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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#241

Post by JazCE »

koonsolo wrote: post #218
JazCE wrote: post #205

The Author doesn't understand how the streaming business works, and as far as I can tell, no one in the comments here has shone a better light on it. There is and there isn't just a pool of money that goes to beyonce, the weeknd and taylor swift... i say there is because what actually happens is, the collecting societies will collect the money, then distribute it based on streams correctly to the artists/writers/prod…

Since you seem to understand how it works, can you explain the following to me: Let's say I pay $10 to listen to my favorite indie band, for 1 hour each week. Let's say another user listens to Taylor Swift 24/7. Does my favorite band get my $10, or do they get $0.12? You see, when I pay $10, I don't expect $9.88 to go to Taylor Swift. Or does my favorite band actually gets my $10, like it used to be when I bought CD'…

people seem to be confusing the $10 spotify premium sub with actually giving money to music.

i think there's an over-simplification of how this works going on. When you buy a $10 cd from let's say your dad's friends garage band, that $10 is going to your dads friend, and obviously they might have expenses before they really see that $10 (buying CD-R's, printing, etc etc).

you spend $10 on spotify premium, and exclusively listen to your dads friends garage band, that $10 is not going to your dads friend, it's going to spotifys bank account which will then be used to pay for execs, macbooks, operating costs etc, but also be used to fund the artist pool. so your $10 and some other persons $10 that they use for elton john records, all sit in the same account. Elton John via EMI or whoever, might have negotiated a 0.000005c per stream deal and so gets that. your dads friend might be on a very basic rate of 0.000002c per stream (numbers made up), and will receive that. so yeah elton or taylor or other big names will get a better deal.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#242

Post by mlrtime »

vintermann wrote: post #228
strken wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You were supporting Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner, or some other record label. For fringe metal music? Not likely!

If OP was going to his local record/cd store and not some fringe underground market, he was 100% supporting some record company. Maybe not one of the ones listed, but in the 80s it would have been a company.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#243

Post by mlrtime »

HPsquared wrote: post #195
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…

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).

Yeah, or maybe a tip jar? Perhaps some PG at Spotify can copy the stripe tip screen and when before playing a song you get asked the infamous 18%,20%,25%,NO TIP question?

No thank you.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#244

Post by alberto_balsam »

koonsolo wrote: post #218
JazCE wrote: post #205

The Author doesn't understand how the streaming business works, and as far as I can tell, no one in the comments here has shone a better light on it. There is and there isn't just a pool of money that goes to beyonce, the weeknd and taylor swift... i say there is because what actually happens is, the collecting societies will collect the money, then distribute it based on streams correctly to the artists/writers/prod…

Since you seem to understand how it works, can you explain the following to me: Let's say I pay $10 to listen to my favorite indie band, for 1 hour each week. Let's say another user listens to Taylor Swift 24/7. Does my favorite band get my $10, or do they get $0.12? You see, when I pay $10, I don't expect $9.88 to go to Taylor Swift. Or does my favorite band actually gets my $10, like it used to be when I bought CD'…

Spotify uses a pro-rata model, so your favourite indie band would only get $0.12 in your example.

This effect does not drown out once you scale up to a full user base either - it appears that the most popular artists benefit disproportionately. Other music streaming companies like Deezer apparently are pushing for a fairer model. See here for example: https://musically.com/2018/03/02/user-centric-licensing-real...

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#245

Post by mlrtime »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #107
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…

When you were born I was a teenager in France recording music from the radio to a tape praying for the announcer to be short and not to talk over the song. And that the song is not cut. Such a tape was fantastic until you had to use a pen to rewind it. Spotify at that time was science-fiction movie worthy. This said, I listened to 20 sounds at that time and I have probably about 50 now that turn around :) The discove…

Lots of us remember taping the radio... I have old recordings where I pretended to be the DJ announcing the next song. Oh man was I bad!

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#246

Post by robjan »

microtonal wrote: post #160
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. That's because a small number of streaming services monopolized the market. In the old days, the mid-sized city I live in used to have like 15 mainstream music stores and 3 that carried mostly indie music and they w…

The average indie wouldn't even make it to these indie record stores though. They only have so much space and so much ability to carry slow moving inventory.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#247

Post by mlrtime »

alejoar wrote: post #161
bowsamic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were basically born with Spotify, like many of us here (or at least, had it or something like it from a young-ish age), then unfortunately there's no way we will ever appreciate it. It's like someone from a century go saying how amazing it is that we all having flushing toilets in our houses and refrigerators. It's just life now, it's the new normal, not amazing.

Ok, but what is your point? I'm also curious what do you/your generation consider amazing nowadays?

The point being that even though Spotify could/should be made better, it is arguably the best music play and discover tool ever invented.

There are people here alive that have used records, 8 tracks, tapes, CDS, mp3s and now Spotify. There is no comparison that Spotify is better for playback and discovery.

Note: I'm not talking about audiophile comparisons, just ease of use for the average listener.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#248

Post by akudha »

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.

Didn’t Louis C.K sell his standup stuff direct to fans for 5$ for a DRM free downloadable mp3, from his website?

Why don’t more artists do that?

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#249

Post by amanaplanacanal »

boppo1 wrote: post #226

All I know is I pay for ad-free spotify and it fucking serves me pop-ups for things I'm not interested in. That's an ad you assholes! As soon as I figure out how to export playlists in a aay that I can import to apple music, I'm gone.

You can supposedly move playlists with tunemymusic, but I haven't done it myself.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#250

Post by spdif899 »

nullandvoid wrote: post #89
6581 wrote: post #10

> It keeps pushing playlists that feel generic, bland, more based on demographics than my years of consistent listening history. I don't really agree with this point. The personal playlists (both Discover Weekly and the Daily Mix ones) are very close to what I usually listen to and have made me discover dozens of artists I didn't know before. Maybe they work better for some than for others, but they don't feel like b…

+1 discover weekly consistently delivers a few new songs to my like list - I actually look forward to it each Monday when I start work.

My main complaint with Spotify's recommendations algorithm is that you cannot provide any clear negative feedback to it anymore.

I played a single Christmas album from an artist that my mom wanted to hear over the holidays, but I don't like that artist or style of music otherwise.

Now, every time they release a new song it comes up in my release radar, and random similar things pollute my discover weekly.

There's no way to say "never recommend this to me" or to remove past listens from my history. I'm just forever doomed, apparently, to get jumpscared with Christian contemporary music anytime I try to play these playlists.

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