291–300 of 511 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
No thanks. E-tip jars belong on Twitch and Youtube Live. Something about that feels very "off", it feeds that parasocial interaction thing in ways that a band selling merch does not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got pissed off by their product, so I just stopped paying them. Now I just hear ads every 10-20 minutes, which pisses me off even more. Now I really don’t wanna pay for Spotify anymore. …it’s probably not the best business relationship, but hey, I didn’t start it.
If only it were the ads... I accidentally let my subscription lapse and the experience was so bad that it convinced me not to renew and leave the service altogether. I mean yes, you get ads, but also your playlists get added random songs (which are pretty bad for my music), they play in shuffle only, and you can only skip a small number of songs per hour, turning the service into a radio you can sometimes fast-forwar…
I remember them pausing ads when they detected I turned the computer volume down or muted it, and resumed the ad when I turned it back up. This was in 2015 or so.
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).
So they finally added a way to directly support artists. That's nice, but disappointing they excluded the web app from this feature. Its omission hurts potential donations. Spotify also lowers audio quality on the web app, gee it's almost like they don't want me to use the web app.
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…
> but if I want to keep listening to music, I don't see a way around it Buying albums works. It’s what I do. It is markedly more expensive than Spotify, though.
A big reason I switched away from Spotify to buying DRM free albums is actually because I realized it's significantly cheaper to do the latter. I plan on listening to music for the rest of my life. I'm in my mid 20s.
Let's say I live for another 60 years. At current Spotify prices, that is nearly $8000. Obviously the cost of premium won't be $11 for the next 60 years though, so that $8000 is an extremely optimistic minimum.
While the cost of albums generally increases with inflation also, the cost of albums I already purchased never increases. For the rest of my life, an album I purchased for $10 will always be an album I purchased for $10. Even if that seems absurdly cheap in the future due to inflation.
Once you build up an initial library, it's very easy to spend less per month buying albums vs Spotify Premium. Over the last year, I would estimate my monthly average spending on music is around $2-3.
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.
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.
If that is the case, the artists can easily sue the labels for violating the terms of the contract. But the fair share is just what the two signing parties agreed to.
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.
Sifting through the comment section, it doesn't seem like Spotifys UI or their competitors is "reasonably" good, but the majority of the internet users need to have banner ads, discounts and influencer-BS shoved down their throats to feel valued as a customer. All of the aforementioned radio stations offer a modern and slick UI and UX instead of that annoying, omnipresent bubblegum-aesthetic used by those big orgs trying to lure in teenagers like tobacco firms in the 90's('get em' young!'). So instead of throwing money at a multi-billion dollar conglomerat maybe consider donating a fraction of the money to your favorite community radio station(which you allegedly do!) or buy some records from your local record store instead. Btw I am an UI/UX designer. And I use Arch.
I know this isn't a practical option for many, but there are still many simple audio players for self managed music collections. I use VLC on Android, and Amberol on Linux. They're both folder oriented, and stay out of the way.
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.
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.
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.
It wasn't that groundbreaking. Radiohead were already massively popular despite taking the anti-Britpop, anti-commercial rock route in the '90s. The online MP3 thing in 2007 was a bit of a publicity stunt -- the record was still distributed by XL , which retained all the traditional distribution channels. I believe Smashing Pumpkins actually beat them to it by several years by releasing Machina II for free online in…
> 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…
Because we want a level playing field that leads to innovation.
Just like we used to not tolerate monopolies in other areas of our lives. Or price fixing.
If you let the top few entities work together to extract most of the value for themselves and keep everyone else out, getting through will be nearly impossible for anyone else and you'll create a system where everyone listens to just a few artists.
It's well past time that anti-monopoly and anti-price-fixing laws get applied to situations like this. And to the disaster that is Ticketmaster.