would an artist want to do that? Or is the idea basically a tipping function where you "buy" an album for $5, but don't get anything in return?
nosioptar 2y ago
Qobuz allows purchasing some music (flac). Qobuz does have its share of problems. I often found its catalog lacking. Its plagued with edited versions of albums that aren't labelled as edited. It lacks filters. I'd like to filter out singles and just browse albums.

miunau 2y ago

If you're looking at Spotify's profit to redistribute, you're looking at the wrong places. The right places would be the payola agreements worth billions they already have in place with the major labels, and the fact that they explicitly allow bot plays to prop up the profits of said labels. Starting in January, they won't even tally royalties for songs that get less than 1000 streams- which means most of their catalog. They will just take the money, and consumers are ok with it because less than a thousand people per artist will care. But hey, it's convenient.

deanc 2y ago
Survival of the fittest? I really don't have a problem with this. Artistry is hard - not everyone can make it. 1000 plays is a failure - financially. It probably costs Spotify more to payout the transaction for such a low amount of plays than the amount they are paying out.
- miunau 2y ago
  This is a non-excuse. All the accounting is done through distribution partners, not to individual artists, and they have computers available to calculate numbers. They have been doing it until now just fine while making money. So have literally all the other streaming platforms. Is a million times a thousand plays still nothing?

wat10000 2y ago

Artists have always made their money with live events. Back when people bought CDs, artists got a tiny fraction of a fraction of the sale price. These days they get a slightly larger fraction of a smaller price. A handful of artists at the top of the charts can make bank, and the rest struggle, as always. I don’t see any solution short of some massive government arts program. It comes down to supply and demand. Most musicians play for a love of music. They would (and many do) play music even if they got no money for it at all. That makes for a glut of musicians and a really low equilibrium price of labor. We see a similar phenomenon (on a much smaller scale) in tech with games. Lots of people really like making games. They’d do it for free. Getting paid for it at all is a dream. Result: pay is not great in that segment of the industry. Not many of us dream of adding some features to CRUD apps and as a result that pays better.