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Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

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Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#221

I'm not understanding the harsh criticism here. Pretty much all platforms have some kind of soft threshold before paying. This is actually very common in real world as well, e.g. in sales you don't get commissions if you don't meet certain thresholds too.

I think it makes sense to have a lower threshold on "plays per artist", since it involves billing overhead etc. But plays per song? Why? Are they trying to fight spam?

And even so, it's so little money and little overhead, just do it for the goodwill.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#222
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.

This is exactly the reason why my preferred method of music consumption is piracy + Bandcamp. Every Bandcamp Friday (when Bandcamp doesn't take a cut) I buy about 2 to 6 albums I've listened to in the past month or a few. If an artist is not on Bandcamp, I'm less likely to listen to them, but if I do, I eventually pirate their stuff. All the music I buy and pirate is in FLAC and funneled into my local library, where…

If bands are not on Bandcamp, I buy them on mp3million.com, which is legal but feels like piracy given their pricing.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#223

Can someone ELI5: Why is it so hard to just split my monthly subscription money on all the artists that I listened to, proportional to their air time to the total listening time? I really don't get it

Because that would be extremely complex and expensive to do for a negligible effect.

I'd argue this would be a lot simpler and cheaper to setup than the byzantine distribution system we currently have in place.

It would also make the economics of streaming viable for the majority of artists rather than the small pool of folk raking in the bulk of the money.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#224
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.

This is exactly the reason why my preferred method of music consumption is piracy + Bandcamp. Every Bandcamp Friday (when Bandcamp doesn't take a cut) I buy about 2 to 6 albums I've listened to in the past month or a few. If an artist is not on Bandcamp, I'm less likely to listen to them, but if I do, I eventually pirate their stuff. All the music I buy and pirate is in FLAC and funneled into my local library, where…

Problem is that in take of new music is harder with these.

I don’t know if YouTube is any better, but I have switched all of my music consumption to youtube music app with the premium subscription.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#225
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked. This isn't an excuse for Spotify not paying much for plays, but I bet having music on spotify helps the gig revenue though. In some ways this is also true for Taylor Swift et al - they also make thousands times the amount from playing gigs than 'selling' albums, streaming, and radio plays but that drives ticket sale…

Spotify should then be run as ad business—charge artists to let them advertise on Spotify.

Isn't that exactly what they do if they have the stream-cutoff discussed in this thread then? At least implicitly..

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#226
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the reason why my preferred method of music consumption is piracy + Bandcamp. Every Bandcamp Friday (when Bandcamp doesn't take a cut) I buy about 2 to 6 albums I've listened to in the past month or a few. If an artist is not on Bandcamp, I'm less likely to listen to them, but if I do, I eventually pirate their stuff. All the music I buy and pirate is in FLAC and funneled into my local library, where…

In case of smaller artists we'd be better off pirating music instead of helping cement Spotify's brand as a central platform. The only person losing money in this case is the platform holder so we could argue the decentralised aspect of piracy helps fighting monopolisation of the industry.

But don't they give out a flat % of what they earn from the subscriptions? The low return would mean that either:

a) Spotify doesn't charge enough for a subscription

b) Spotify takes too big of a cut right now from the subscription revenue

c) The model doesn't work as a lot of people from low-income (and low subscription cost) countries are "sucking out" the money that goes mainly from rich ones. So 1 listen from USA = 1 listen from India even though the USA listener pays around 7-8x times more and the subscription income gets divided equally by listens.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#227

I think they should basically turn it into Twitch, where I can "sub" to an artist and maybe get their tracks earlier than others or some other additional content that costs artist $0 to produce for the most part (podcast, making of, e.g. a la Patreon). In addition, if you add "donate" button you'd see a lot of artists being showered with cash. It's a shame that these hacks (streamers) become multimillionaires while r…

And/or something like Amazon Prime Video and how it aggregates its main subscription, ad-driven licensing, VOD and, that's what I'm getting at, hosted third party subscriptions into one UI.

I actually hate that in Prime, because discovery for shows and movies is never a positive experience but a setup chore separate from consumption, and advertising stuff that isn't already paid for always makes it worse. But for music I think it could actually be enjoyable, because you can consume and browse at the same time is actually a thing. Like diving into discogs.com while listening. I could easily see myself listening to some artist's main albums as part of some standard subscription (that pays as badly as spotify?) and then shell out a single digit payment on one hundred pay-per-listen tokens for obscure B-sides from the label that the artist is signed on, or something like that. Or reimplenent radio, by offering a licensing model where what would have been single releases in the olden days are part of the ad based subscription, but album content is only available through purchase or (various?) subscriptions.

Make it a marketplace of monetization models! Perhaps the right company to try this would be someone completely unexpected like cloudflare? Being a blank slate from both consumer and licensor perspective could almost be considered a prerequisite for a project like that...

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#228
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.

Reading this has made me buy the last two physical items on my Bandcamp wishlist. Bandcamp isn't perfect, but it fits well with my listening habits and I'm glad it earns _some_ money for you in the grand scheme of things.

Yep. Last I checked, it still pays 90% royalties to artists, all with a sane interface that is pleasant and just works, and no dark patterns.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#229
post #149
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager the income from playing gigs would be substantially lower if you weren't on Spotify.

Your arguments veers close to the "for exposure" payment. People don't go to indie concerts because of a spotify track. Nor to big name concerts. And 20 cents corresponds to around 50 to 100 plays according to the numbers mentioned here.

> People don't go to indie concerts because of a spotify track

Anecdotically I've attended multiple gigs for artists I discovered via Spotify.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#230
post #217
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.

I buy my music at bandcamp and other sites. I always feel a bit angry if an artists doesn't offer a proper download for their music.

Whether or not you buy Only The Shit You Love by Damian Cowell's Disco Machine on bandcamp:

https://damiancowell.bandcamp.com/album/only-the-shit-you-lo...

you can get the "free" synced multi episode animated web comic from youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkRxIMJ3GpPH_NurdvJLL...

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