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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#191

Post by jasode »

kreco wrote: post #168
wolframhempel wrote: post #85

I believe, Spotify is pretty much the best thing ever. I understand the criticism - but to me, this is just a sign of how far we've come. I was born in 1984 and, from a very early age, was really into Metal. That was a problem - since there were literally zero ways to discover new songs. The radio and MTV didn't play Metal. None of my friends shared my taste in Music. The listening stations at HMV & Co (remember thos…

> That was expensive. Really expensive. At somewhere around $15-20 dollar for an Album, buying an Album a week took up about all my allowance - and most of the measly income from side jobs I've made as an adolescent. Interestingly, Spotify you have been as streaming service and an MP3 shop where you actually pay the music like 0.5€ so you could actually do whatever you want and listen to your music the way you want.…

>, Spotify you have been as streaming service and an MP3 shop where you actually pay the music like 0.5€

Assuming you meant to write, "Spotify could have been as streaming service _and_ an MP3 shop" ...

No, Spotify didn't have the leverage in negotiations with Big Record Labels to offer streaming plus DRM-free mp3 files for 0.5€.

Apple is more powerful than Spotify and they eventually relented to Big Labels demands and added a more expensive tier of songs at $1.29 instead of all songs being just $0.99 pricing.

Too generalize... to consider the realism of any hypothetical alternative business models for Spotify to have, you also have to consider whether the Big Labels would have even made those ideas possible when Spotify was negotiating the licenses.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#193

Post by vertis »

I stopped using Spotify a long long time ago, for much more selfish reasons. I would try and "download" a bunch of songs before an international flight only to hop on the flight and discover that despite saying they were downloaded they wouldn't play. At the time I was flying internationally from Australia once a month.

I no longer take as many international flight but once you've left the platform it's hard to go back. Google gets some of my money, but only because they bundle the ad-free experience and the music.

Deezer could have had my money today, I forget they exist. But I'm in Romania currently, and when I try to use my UK credit card to sign up it decided not to let me, so I guess not.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#194

Post by mbreese »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #79
mittermayr wrote: post #32

> Instead, my subscription is probably pooled according to some black box formula and ends up paid to some of their top performers like Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, or The Weeknd. While the indie artist I have been obsessed with gets literally nothing because they don’t meet a certain arbitrary threshold. Well, as a musician myself, I often feel a bit conflicted reading statements like these. After all, as uncomfortable as…

> 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. I'm confused by your argument here. If the big popstars bring people to a platform, then presumable there will be more than enough people to listen to those popstars and their share of the revenue will be naturall…

> basically subsidizing the extremely popular artists

I don’t think this is right. I don’t know much about revenue distribution, but I think you’re conflating listeners and money. The ratio between the two is not constant. And I think this was the GP’s point — the percentage of money a top artist gets is more than an indie musician gets. Why? Because they have a better contract with Spotify (and Apple, etc). (And that’s okay)

So, let’s say the pop stars get 90% of the listeners. And they then get 85% of the possible revenue from those listeners. For the indie groups, they only get 50% of the revenue for their listeners (and yes, I know these numbers are wrong, but they are illustrative).

Pop stars = 0.9 * 0.85 = 76.5% of subscription fees to the artist. (+ 13.5% to Spotify)

Indie = 0.1 * 0.5 = 5% of subscription fees to the artists (plus 5% to Spotify)

In this case — yes. The popular groups will take home a much larger piece of the total revenue. Smaller groups have 10% of the listeners, but only 5% of the total revenue (and ~6% of the total “artist” revenue (5/(76.5+5)).

But if pop stars bring in more listeners, the absolute revenue for the Spotify (et al) is higher, which is all they care about. In the above scenario, Spotify would get ~73% of their revenue from the top artists. (13.5 / (13.5+5)). Which makes the difference in contracts worth it from Spotify’s point of view.

But the smaller groups still get more (relatively and absolutely) than they did in the age of physical media. And they have a much larger pool of listeners that can be exposed to their music.

You can be mad that smaller artists don’t have the same deal as Taylor Swift, et al. But that doesn’t mean that they should. That’s what I took from the GP post. You shouldn’t look at what is “fair” because (a) that’s not how the market works and (b) there are many ways to define “fair”. If those artists bring more listeners, then it makes sense from Spotify’s POV to cut a better deal with those artists.

