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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#411

Post by troupo »

troupo wrote: post #164
tjpnz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes Spotify swaps them for others by the same artist. One of my favorite instrumentals got swapped out for the version with vocals which I can't stand. I can't for the life of me understand why it could be a licensing issue.

It's a multilayered issue: - licensing could be expired, could change hands, could be removed, could...) - naming and attribution: A single song by a single artist will have a gazillion versions (ep, lp, original, re-recorded, re-released, re-mastered, re-re-mastered, best hits, best songs, essential, released for the European market, released for the Japanese market, Christmas special...). On top of that distributor…

I guess the downvotes come from people who have never dealt with licensing issues or data from content providers. I have :) The above is about 2-5% of the crap content companies (streaming or otherwise) have to deal on daily basis.

Because all of the above doesn't even begin to deal with things like territorial restrictions, content restrictions, territorial content restrictions, territorial content requirements, take down requests from commercial and government entities, rights disputes, content embargoes...

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#412

Post by serjester »

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…

Spotify uses a weighted average - you can't abuse the system like that. The tough reality is that 10k fans paying $10 a month and spending 1% time listening to an indie artist only works out to $1k / month even if all the money went to the artists. Unfortunately that's not the case - Spotify has overhead, artists sign with labels and other middlemen creep in.

As a result artists make pennies. The only way to change this is to get consumers to pay drastically more but that's what killed iTunes in the first place.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#413

Post by jjjjj55555 »

saveferris wrote: post #347
panzagl wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I'm curious, do you personally buy any goods or services? It seems like the logical conclusion to this kind of thinking is to just not ever purchase or use anything.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#414

Post by sweeter »

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…

This isn't different than knowing Amazon uses child labor and works people to death and still using it anyways. Its not really a "sign of how far we've come" so much as it is, "this is convenient for me, I do not care about anything else"

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#415

Post by Triphibian »

Triphibian wrote: post #405
alwaysbeconsing wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe statement is about the playlist Spotify makes, not those made by user. Those called "Daily Mix", generated on user listening choices.

Yes, these are the suggested playlists. As well as the popular pre-fab playlists. A notable one mentioned was their "Ambient" playlist -- which favors in house ambient artists with much less generous royalty deals than someone like Brian Eno -- who is be the best known artist in the field apart from maybe Aphex Twin -- but easily replaceable with a no-name for some people apparenty.

I admire the testing you did on the random plays, I would have gone in on the same hypothesis -- that the "shuffle" would prefer lower cost plays.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#416

Post by vanviegen »

iamsaitam wrote: post #305
bko wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> skewing the gains towards the top of the pyramid

Hasn't Spotify been losing money for all/most of its existence? Or is there some other top of the pyramid?

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#417

Post by sweeter »

bko wrote: post #301
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.

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

"artists deserve to be exploited because they chose it." Thats a very childish assessment of the music industry and how artists are taken advantage of. It has absolutely nothing to do with "being lectured by 'do-gooders'" either, you're injecting an emotional story as an argument where there is none.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#418

Post by vintermann »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #303
vintermann wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's maybe what it's supposed to do, but her label didn't.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#419

Post by vintermann »

freedomben wrote: post #377
vintermann wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was your classmate already on Bandcamp?

Yes, through the record company.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#420

Post by sweeter »

elijaht wrote: post #325
crtasm wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 11$/month I could have all the music. ALL OF IT. except the huge amount of music that will never be on there. and it's $11 every month, forever.

If I bought an album a month for the rest of my life, I would have 600 albums. In the last MONTH I have listened to music from that many albums on Spotify. So the forever argument doesn't really pain me.

not to mention that "forever" with online streaming services tends to mean, "until licenses change" or the company changes hands and they decide to invoke the clause in the ToS you agreed to that says that you dont own and aren't entitled to the thing you paid for.

See recently, Crunchyroll Funimation acquisition. People had bought blu-ray copies at extra cost for a digital copy which was honored by CR and retracted after the merger where they promptly deleted the media that these people owned and paid full price for individually.

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