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Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

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Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If you _really_ like an album, buy it on Bandcamp, because it gives more money to the artist. 2. If you just listen to the occasional song, listen to them on Spotify. Artist gets _some_ money, but nowhere near as much as #1. 3. If you don't care about the artist getting anything at all, then use workarounds like this tool, or download on torrents. Most people used to do #3, and are now doing #2. #1 is just not goi…

0. If you really want to support an artist, just ask what is the best way to just send them some hard cash every month? Patreon, ko-fi... even straight wire transfer (isn't FedNow already working?). Why do we keep insisting on having middlemen?

I don't believe most people care about a lot of the artists they listen to enough to seek them out and send money this way.

Not that I believe it's good or bad either way, it's just cumbersome. People want easy solutions. A few of my long distance friends are artists, and it makes them happy to see that I have bought their new cassette or vinyl on Bandcamp above the regular price, and send nice notes with it.

I can do this for more people more easily thru Bandcamp than figuring it all out myself.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#182
post #62

Anything that helps shake up the system is good for artists at this point. It would be cool if this app helped you gauge how much to pay your favorite artists… If it logged the artists you listened to and then gave you something like a bill, periodically. The bill would show how minutes listened to for each artist over the past month and then would find links to buy their music directly. Even better this app would le…

Please explain how is the app that plays music clips from YouTube and hides the ads is "shaking up the system"?

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#183
post #3

While it's nice to have an open source client, please think twice about bypassing the premium subscription/ads to listen for free. Musician deserve to be paid for their work, and it's not fair to them to bypass all of the mechanisms to do that. Spotify doesn't pay musicians well, but there are still indie artists making a living from it nonetheless. I hear a lot of people these days complaining about ads, and that's…

> But when it comes time to pay for content, those people rarely are willing to pony up. You can see this happening with journalism, music, apps, etc.

I think this sentiment is wrong. Personally, I pay for content and services that I find value adding (Kagi, Fastmail, etc.)

That said: I am never going to pay for YouTube. The issue is that the entire platform and all of its content is catered to ad-revenue.

I could be convinced to pay for a video service like YouTube where everything into its core and legacy has been based around user payments.

Likewise I am never going to pay for news services that has adjusted their entire offering and content towards ad-revenue.

But until I discover such a platform I am going to keep on my ad-blocker.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#184
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ It is still recommended to support the creators by watching/liking/subscribing to the artists' YouTube channels or liking their tracks on Spotify (or purchasing a Spotify Premium subscription too)” Likes/subscribes are not support. Artists deserve to make a living. I’m supremely frustrated by the current state of TV shows (need 8 subscriptions and still have shows I can’t watch). Music on the other hand is wonderfu…

It should probably be said that the cuts artists get from the streamers are seen as insufficient and that platforms where you give more directly to artists, like BandCamp, are a better way to support artists you like.

Also: choose a platform that pays artists more. Apple and tidal pay out much more per stream than YouTube/spotify.

But any form of paying is much much much better than piracy.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#185
post #3

While it's nice to have an open source client, please think twice about bypassing the premium subscription/ads to listen for free. Musician deserve to be paid for their work, and it's not fair to them to bypass all of the mechanisms to do that. Spotify doesn't pay musicians well, but there are still indie artists making a living from it nonetheless. I hear a lot of people these days complaining about ads, and that's…

Direct your passion for getting musicians paid to Spotify and the distribution system, not to this. If everyone who uses this software were to use Spotify direct, ads and all, in the long run it would make pennies for the artists at best. You're better off listening to music however you please and buying albums on Bandcamp to support the artists; a lifetime of spotify listening will make less money for an artist you…

This Spotify client could autolink to artists on Bandcamp.