Instead, I’d focus on how much absolute revenue artists get. Is it more or less when compared with pre-Spotify/streaming. And can you make a living doing it?

From the listener point of view - your $X/mo (£,€,etc) still goes to whomever you listen to. If you don’t listen to , then they don’t get a fraction of your monthly fee. Does your favorite Indie band get a smaller slice of $X? Sure. But that’s still >0.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#195

Post by HPsquared »

vintermann wrote: post #130
wolframhempel wrote: post #85

I believe, Spotify is pretty much the best thing ever. I understand the criticism - but to me, this is just a sign of how far we've come. I was born in 1984 and, from a very early age, was really into Metal. That was a problem - since there were literally zero ways to discover new songs. The radio and MTV didn't play Metal. None of my friends shared my taste in Music. The listening stations at HMV & Co (remember thos…

> My entire strategy was based on going to a record store and buying whatever had appealing cover art in the metal section. And I did this A LOT. By doing this, you supported the bands you liked, and supported experimentation by accidentally subsidizing a lot of bands which didn't turn out so great (at the very least, experimentation in cool album covers...) But you don't actually do that on Spotify. As the article c…

This could be solved by a "donate" button to reward bands you like. Edit: (such an obvious idea, they've already done it: "fan support" feature).

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#197

Post by ikt »

jbgt wrote: post #188
vintermann wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My entire strategy was based on going to a record store and buying whatever had appealing cover art in the metal section. And I did this A LOT. By doing this, you supported the bands you liked, and supported experimentation by accidentally subsidizing a lot of bands which didn't turn out so great (at the very least, experimentation in cool album covers...) But you don't actually do that on Spotify. As the article c…

Weren't we all complaining 20 y ago that music labels were giving bands pennies on the dollar and the only way they could actually live off of the music was by touring and selling merch? I think Radiohead then did the groundbreaking selling of mp3s for a pay what you want fee. Now the baddie is Spotify.

Sure did

https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#198

Post by pierat »

Spotify was always a fools errand.

You pay $12/month for an ever-worsening, always degrading, profit-funnel and expect to have new visibility of stuff and a happy environment?

Just like the RIAA members before, they figured out that controlling the music AND how people consume it - they could steer music and profitability as they see fit. This is now just Spotify doing the same.

What can you do instead? AirSonic is a great server platform that you can throw all your music in, be they ripped from CD's you own, or bulk piracy. And use MusicBrainz Picard to properly identify your music.

Also finding torrents is super easy with Yandex. Stay away from Google.

Yeah, it's harder initially, but you own your own path if you do this. Else, you're gonna be jerked around by what choice today scrapes more profit for Spotify. It's all 'fuck you, user'.

(And also piracy and Spotify pay pretty much the same. If you feel bad, go buy their MP3s or albums, and then pirate.)

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#199

Post by snet0 »

kugla wrote: post #141
wolframhempel wrote: post #85

I believe, Spotify is pretty much the best thing ever. I understand the criticism - but to me, this is just a sign of how far we've come. I was born in 1984 and, from a very early age, was really into Metal. That was a problem - since there were literally zero ways to discover new songs. The radio and MTV didn't play Metal. None of my friends shared my taste in Music. The listening stations at HMV & Co (remember thos…

All of this is because of the technological change (MP3, internet speed) not because of the streaming service.

All of this is *possible* because of the technology. The existence of the technology doesn't mean the software exists, or that the software is any of good/useful/cheap.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#200

Post by strken »

vintermann wrote: post #130
wolframhempel wrote: post #85

I believe, Spotify is pretty much the best thing ever. I understand the criticism - but to me, this is just a sign of how far we've come. I was born in 1984 and, from a very early age, was really into Metal. That was a problem - since there were literally zero ways to discover new songs. The radio and MTV didn't play Metal. None of my friends shared my taste in Music. The listening stations at HMV & Co (remember thos…

> My entire strategy was based on going to a record store and buying whatever had appealing cover art in the metal section. And I did this A LOT. By doing this, you supported the bands you liked, and supported experimentation by accidentally subsidizing a lot of bands which didn't turn out so great (at the very least, experimentation in cool album covers...) But you don't actually do that on Spotify. As the article c…

You were supporting Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner, or some other record label.

The best way to support a band, as far as I know, is to turn up to their shows and/or buy their merch. Royalties were always a dicey revenue stream.

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