31–40 of 511 posts
Verschlimmbessern at its best.
Well, as a musician myself, I often feel a bit conflicted reading statements like these. After all, as uncomfortable as it may be, it is that brings _most_ people to a platform, not the indies, typically. If I upload my music to a platform that pays me 100% of the royalties, I will get to keep the most of 0 dollars, because nobody will be there to listen to it.
I would argue that the issue is mainly relevant for indies who are past the "much-needed exposure" phase, starting to blow up, and now don't get a good (fair) share of it. That would be a great moment to go off platform, and take the audience with them, but many can't (won't) do that, because it may mean less exposure. So, after all, Spotify seems to bring something of their own to the table (a pool of listeners) that they want to be paid for. To get more exposure, they need bigger artists, to get those, they need money and crooked deals to convince the big labels to license it. So, while unfair at first glance, comparing a Taylor Swift deal to what I'm getting off of Spotify perhaps (I'm only guessing), I am happy to accept the deal for the random exposure I am now enjoying because of it.
I feel like I am betraying all artists just saying this, but I keep coming back to wondering why everyone feels like they deserve the exact same deal like a big-name artist (who bring their own audience I am benefiting from).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think other music services are materially different They very much do if you care about audio quality. Spotify still doesn't support high-res audio e.g. CD quality and above.
Which services would you recommend as alternatives for higher quality audio at similar price points?
The post notes that Spotify pays $0.003-$0.005 per stream, and compares that to the average exec making $200k/year. If Spotify diverted all that exec money to artists, I wonder whether the $0.003-$0.005 figure would change, or if that would be too only amount to It might be fair to criticize Spotify's deal with rights holders of music, but the above line of critique doesn't hold so strong to me. As it happens, $200k/…
All those pay to the rights holders. Why does no one ever question the rights holders: EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group why the artists are paid pennies?
The UX of Apple Music is also terrible: - awkward Music interface that you keep mixing library and cloud versions, and my kids still don't get it. - Testing my intelligence and memory on each menu item to find where my Pink Floyd album I keep playing is. - I don't care about any albums they push on the main page and no way to tell them Beyonce or Rap is not for me AFAIK. Why don't they offer simliar artists I can explore than generic categories? - no way to remotely access my kids play options when they fall sleep (got Spotify for this feature) - With the above items, low return value per Euro I invest, listening on the same albums over and over.
Curious if there is a better way...
I’ve felt similarly for many years, but remain trapped using Spotify due to a lack of decent alternatives. Tried Tidal, but it wasn’t really any better. Would love to hear what leavers migrate to.
Very happy I switched. The new windows app is well built, too
But for someone who actually consumed a lot of audio content, that’s a terrible idea. If they had separate apps for these and showed hints to get you to download others, it’d feel way more organised.
I’ve completely moved to Apple Music for my music needs. The search is horrible and the suggestions are okay at best. But the UX and the audio quality is amazing.
I’ve also adapted to searching and listening to Albums instead of searching for one track and letting the platform decide what I listen to for the rest of the day.
Completely unrelated. But what Apple Music does with popular Album Arts is also incredible. I don’t have a problem with existing still image album arts. But there’s a real chance that animated album arts are the future
I'm also not a fan of the direction Spotify is going, but if I want to keep listening to music, I don't see a way around it - and I don't think other music services are materially different. I support the artists I care about most by going to their concerts and/or buying merch. I use services like last.fm for better discovery. Spotify doesn't have to be the only way you interact with music. The author doesn't say how…
It's not perfect, I'd still prefer streaming money to be distributed in a better way, and the apps could be better, but for me it's noticeably better on many fronts. I've also heard good things about Tidal in a few different ways – they pay even more for streams and have higher bitrate streaming I think. Both are good ways of pushing back against Spotify's control of the industry.
I've heard frequent complaints about spotify pushing podcasts but I've never once had spotify show me a podcast above the fold that I haven't myself followed. Only if I scroll really further than I've ever scrolled before could I find it.
Spotify shows me:
"Made for xnorswap: ": 5 "daily mixes" which have always been a bit rubbish because they're not really mixes, they seem to pick a song I like then they're that song's radio. The "Discover Weekly" mix is decent, the daily ones are not.
"Jump back in:" Continue listening to various playlists or albums.
"Recently Played": Similar, but for things I finished the first time.
"Your Shows": Podcasts I've actually subscribed to.
"More like bdrmm": Picks an artist I've recently listened to and suggests similar.
Only then we finally get to suggestions for things I haven't actually engaged with:
"Audiobooks for you": recommended audiobooks.
"Editor's Picks:" Suggested playlists
"Episodes for you": Episodes of podcasts to which I've subscribed.
"New Episodes": More episodes of podcasts to which I've subscribed.
"Shows you might like": Finally the recommended podcasts, about 5 pages down, and similar to podcasts I've listened to. Still no sign of Joe Rogan.
"Popular with listeners of Battleground": More recommended podcasts, again similar to a podcast I do listen to. Still no sign of Joe Rogan.
"Popular with listeners of Oh God What Now": More recommendations based on a podcast I rarely listen to.
"popular with listeners of TRiP": More similar podcasts.
"Popular with listeners of Scott Hanselmann": ditto.
"Spotify Original Podcasts": Finally, deep below anywhere I've scrolled outside of an exercise to look for it, I finally get linked to the Joe Rogan podcast, under a section where they link a bunch of Spotify podcasts.
Is Spotify UK totally different? Or has spotify put me in a "Likes music" category that has all the music recommendations above all the podcast recommendations?
Because I didn't even know Spotify Original Podcasts were a category until I scrolled 10 pages down to look for it.