Radio playlists often have artist links. Sometimes they work. For example:

http://www.kser.org/content/live-playlist

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#186
post #179

The lengths that literal engineers will go to to not have to pay $10/mo for music or $3 to rent a movie in 4k immediately. Can't believe I have adult friends who make 70-300k and they still pirate based on money, not quality/directors-cuts/anti-cheats, etc. I quit pirating when I got a real job and could afford to pay developers and movie teams for their effort. I write software. I want to get paid too, right? Why sh…

I think a lot of it also has to do with the ethics of music distribution and the fact that spotify pays the actual artists almost nothing.

p.s. probably not engineers in the literal sense ;)

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#187
post #3

While it's nice to have an open source client, please think twice about bypassing the premium subscription/ads to listen for free. Musician deserve to be paid for their work, and it's not fair to them to bypass all of the mechanisms to do that. Spotify doesn't pay musicians well, but there are still indie artists making a living from it nonetheless. I hear a lot of people these days complaining about ads, and that's…

Direct your passion for getting musicians paid to Spotify and the distribution system, not to this. If everyone who uses this software were to use Spotify direct, ads and all, in the long run it would make pennies for the artists at best. You're better off listening to music however you please and buying albums on Bandcamp to support the artists; a lifetime of spotify listening will make less money for an artist you…

> Even if you only listen to one artist, 8 hours per day, 365 days a year, they will earn a whopping... 100 bucks from Spotify.

Is that not reasonable? I mean, obviously this number represents a market price point: the system has reached an equilibrium where the "aggregate value" of being able to listen to music full time is $100/year (plus or minus all the confounding factors like who bears it and how it's distributed, etc...).

Is $100/year wrong? That is, after all, right about the price of the subscription you're likely paying already. So... it sounds right to me? What's the mechanism you are imagining where customers paying for subscriptions of that order somehow produce payments to the artists that are significantly higher?

I think a lot of the disconnect here is that the idea of "music revenue" is different in today's world than it was in the days of the 70's rock star. People used to pay a lot more for music! But they don't anymore, and all the parties take a hit, not just Spotify/Apple/et. al.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#188
post #3

While it's nice to have an open source client, please think twice about bypassing the premium subscription/ads to listen for free. Musician deserve to be paid for their work, and it's not fair to them to bypass all of the mechanisms to do that. Spotify doesn't pay musicians well, but there are still indie artists making a living from it nonetheless. I hear a lot of people these days complaining about ads, and that's…

I get mixed feelings when reading this comment while remembering the many people gushing about how they formed lifelong friendships through what.cd.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#189

"It is still recommended to support the creators by watching/liking/subscribing to the artists' YouTube channels or liking their tracks on Spotify (or purchasing a Spotify Premium subscription too)." I hope musicians can pay bills with likes, since ponying up €10.99 is a huge ask. PS: not that many musicians are able to pay bills with their spotify checks, but that's not the point.

> ponying up €10.99 is a huge ask.

I guess that would depend on how much music you listen to. If you listen very occasionally, then yeah €10.99 for unlimited streaming isn't worth it. In that case, you can just buy songs individually.

If the price for individual songs is also a "big ask" for you, then you simply don't think music is worth paying for.

This isn't a "pay what you want" model where someone creates a product and asks you to pay whatever you feel is appropriate, they're creating a product and setting an explicit price for it.

Re: Spotube: Open-source Spotify-Youtube client

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mean the changes declared in https://artists.spotify.com/en/blog/modernizing-our-royalty-... , then I find it hard to reconcile the description given there with your editorialization.

> Starting in early 2024, tracks must have reached at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months in order to generate recorded royalties. This will take my Spotify income from pitiful to non-existent. Fuck Spotify.

Spotify pays ~$0.004/stream.

1,000 streams is $4.00. That's a coffee.

Lots of services for creators have minimum payouts. Google AdSense won't pay you until you reach $100. Patreon has a $10 minimum payout using PayPal. A threshold of just $4 is actually very much on the low side.

I genuinely don't understand how this is something to get upset over. It's comparable to what an artist used to make in royalties from a single CD sold. What's more surprising to me is that Spotify previously didn't have a minimum at all.

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