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Spotify Form F-1

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Re: Spotify Form F-1

#341

Post by Orphis »

nindalf wrote: post #145
k4ch0w wrote: post #62

I only left Spotify for Youtube Red/Google Music. It was not an easy decision because they have the best music selection and discover imo. They should acquire pandora and then I think they could dominate this space.

Its interesting that you praise Spotify's selection. I love Spotify, have been a Premium subscriber for 4 years, but there are hundreds of songs that I'd like to listen to but have never been available on Spotify. Meanwhile, they're available on Apple Music. Also, some of the songs that I've saved over the past few years have been removed from Spotify's library - just yesterday I noticed that The Safety Dance is grey…

Don't blame the service for missing tracks but the artist's label for not putting them there.

I once complained to Sufjan Stevens' label about his albums missing in Spotify. They basically told me the deal with their distributor in Europe expired and they didn't look for a new one yet. "woops". It took them many months to get the tracks back.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#342

Post by einr »

Orphis wrote: post #336
einr wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Artist X has their music on Spotify but is currently making $0 a month. Now, for the sake of argument, let's say I spend an entire month listening to only Artist X a thousand times; I personally think it's fair in that case that whatever scraps of my Spotify fee are left for the artists should then go 100% to Artist X because they're the only ones I've listened to. So, in this utopian scenario, they might m…

But no one actually does that, and if you really did, you don't need Spotify, just buy their album directly. Such a payout seems appealing in theory, but in practice will just give more money to the very popular bands since they dominate the market and leave a much smaller share for the others.

in practice will just give more money to the very popular bands since they dominate the market and leave a much smaller share for the others.

Which is exactly the current situation, by the way. Anyway, what I was doing was just demonstrating that the system is not the same.

Although I am admittedly bad at maths and statistics, it seems to me that the system I am proposing would be more likely to pay out at least coffee change to small-time artists. I might be wrong, though.

Basically I think it's unfair and unintuitive how everything I pay goes to artists I don't listen to. There has to be a better system.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#343

Post by Anthony-G »

cja wrote: post #331
yamaneko wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pirate music anymore for the same reason. However, I also don't listen to music as I used to. I usually use Spotify to listen to what I already know, not so much to find new stuff. Before, I used to dive in depth into an artist/band, starting from their greatest hits. Once I got the band vocabulary, I'd download the albums chronologically and listened to every track, sometimes more than once until I got famil…

IKEA effect?

It's an interesting phenomenon that you'll no doubt recognise. I first came across while doing an online behavioural economics course. Wikipedia has a good article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#344

Post by bayindirh »

dopeboy wrote: post #96

Spotify is the reason why I don't pirate music anymore. I say this as someone who used to be involved in the scene (low level FXP couriering in the late 90s and early 00s) and has gigs of release from the RNS, EGO, etc days. It's much faster and convenient to use Spotify. I also think they cracked music discovery. Their discovery weekly playlist is stellar. My only wish is they'd get off Electron (EDIT Chromium - tha…

It's also same with me. I downloaded many albums because either the prices were prohibitive to buy, or the albums weren't available here.

Spotify allowed me to listen what I want, where I want. I don't like their chromium based application, but if it's the only way that they continue developing their Linux client, I'll not whine about it.

However, nothing beats owning the albums. So if the album passes a certain value in my mind, I buy it either on CD or from iTunes for archival and listening on my proper audio system, because all the snake oil and hype aside, nothing beats warmth of a good old amplifier, a decent DAC, and some big, good speakers.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#345

Post by fro0116 »

dopeboy wrote: post #96

Spotify is the reason why I don't pirate music anymore. I say this as someone who used to be involved in the scene (low level FXP couriering in the late 90s and early 00s) and has gigs of release from the RNS, EGO, etc days. It's much faster and convenient to use Spotify. I also think they cracked music discovery. Their discovery weekly playlist is stellar. My only wish is they'd get off Electron (EDIT Chromium - tha…

I really want to start using a streaming service, but I listen to a lot of Japanese artists and composers (lots of anime/game soundtracks). So far I have not found any streaming service with a decent selection when it comes to the latest releases from from Japan.

I would love to hear some recommendations for streaming services that can accommodate my tastes. I'm a fairly fluent in Japanese so Japanese-native services are fine too, but I'm not aware if any exists.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#346

Post by esolyt »

cja wrote: post #331
yamaneko wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pirate music anymore for the same reason. However, I also don't listen to music as I used to. I usually use Spotify to listen to what I already know, not so much to find new stuff. Before, I used to dive in depth into an artist/band, starting from their greatest hits. Once I got the band vocabulary, I'd download the albums chronologically and listened to every track, sometimes more than once until I got famil…

IKEA effect?

"The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created."

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#347

Post by KozmoNau7 »

spondyl wrote: post #270

I really like Spotify but I feel I'm soon going to rebuild an MP3 library. A mix of songs being removed (licensing), the apps being sluggish due to library size and local playlist features being rubbish for years. I've got enough "niche" read: game osts and that to make it worth while. For anyone considering the same, beets (python) is your best friend

I prefer using Quod Libet. It does take a bit of customizing, but the benefit is that you can customize everything. It also doesn't try to do anything fancy with tags, letting you determine the entire structure you want to use, including custom tags.

It's the only credible alternative to Foobar2000 on Linux.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#348

Post by KozmoNau7 »

tomc1985 wrote: post #184

I will never forgive the computing world for abandoning files in favor of streaming. We've gone from digital citizenship to digital serfdom...

No, we've simply gone from primarily direct purchase to primarily a subscription model, which is common in a lot of other markets.

And nobody has actually abandoned local files, you can buy and download more music than ever before, and own it forever (if you have backups).

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#349

Post by KozmoNau7 »

einr wrote: post #328
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this payout structure been conclusively documented? I mean specifically the part about obscure artists getting absolutely nothing. I know a couple of relatively obscure bands personally, and they do get something from Spotify. It's not much, but they do get a little bit. They consider streaming more as advertising that gets their name out there and their music easily accessible, but they make most of the actual m…

It's not as simple as I made it out to be, of course, because the music industry is a confusing and terrible thing, but the point basically stands: no one except Spotify and record label execs makes anything more than rounding errors from Spotify streaming. You need millions of plays to make minimum wage. There used to be a FAQ entry on spotifyartists.com about royalties and the complex formulae by which they are div…

>You need millions of plays to make minimum wage.

You also need to sell a hell of a lot of albums every month, to make minimum wage.

I do agree that they should pay artists more, but I consider it an issue with the record labels, rather than with Spotify.

Re: Spotify Form F-1

#350

Post by dx034 »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #312
dx034 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. My Discover weekly started including Dutch rap music (I don't speak Dutch nor did I ever listen to that genre) and the percentage has been increasing ever since. It's now at 30-40% of my playlist. No idea how to get it off there again.

What music are you generally listening to? There may be some odd connection made internally, between fans of some specific genres and Dutch rap, and you were unlucky enough to be hit by it. I get why Spotify doesn't want to expose the connections their algorithms make (because that's their biggest competitive advantage), but it would be nice to dig through once in a while, to see the connections they've made.

A very broad mix. I think it's reinforcement. A few songs slipped on their by some connection, which is fine. Because I listen to Discover weekly, it'll then register that I listen to songs of that genre and add more of those.

It appears to me that they include Discover weekly consumption in determining preferences. Any personalised Spotify playlist should be excluded to avoid this kind of reinforcement.

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