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The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

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Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#321

Post by 015a »

I pay for, love, and use Spotify to listen to music. And, I buy merch from the artists I really like. Sometimes that merch is e.g. LPs/Records, but usually t-shirts/sweatshirts/hats/etc.

I think the whole "buy MP3 from bandcamp!" thing is such a yawn. Sure, I get the whole "ownership" angle or whatever. I'm not about to run two apps to listen to music on my phone. I already have a Plex server. I could just load the MP3 onto that. But I won't.

I want variety. I want Spotify to constantly be throwing new artists at me. I love this. Spotify singularly helps me discover so many fantastic new artists, who go on to become my favorites, I go see them live, I buy their merch, Spotify does this to such a better degree than anyone else in the industry that its become literally impossible to quantify how much a "fair" amount Spotify should pay artists actually is. I never would have discovered `INSERT_BAND_NAME` on Apple Music. So sure, alternatives might give bigger pieces of the pie; but Spotify is the only player actually making a bigger pie.

I think the author would just prefer Apple Music. If you're boring and predominately only listen to the same few dozen artists, then absolutely you should be using Tidal or Apple Music, or buying MP3s, as these services will pay artists better.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#322

Post by short_sells_poo »

michaelt wrote: post #177
short_sells_poo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, as a musician myself, I often feel a bit conflicted reading statements like these. After all, as uncomfortable as it may be, it is that brings _most_ people to a platform, not the indies, typically. I'm confused by your argument here. If the big popstars bring people to a platform, then presumable there will be more than enough people to listen to those popstars and their share of the revenue will be naturall…

> If the big popstars bring people to a platform, then presumable there will be more than enough people to listen to those popstars and their share of the revenue will be naturally very high, no? Ah, but what if those big stars have the negotiating leverage to get paid more per play ? If the platform has a fixed-size pie and can afford to pay $0.005 per play, but Joe Rogan and Taylor Swift will walk away unless they…

That's entirely possible, I wasn't delving into the "why". For what it's worth, I agree with you that the big stars have a much more concentrated negotiating power. Unless the small artists unionize, they'll simply have very little leverage.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#323

Post by Workaccount2 »

nzoschke wrote: post #273
speedgoose wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you do the difference between 320kbits/s OGG Vorbis, 16bits at 44100Hz, and 24 bits 48000Hz lossless audio? Using the same master, I don't.

I’m an audiophile skeptic too, 320 kbps ogg is great for most casual listening. But as a DJ and audio/video artist, I absolutely can tell the difference using lossless sources vs lossy in some contexts. Again Bandcamp is great because you can get FLAC or Wav and take those to the club sound system or remix them in Ableton or Final Cut. Then record the output and compress it for SoundCloud or YouTube. Recompressing co…

I felt this same way until I did a mixed blind listening test:

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

(Take a high quality lossless track, re-encode a copy as whatever lossy format, load both into the tester.)

Hurt my ego, but at least made me understand that I am just wasting money paying extra for lossless stuff.

This was with a high quality DAQ and a range of high-end headphones too. But perhaps the results would be different on a full blown high end stereo system.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#324

Post by 65 »

gargs wrote: post #51

Bad design is slowly becoming an industry trend, which is surprising because Twitter today has more design influencers than ever before. Personally, I feel that the marriage of design with data has created such a huge mess that there’s just no good escape hatch. It’s all about simplicity and the 80/20 principle today, which means that designers are bound to look at usage metrics and clicks as evidence of a successful…

My theory of software design is that the designers who are designing software don't really understand how software works. They got into "product design" because it sounded creative and fun. They're glorified graphic designers rather than people who think about "products" as software. They think of software as sleek consumer goods. They're not engineers.

Perhaps that's why nearly every software engineer's blog that gets posted on Hacker News has significantly better UX than the websites of professional product designers, if those designers even took the time to make their own website in the first place.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#325

Post by elijaht »

crtasm wrote: post #284
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…

> 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.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#326

Post by nox101 »

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,…

> In this case, the field sucks and mirrors capitalism, skewing the gains towards the top of the pyramid.

What alternative do you suggest and why would it work better than capitalism?

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#328

Post by UweSchmidt »

Kiro wrote: post #184
itsoktocry wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't find Spotify that much different from Winamp Say what? Have you ever used Winamp?

Yes, but it was at least 20 years ago so please remind me.

Winamp is a lightweight program that runs on your personal computer, loading files or folders of mp3s and other audio files that you own/control. The UI is pleasant, stable, customizable, responsive. Nothing will trigger the user's attention, no recommendations, UI changes or updates. No attempt to sell or monetize anything. No surveillance or tracking.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#329

Post by StackRanker3000 »

kreco wrote: post #168
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…

> That was expensive. Really expensive. At somewhere around $15-20 dollar for an Album, buying an Album a week took up about all my allowance - and most of the measly income from side jobs I've made as an adolescent. Interestingly, Spotify you have been as streaming service and an MP3 shop where you actually pay the music like 0.5€ so you could actually do whatever you want and listen to your music the way you want.…

Spotify allows you to play local files, add them to playlists, etc. So no you can't buy the files from Spotify, but if it's important to you, you can buy them elsewhere and import them.

Re: The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

#330

Post by jncfhnb »

CaptWillard wrote: post #310
jbgt wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't we all complaining 20 y ago that music labels were giving bands pennies on the dollar and the only way they could actually live off of the music was by touring and selling merch? I think Radiohead then did the groundbreaking selling of mp3s for a pay what you want fee. Now the baddie is Spotify.

I feel like the biggest loss from the days of big record companies is that no one is going to front a promising young band enough to go away together and make their 'Dark Side of the Moon' or 'OK Computer' * I know both bands probably could've self-financed those projects by that point in their careers, but would they have? And would their role as investors have changed their artistic decisions?

What is noteworthy about these albums that the artists would not have made them otherwise?

Pink Floyd’s next album had the cover and best song dedicated to saying how much they hated the record label

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