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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#251

Post by vintermann »

akudha wrote: post #248
jbgt wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They do. Bandcamp is a thing, and it's pretty much that, minus a fee for the infrastructure.

But it's not a panacea. An old classmate of mine who's a decently successful Jazz artist now (by Jazz artist standard), had scammers upload her album to Bandcamp without her knowledge. They defrauded a lot of money from her actual fans, probably more than she ever made on Spotify.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#252

Post by nunez »

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…

HMV; WOW what a throwback.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#253

Post by mlrtime »

Hartgeld wrote: post #208

I'm genuinely surprised why noboby is mentioning online community radios as a source for music. Why would an algorithm of a billion dollar company provide a better selection of music than a real human being who dedicated his life collecting, playing and producing music? When listening to music I want to be surprised and discover new music. Spotify and its competitors only please you with stuff u already know or sound…

You answered your own question with a bunch of links most are not going to click on.

Most people don't care, they want to pay 10/mo, have a "reasonably" good UI and play music. They don't want to keep track of 6 different URLs to find music.

Note: I probably listen to Somafm through Sonos just as much as Spotify and I donate.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#254

Post by nunez »

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…

> Would you have told me back then, that for just 11$/month I could have all the music. ALL OF IT. And I would have a super knowledgeable entity that suggests new stuff to me. And I could just listen to a track or two without buying an Album. And it wouldn't take up space. And it didn't have CDs that could get scratched - I think I would have fainted.

My question would have been "But how do artists get paid?" Which is still a murky answer today if you're not touring like crazy and going hard on ancillaries, like merch, ads, etc.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#255

Post by lotsofpulp »

troupo wrote: post #159
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…

That's the criticism I can wholeheartedly get behind. I'd love for my money to go to the artists I listen to (and not spread among everyone). However, I think it's a hard problem to solve. The huge fanbase of who listen to Tailor Swift on repeat will have some of their money go towards less popular bands. If all their money goes exclusively to Taylor Swift (and similar artists), it's possible that there will be quite…

> I'd love for my money to go to the artists I listen to (and not spread among everyone).

> However, I think it's a hard problem to solve.

All you have you have to do is buy the music. From either the band’s website, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#256

Post by maximus-decimus »

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.

Doesn't Spotify share half its profits too? From my understanding it's still the music labels that are not giving the artists their share.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#257

Post by lotsofpulp »

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.…

> The current situation is that you don't own anything and you can't just deal with raw files (which locks you into a quite shitty UI).

It has never been easier to own an easily copiable and backup-able form of the music you want and use it with myriad ways to play it and listen to it.

People just don’t want to pay a dollar or two for their favorite songs.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#258

Post by speedgoose »

master-lincoln wrote: post #215
speedgoose wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing them can also be expensive. A record player diamond tip can usually last 1000 hours, and they cost about as much as you are willing to pay, from a few € to idiotic amounts.

Are you talking about vinyl records? I don't think this technology from the last century has any benefit to digital recordings and apart from nostalgia or doing an archival it has no reason to be used still.

Yes, and I agree.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#259

Post by mihaaly »

That was a gloomy Saturday afternoon perhaps, several years ago, when I cancelled.

I agree with the author completley. And Spotify is just one of the practically all mainstream black pattern conglomerates ruining a nice idea and the entertainment with pushy and greedy selfish rhetorics, useless for me, driving me away. When you have little chance finding content you care about, when there is severly limited navigation with no reliable structure but secretive algorithms push mostly garbage or hype into your face and the 'improvement' of the UI is more like serving the companies need, sacrifying usability for you, then I better get back to the stone age of content access (end of '90, beginning of '00, others call it golden years actually), put in the effort building my own entertainment for the sake of own enjoyment rather than swallowing what they cook for me with secret ingredients, satisfying only those arrogant folks cooking it.

I built a home music server and a good HiFi system using Raspberry's and files (actually the immediate reson leaving Spotify was their stubborn unwillingness introducing HiFi quality after years and years of empty promises but degrading UI meanwhile, putting effort into that and other never missed rotted deliveries). With fairly basic player with its own annoyances, but at least those are unpolished incompleteness not intentionally forced through destruction of good old functionality along stupid self serving hollow sounding strategy, appearances instead of essence. Now there are no disappearing favourite songs anymore, re-learning behaviour of the software at each update annoyed out of me, no more feeling that I am for the software and not the software for me. I am more satisfied now.

Movie/TV streaming, watch on 'demand' (HAHH! more like watch on shoving it down your throat!) TV apps, music streaming, but I could count here all social media with their opaque and orderless presentation of not finding those I need but getting what other push at me kind of operation that repelled me enough not to get involved with them in the first place (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube after a while, and a lot more newer that is not considered stone age stuff by modern folks riding the trend like Texans ride bulls), most news sites or simply manufacturer web too that is not for informing you but to shove their whatever down your throat with force. I do not need that, thank you, try the others. It is a much better feeling to settle myself into a quiet but cosy corner of the Internet (HN included) than consuming what is poured at us.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#260

Post by lotsofpulp »

jchw wrote: post #240
mittermayr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I pay money to listen to music I like, and then that money goes to music and artists I've never and never will listen to? Well, you could simply bypass Spotify and just buy the music directly from the artist, no (which you indicate you do)? So Spotify isn't necessary for this, I'd guess? Spotify isn't a payment app for artists (again, I feel super weird defending them, I am not a fan myself!), it's a dis…

I take issue with this because it's kind of neither here nor there. You could give a more charitable interpretation by just treating Spotify as a music discovery service, that's not really what Spotify is marketed or intended for. Spotify is meant to be the ultimate end-game of online music streaming: it is meant to flat-out replace your giant MP3 library. And that's exactly how many people use Spotify. Not just Spot…

> I take issue with this because it's kind of neither here nor there.

So people here are complaining about how Spotify does not pay the people who create music enough.

And there exists a zero friction option to pay the people who create music.

But people don’t want to use the zero friction option to pay the people who create music because it would cost $1 or $2 per song.

So yeah. My opinion? People are just really cheap, and what they want is to spend as little as possible on music, but at the same time feel good about it by blaming someone else for not paying the music creators more.

You want the people who create your music to be paid more? Go to their website, and buy it. Life does not get much easier.

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