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Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

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Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#31

Post by rz2k »

stdbrouw wrote: post #21
forrestthewoods wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all music ever created is definitely unreasonable. It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the m…

Then how unreasonable is $0/month for radio? I'm happy there's people who can look at services like Spotify and Rdio critically, but I don't think appeals to intuition like "that can't be right?!" help us much.

Radio may be far more interesting that you expect. Once upon a time you had Payola[1] where radio plays were designed to influence record sales in a nontransparent way. Now you have the issue of consolidation where you'd have no idea which plays were influenced by royalties etc.

Anyway, my point is that your comment could be interpreted to mean that radio is democratic and it is a democratic way for meritorious music to be elevated.

By democratic I don't mean anything more virtuous than screaming masses, but I don't think commercial radio even rises to that.

Anyway, I have to read more to get an overview of how Spotify and others compensate the talent that makes content, or even cheat them, but I also want to make sure that popular radio isn't treated like something we'd prefer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#32

Post by gamble »

The streaming-music business reminds me of Netflix in its early days, before movie studios became worried that it was cannibalizing rental/VOD revenue for new releases. There are a certain group of fans who are willing to pay $10-20 per album for access to music the moment it's released. With Spotify, those fans are treated like any other stream even though they're willing to pay more. It's inefficient pricing, except from Spotify's perspective as they're able to use immediate access to new release music as a lure for subscribers. So really, you can look at Spotify as capturing that demand and converting it into free advertising for themselves. I don't see that as sustainable in the long run. Some artists are already holding back new releases from streaming services. Like Netflix, I think that in the future you will see few new releases from popular artists until they've been available through premium services long enough to capture demand from hardcore fans.

Spotify treats all songs as if they have equal value, but that's obviously not true from the listener's perspective. For any given person, there are going to be some songs that they're willing to pay a premium to hear, and some that they'll only listen to if it's free. Spotify is a good deal for the latter case, but not if it offers a discounted version of the former to people who could pay for it. Just because Spotify counts every stream as a single interchangeable unit of value doesn't mean that listeners value every stream equally.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#33

Post by anonymoushn »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #6
jmduke wrote: post #3

For reference: Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model for In Rainbows was the first of its kind, and groundbreaking. It's entirely possible this starts a trend. On the other end: I don't like the idea of new artists not getting paid (I try to go out of my way and buy tickets for indie musicians I like or, failing that, purchase swag), but as a consumer I like Spotify a lot. It's also hard for me to conflate the ideas th…

$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all music ever created is definitely unreasonable. It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the m…

I would definitely pay $10/mo for a service that had even half the music I want to listen to, but there aren't any.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#34

Post by buster »

javajosh wrote: post #16
forrestthewoods wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all music ever created is definitely unreasonable. It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the m…

> $10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. Why not? Most people go through a period of their life where they buy lots of albums, then they stop altogether. Flattening that out to be $10/month forever, divvied across artist based on content, would be a net win for everyone.

Exactly.. or, i would say i never had a prolonged period in my life where i bought music for more then 10$/month.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#35

Post by hatu »

liveinoakland wrote: post #29

i'm an avid spotify user (~4+ hours a day) and honestly have no idea how this is a sustainable business. how much are the 20+ artists a day that I listen to making from my $10 a month? genuinely don't understand how this is working. there are so many artists that come out with new albums that I would buy except for the fact that I can get them free on spotify. It's saving me probably 100-200/year and that's being con…

God no!! Would you seriously want 50 different apps to listen to a different artist on your phone?

I also listen to a lot of Spotify every day at work but I never used to buy albums before. I do buy shirts and concert tickets from my favorite smaller bands (and back them on Kickstarter). So I guess the math comes down to, are there more people like me who used to pay 0$ for albums and now pays 120$ a year or people like you who used to buy lots of albums before.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#37

Post by hatu »

gamble wrote: post #32

The streaming-music business reminds me of Netflix in its early days, before movie studios became worried that it was cannibalizing rental/VOD revenue for new releases. There are a certain group of fans who are willing to pay $10-20 per album for access to music the moment it's released. With Spotify, those fans are treated like any other stream even though they're willing to pay more. It's inefficient pricing, excep…

I think Spotify is in a great position right now, they are building up a huge userbase right now (first step for Facebook etc. too). But the service will monetize very well. For example I would pay extra per album to get to stream a couple albums on the day of their CD release just because it's convenient to have all my music in one application. Or charge me 15$ a month for a gold account and add a feature on the artist page to leave a 1$ tip. This extra 5$ goes into my "wallet" that I can then disperse straight to my favorite artists each month. Like a microtransaction.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#38

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

stdbrouw wrote: post #21
forrestthewoods wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all music ever created is definitely unreasonable. It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the m…

Then how unreasonable is $0/month for radio? I'm happy there's people who can look at services like Spotify and Rdio critically, but I don't think appeals to intuition like "that can't be right?!" help us much.

Because there is not such a thing like $0/month for radio, as you are forced to hear ads, and the advertisers pay for it, and you are forced the songs you hear, witch some people paying for controlling it.

Yes, in the old days some companies controlled which music was heard and which not, and those gatekeepers were not as cheap as you thing.

Definitively not 0$/month.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#39

Post by effn »

moomin wrote: post #36

Could someone throw up a pie chart showing exactly how much of your $10 actually goes to an artist? I'm guessing you're going to need to make it pretty large for it to be even visible. Good on them.

A friend of mine with a record deal is getting more from a single album sale than he gets from 50K listens on spotify.

Re: Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify

#40

Post by thirdsun »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #6
jmduke wrote: post #3

For reference: Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model for In Rainbows was the first of its kind, and groundbreaking. It's entirely possible this starts a trend. On the other end: I don't like the idea of new artists not getting paid (I try to go out of my way and buy tickets for indie musicians I like or, failing that, purchase swag), but as a consumer I like Spotify a lot. It's also hard for me to conflate the ideas th…

$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable. And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all music ever created is definitely unreasonable. It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the m…

Exactly. It's also pretty dangerous since their users probably feel like doing the right thing by going with Spotify and ditching pirating. Practically it doesn't really matter though if those two are the only options many users will consider.
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