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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#301

Post by bko »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #262
bko wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with Spotify? If Spotify isn't fair to them they should pull their catalog. I can't be an arbiter to every economic transaction I participate in. Just sell me something I want at a price I find reasonable. I don't need a story about how it's so hard for you to pursue your passion or how you can't continue in the future.

> If Spotify isn't fair to them they should pull their catalog. I can't be an arbiter to every economic transaction I participate in. To me this reads the same as "I can't be bothered to consider ethics for every economic transaction I participate in". I'm not sure its possible to do it 100% of the time, but I try to constantly consider it.

Again, it's about voluntary exchange. Imagine if someone did that to you? I worked low wage jobs before. If some do gooder started lecturing me about how I'm being exploited I would rightly tell them to f off. If they wanted to throw me some money I may or may not be appreciative but I have autonomy about my choices and I extend that same belief to others

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#302

Post by panzagl »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #262
bko wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with Spotify? If Spotify isn't fair to them they should pull their catalog. I can't be an arbiter to every economic transaction I participate in. Just sell me something I want at a price I find reasonable. I don't need a story about how it's so hard for you to pursue your passion or how you can't continue in the future.

> If Spotify isn't fair to them they should pull their catalog. I can't be an arbiter to every economic transaction I participate in. To me this reads the same as "I can't be bothered to consider ethics for every economic transaction I participate in". I'm not sure its possible to do it 100% of the time, but I try to constantly consider it.

What ethics are there to consider besides 'money can be exchanged for goods and services'? Everyone is a willing participant in the transaction.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#303

Post by Workaccount2 »

vintermann wrote: post #251
akudha wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ironically part of signing onto a label is providing protection from stuff like this.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#304

Post by pimlottc »

xnorswap wrote: post #40

I feel like I'm in a weird alt-universe. 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…

> 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.

I accidentally listened to a podcast in Spotify once. That podcast has been on my homepage ever since. There is no way for me to get rid of it.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#305

Post by iamsaitam »

bko wrote: post #203
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…

I may be in the minority, but I just don't really find the "support the artist" argument that compelling. I have artists I like and I grew up with. If I saw them in public I'd get giggly and maybe try to say an awkward hello. But I am under no impressions that I have some kind of personal relationship with this artist. I assume the artists are reasonable rational adults. If they're on the platform, its economically a…

"I assume the artists are reasonable rational adults. If they're on the platform, its economically advantageous to them." - Your assumption is wrong though. Artists aren't on spotify because it's economically advantageous for them, they are on spotify because they have no other alternative. It doesn't matter if it's streaming platform A or B or C, they are ubiquitous and as an artist you want your music to be heard, so you have to play the field. In this case, the field sucks and mirrors capitalism, skewing the gains towards the top of the pyramid.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#307

Post by pimlottc »

egeozcan wrote: post #115

They have technical problems: Offline doesn't work sometimes when you seem to have a connection but it's not really working. The popups sometimes do not close and requires a restart. The client is heavy and can show videos and display lyrics, which is nice when properly implemented but it's a buggy mess. They have algorithm problems: Suggestions became useless since a long while. The silly podcast push. All those gen…

> Offline doesn't work sometimes when you seem to have a connection but it's not really working.

Definitely had this problem when you have a weak connection. Even if you have already downloaded the music, it still hangs trying to connect, in order to... I dunno, download the lyrics or something? Get related tracks? So I end up having to go into airplane mode just to make it play.

Just play the saved files, and wait on the API calls in the background.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#308

Post by iamsaitam »

The reality for musicians is that if you're on the middle of the bell curve in terms of ""quality/popularity"", in comparison to other professions, you earn the same as the people below the bell curve of other professions. This is massively unfair.

Imagine if all the software developers that make a living, had to be "10x"..

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#309

Post by KaushikR2 »

boxed wrote: post #120
piva00 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The one major gripe is not being able to upload my own songs, I love listening to remixes and covers, youtube, spotify or tiktok has plenty of songs I’d love in my library. But it’s a nightmare for a business model that respects artists and a cost structure that needs to be covered. Again, no real good alternatives that do this well + have a normal library + be legal. But you can, if you have the audio files you ca…

Local files in Spotify is extremely iffy. It has forgot them many times for me. The worst is on iOS where you have to be on the same wifi and wait randomly. And sometimes without warning the files just go away. This is unacceptable. People need to play music for dance, yoga, exercise classes for their job. You can't just randomly throw away the files to have them discover this when the class starts.

I wonder if it would be possible to setup a folder on a remote server, and use that as the directory for local files. Wonder if Spotify would play nice with that.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#310

Post by CaptWillard »

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.

I feel like the biggest loss from the days of big record companies is that no one is going to front a promising young band enough to go away together and make their 'Dark Side of the Moon' or 'OK Computer'

* I know both bands probably could've self-financed those projects by that point in their careers, but would they have? And would their role as investors have changed their artistic decisions?

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