How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month • Hacker News Board

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#101

Post by firloop » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

pradn wrote: post #81

I wonder if the $10/mo price of Spotify has anchored listeners to a low price that Spotify can't get out of. Spotify will need to pull more money in to be able to give musicians more money per stream. Even if they were able to increase revenues, musicians will need to be able to claim a bigger part of that pie.

This is an interesting point. Netflix has survived multiple price increases over the years, but they offer content that isn't available anywhere else. I think what will probably happen is one music streaming service will raise prices and the others will eventually follow.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#102

Post by stareatgoats » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #90

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve given up trying to understand this. For me, buying a physical disc, transferring the files to my computer, and either putting them into Dropbox or transferring them via VLC to each of my devices is so easy. Amazon music downloads & Bandcamp downloads are even easier. What’s not easy is needing to manage a subscription account, log in on multiple devices, and either manage caching music local to the device (and f…

So, for me, I want to listen to good music, but I don't want to curate a collection. I certainly don't want to deal with the hard parts of starting a collection where I have to buy a bunch of albums at once to have variety; I also don't care to do the work of finding new things to listen to. I want a radio experience, where some nice person somewhere else (or an algorithm, whatever) picks music for me. Bonus points i…

Just curious; what genre(s) would that be? I have found the most surprising things on there ...

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#103

Post by cujo » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #93

kelnos wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we're quite there yet. Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient. I guess for someone starting from scratch, "what streaming service(s) should I should I subscribe to?" might be a difficult and paralyzing question to the point that the answer might be, "who knows, screw it, I'll just pirate everything".

Oh but it is, if not more so because there are no dark patterns, no screeching autoplay trailers within seconds of opening the app, no 2 second pauses until the next episode, just a very user friendly streaming interface that gets straight to the point. But I won't divulge the name here.

Well that's not very... convenient.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#104

Post by Insanity » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

LAMike wrote: post #39

yikes_burger wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let's compare: > For me, buying a physical disc physically drive to a store, find the cd, purchase, etc. or buy online, wait days for it to arrive, etc. > transferring the files to my computer hook phone up to computer, extract files, load onto dropbox, and then finally have access vs. > manage a subscription account, log in on multiple devices you literally click one button. that's all. And you login once and never…

You forgot the part where you have to find a computer with a CD drive

I had this issue some time ago. My grandparents had some pictures their friends shared via CD. They asked me to show them and print them, but neither me nor my wife had a laptop with a CD drive with us..

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#105

Post by NoPicklez » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:21 PM UTC

DontGiveTwoFlux wrote: post #18

In college about 5 years ago, I heard a presentation from some recording industry people who worked at a studio. They saw Spotify as the reason their industry would still exist in five years. I think at the time total recording revenues were still declining, but the streaming growth was really picking up. Spotify has brilliantly convinced many people to spend $120 per year on music. The average CD-buyer spent much le…

The average CD-buyer spent less than that?

Given the amount of music I listen to, if I was to buy the singles or full albums I'd be paying significantly more. If I was to buy on iTunes for $1.99 each song that I wanted to listen to now, I would've paid a lot more money than I do now through the subscription model. As I am not limited on price whenever I decide to listen to different music.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#106

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

dyeje wrote: post #73

driverdan wrote: post #53

This is a great counterpoint to people complaining about how little they make from Spotify. One thing that stuck out to me: > Because you can only submit one song, it’s best to space out releases. That way you can have ten singles considered by Spotify editors— rather than one single from an album for an entire year. I've wondered why so many artists were releasing a ton of singles on Spotify. This seems like a gamea…

Is it though? The author makes $400 a month, that's not even close to being a living. Mis metrics and revenue match up with my own experience with Spotify and they are very difficult to achieve. Now imagine that your musical project has 4 people instead of 1, now it's $100 a month per person. Except just kidding, because you'll need to pump all that money (and personal money from members) back into the band to keep t…

I think the key point is the artist didn’t really have to do any promotion. Or spend on marketing.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#107

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:24 PM UTC

I find so much good music on Discover Weekly. It’s one of the big reasons I stick with Spotify. I’ve tried all of the other services but none of them come close. And I am fully in the Apple ecosystem but Apples recommendations are not even close to Spotify.

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#108

Post by toast0 » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

stareatgoats wrote: post #102

toast0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, for me, I want to listen to good music, but I don't want to curate a collection. I certainly don't want to deal with the hard parts of starting a collection where I have to buy a bunch of albums at once to have variety; I also don't care to do the work of finding new things to listen to. I want a radio experience, where some nice person somewhere else (or an algorithm, whatever) picks music for me. Bonus points i…

Just curious; what genre(s) would that be? I have found the most surprising things on there ...

I was listening to Vocal Trace for a long time. Most commercial services might have the studio albums, but the DJ mixes are better IMHO, and I've been listening to Digitally Imported streams for nearly 20 years at this point, so I'm used to their curation [1]. Lately, I've been listening to their Synthwave channel; I don't know how widely that music is distributed, it's basically new music in the style of 80s synth and video game music (the reddit community is r/outrun); I'd guess this could be found pretty easily on Spotify/others, since it's all originals and most likely the artists are submitting it everywhere.

[1] https://www.di.fm/vocaltrance

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#109

Post by lytedev » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:27 PM UTC

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #107

I find so much good music on Discover Weekly. It’s one of the big reasons I stick with Spotify. I’ve tried all of the other services but none of them come close. And I am fully in the Apple ecosystem but Apples recommendations are not even close to Spotify.

For what it's worth, Google Play's Radio system and "I'm Feeling Lucky" (a terrible name for what it does in my opinion) works beautifully for me!

Re: How Spotify and Discover Weekly Earn Me $400/month

#110

Post by JeremyBanks » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #88

hi5eyes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh theres places to get all the shows streamed for free, and getting even the pirating the most obscure music is easier than ever piracy is currently the most convenient way to consume content now that all the streaming services/labels want to fragment their libraries

I don't think we're quite there yet. Assuming a title is on a streaming service that I have a subscription to, piracy is definitely not more convenient. I guess for someone starting from scratch, "what streaming service(s) should I should I subscribe to?" might be a difficult and paralyzing question to the point that the answer might be, "who knows, screw it, I'll just pirate everything".

They have different pain points. I subscribe to a couple streaming services, but torrents let me find content more conveniently than searching several separate catalogues, and Plex's paid version provides a better consumption experience than any of the paid services.