Less of a power law than I would have expected.
Yeah I'm not sure what the point of this thread is.. Is it too little or too much?
Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
21–30 of 88 posts
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#22A fair model would be to charge users a pay-as-you-go rate for every minute listened. Someone who listens 20 hours a week should pay more than someone who listens 5 hours a month on Spotify. Just set a rate/minute and track each user's usage and bill them monthly. Then pay the same rate/minute (minus a super small commission %) to the artists of whom the music was streamed. This would mean that artists get a fair sha…
Then people would get self-conscious about their usage and won't use it as much. Artists might get a better rate but the paycheck would end up smaller.
Also something something credit card processing fees.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#23The algorithm for payment is dumb. If I pay £15 a month and only listen to 4 artists over that time (I’m very predictable) I want those 4 to get £3.75 each. But they won’t. Lady ga ha will get most of it.
Edit: just to bring this up a bit higher in the thread, replies like from u/kgermino, u/dtech, and u/anonymoushn are saying that popular artists rack up their number of plays from background noise (my wording, not theirs) whereas niche artists won't have that advantage. A bar or coworker might play a popular playlist a ton of times as background noise whereas your niche artist will have some dedicated people listenin…
For this to make complete sense, we'd have to have statistics that proves that free users and premium users have the same listening patterns on average, and I don't think they do. Otherwise the fact remains that we who pay subsidize artists that are preferred by the non-paying users.
For this reason, the following is the important difference: Other people's money goes there because they listened to it (Rebuttal: Many other people use free spotify, and didn't pay any money).
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#24The algorithm for payment is dumb. If I pay £15 a month and only listen to 4 artists over that time (I’m very predictable) I want those 4 to get £3.75 each. But they won’t. Lady ga ha will get most of it.
Edit: just to bring this up a bit higher in the thread, replies like from u/kgermino, u/dtech, and u/anonymoushn are saying that popular artists rack up their number of plays from background noise (my wording, not theirs) whereas niche artists won't have that advantage. A bar or coworker might play a popular playlist a ton of times as background noise whereas your niche artist will have some dedicated people listenin…
If it does it by aggregated listens and not by artist, then other people listening to some other artist diverts their funds to that artist.
If they did it per user, that wouldn't happen.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#25Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (London: Macmillan and Co. 8th ed. 1920).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Economics_(Marsh...
---8The relative fall in the incomes to be earned by moderate ability, however carefully trained, is accentuated by the rise in those that are obtained by many men of extraordinary ability. There never was a time at which moderately good oil paintings sold more cheaply than now, and there never was a time at which first-rate paintings sold so dearly. A business man of average ability and average good fortune gets now a lower rate of profits on his capital than at any previous time; while yet the operations, in which a man exceptionally favoured by genius and good luck can take part, are so extensive as to enable him to amass a huge fortune with a rapidity hitherto unknown.
The causes of this change are chiefly two; firstly, the general growth of wealth; and secondly, the development of new facilities for communication, by which men, who have once attained a commanding position, are enabled to apply their constructive or speculative genius to undertakings vaster, and extending over a wider area, than ever before.
It is the first cause, almost alone, that enables some barristers to command very high fees; for a rich client whose reputation, or fortune, or both, are at stake will scarcely count any price too high to secure the services of the best man he can get: and it is this again that enables jockeys and painters and musicians of exceptional ability to get very high prices. In all these occupations the highest incomes earned in our own generation are the highest that the world has yet seen. But so long as the number of persons who can be reached by a human voice is strictly limited, it is not very likely that any singer will make an advance on the £10,000, said to have been earned in a season by Mrs Billington at the beginning of last century, nearly as great as that which the business leaders of the present generation have made on those of the last.
---8"But so long as" holds no more.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#26That is one of the reasons I hesitate to pay for spotify premium (I only use their free add-based service).
I listen mostly to small bands that don't get much money out of spotify. But still, spotify is great for discovering new and interesting music. I use the Daly Mix feature heavily.
But the real way to support musicians that are important to you is to buy their merch and visit their concerts. That's where my money goes instead of spotify.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#27Less of a power law than I would have expected.
Yeah I'm not sure what the point of this thread is.. Is it too little or too much?
The point is that there is too little connection between what you pay, what you listen to, and who gets paid for that. If we had more control here, the "market" would work better. Artists that make people pay for spotify and listen to their songs, would see benefits.
Paying for music should be a positive feedback loop between buyer and producer of music, and spotify users and artists don't feel like they are in the loop.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: just to bring this up a bit higher in the thread, replies like from u/kgermino, u/dtech, and u/anonymoushn are saying that popular artists rack up their number of plays from background noise (my wording, not theirs) whereas niche artists won't have that advantage. A bar or coworker might play a popular playlist a ton of times as background noise whereas your niche artist will have some dedicated people listenin…
If it does it by aggregated listens and not by artist, then other people listening to some other artist diverts their funds to that artist. If they did it per user, that wouldn't happen.
Can you make the math work out in a way that my funds are diverted to another artist? Because what you're saying sounds logical but when I try and compute it, as in the final paragraph of my comment above, it doesn't work out that way. But I could be wrong! Please try it and let me/us know what you find!
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it does it by aggregated listens and not by artist, then other people listening to some other artist diverts their funds to that artist. If they did it per user, that wouldn't happen.
Can you make the math work out in a way that my funds are diverted to another artist? Because what you're saying sounds logical but when I try and compute it, as in the final paragraph of my comment above, it doesn't work out that way. But I could be wrong! Please try it and let me/us know what you find!
Just set aside your "everyone plays an equal number of tracks" condition, because that isn't what happens.
Re: Pro Rata and User Centric Distribution Models: A Comparative Study (2017)
#30Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (London: Macmillan and Co. 8th ed. 1920). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Economics_(Marsh... ---8 The relative fall in the incomes to be earned by moderate ability, however carefully trained, is accentuated by the rise in those that are obtained by many men of extraordinary ability. There never was a time at which moderately good oil paintings sold more cheaply th…
I'd counter that by saying that the sharpest elbows always outperform the sharpest minds financially. Income and genius have rarely had a strong correlation. Instead I'd look at a mixture between greed, conscientiousness and that feeling of never being content as drivers of income. Also of course the field in which you're in as one could argue that each field has its own "total addressable market".