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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#341

Post by xetplan »

criddell wrote: post #153
nicoco wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you can say "Spotify is pretty much the best thing ever" when they basically pay the musicians nothing is amazing to me. Have we come this far into individualism? "It's good for me, so it must be the best thing ever".

Would you say that the Spotify era is a worse time to be a musician than the UMG / Sony / Warner era? I’m not a musician but it seems to me it’s always been difficult to make a living as an artist. I wonder if it’s easier to find an audience today than it was 50 years ago?

It is a joke now compared to what it was.

There are entire parts of the music industry that no longer exists.

There use to be working musicians in every city that were basically unknown outside the city. NYC or SF had their own entirely unique music scenes.

There use to be entire bars that were goth bars or punk bars in even mid sized cities. Imagine opening a bar in 2024 that only caters to people who like punk music? It doesn't even make sense.

Music has been degraded in importance by streaming video and social media. To just compare the distribution channels misses the plot.

Every city use to have a knock off free paper of the Village Voice that was mostly for promoting live music. Now even the Village Voice itself is basically dead.

Anyone who thinks things are good now, simply can't comprehend what they missed out on.

Music teaching is a good example I think. There use to be all kinds of professional music teachers. If you were a gigging local musician you had the other income stream of teaching. Youtube is great for a music teacher that happens to win the music teaching lottery at the expense of all other music teachers. Of course, if you ask the youtube lottery winner they will say things have never been better. Scale that process across everything to do with music and that is the reality compared to the old reality.

You can't ask the gigging local musician who teaches on the side how things are because they are mostly doing something else now and don't count.

It is like asking the lottery winners if it is worth it to play the lottery. Not surprisingly they all say yes, best thing ever.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#342

Post by StackRanker3000 »

crtasm wrote: post #277
lawgimenez wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The flip-side is that most of those metal bands now make almost no money on people listening to their music compared to what they did when they sold CDs through a lot of indie record companies. I was a roadie on my friend's metal band around 2000-ish, they were not in any record company and just sold their CDs through DIY, during live shows, word of mouth, etc. My point is not all bands are in a record company, mos…

A win for availability and potential audience, but if it causes less people to buy your CD/USB stick/whatever at shows - perhaps a significant reduction on income for the majority of gigging bands? Do any of the streaming platforms let you direct fans to your own website/Bandcamp to make a purchase?

Are more or less acts making a living off their music now or back then? Absolute numbers and percentage-wise?

How do we decide what number is "fair", or what we as a society want? Surely it's not reasonable that every band that's just started out in a garage should be making bank.

I don't think that it's more difficult to be a professional musical artist or musician today than it used to be, although the business model may be different. But even if it is, I think that's a decent compromise for all the benefits the streaming services bring.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#343

Post by gdilla »

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…

I can't stand spotify. I need indy artists, DJ mixes, flips and remixes, so Soundcloud is my go-to. Free tier is less annoying too, less ads.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#344

Post by deeviant »

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…

> 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...)

This argument can be used to justify basically any business practice. It's a weak argument. Should I be forced to buy 10 inedible doughnuts to find one editable one in the name of allowing people to practice making doughnuts out of random things they find in their kitchen? Should I have to buy 5 cars before I find one that doesn't break after a a month in the name of supporting the auto industry?

Obviously, this is nonsense.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#345

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

This was 25 years ago: https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/, and nothing has fundamentally changed about the music industry in the interim. More and more digital tools are at hand for anyone to make professional-sounding music, yet it's harder and harder to be found in the "long tail," and it's a wash. Big corporations continue to monopolize distribution, performance, and search. We need a renaissance of anti-trust legislation and enforcement in the US. IMO, companies should be kept small enough to have at least a dozen competing players in a market. We already see what it's like to have a half dozen (which are colluding), so let's try forcing it to be double -- and suing the pants off of their officers for colluding -- and see what happens.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#346

Post by freedomben »

> The lack of customization feels like a slap. Like Spotify designers telling me “you don’t know what you want, we know better,” but the problem is they don’t, and they haven’t for a long time.

Warning: extremely broad stereotyping to follow. This is macro level stuff, not micro level stuff. Real individual humans are far more complex and nuanced than what I'm about to say and don't fit neatly into these categories.

This pretty much sums up all of my feelings on modern software. A good designer can be a real asset and make for a much better product. The problem is, only maybe 20% of designers are actually good designers, and the humility required to make you a good designer often makes you less pushy. The opposite 20% of designers who think they know better than everyone else happen to be the loudest and pushiest, so they often get their way. Everybody tries to copy Apple because Apple has had great success with telling their users how they should use the software, but this is a mistake unless you are only targeting Apple's user base.

Please stop looking at your app's UI as a work of art. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a beautiful looking app and I know the joy that comes from creating something beautiful. But remember, it must have form and function. Look at it first as a functional machine, and then beautify and polish it. A great designer can work wonders with what they have!

If your boots are beautiful but your toes are getting frost-bitten, they aren't good boots!

In closing, I love designers and I'm glad we have them now. They are important and can be great assets. We just need a mindshift, much like we did in engineering.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#347

Post by saveferris »

panzagl wrote: post #302
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Off the top of my head.... -How was the labor sourced for those services? -Child Labor, illegal immigrant labor? -What are the working conditions for the labor?, is it sweatshop -what inputs go into the goods/services? -what do they do with their waste? -where do the inputs come from? My country, another country, my town, a town in my state...

you may think the government plays a role to enforce some of these, and they do to a point...

You can go on in your own head about all the things behind that simple exchange of money for something. If it's a perfectly competitive market sure, that may work but there aren't many if any markets in the US that are that level of competitive.

A personal anecdote for you. My uncle owns an auto parts re-manufacturer, so they rebuild car parts and sell them. I worked there a lot growing up. The normal input is buying "cores" from service stations....your starter motor isn't working and you get a new one, that old one is sold to someone like my uncle who refurbs it.

Often we had people come by with very clearly stolen parts....should we have just exchanged money for those? This ranged from a tweaker who would show up with one part, to full scale organized theft rings with pallets of parts...

So, do we buy those since the price is much, much better? There is a an ethical decision there...

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#348

Post by jezzamon »

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…

One basic reason to support artists you like is just because you want them to make more stuff.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#349

Post by maximus-decimus »

rchaud wrote: post #281
maximus-decimus wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What profits?

It's actually 70% of REVENUE according to this: https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per....

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#350

Post by garaetjjte »

Tangentially related: I switched from Spotify to YT Premium just because YT was only marginally more expensive and bundles ad-free YT app. If I were Spotify I would be furious and yelling antitrust all over this. Maybe the reason Google removed YT Premium Lite was so you couldn't point out that for some reason Premium is much cheaper than Premium Lite + Music standalone.
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