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echo64 ,

Ugh, yes poor poor spotify, fuck that. Artists can’t even make a living making music anymore thanks to spotify. Fuck off blaming artists for trying to get paid. Fuck this article. Oh no it only gets a third of the revenue?! Abhorrent, no it should get ALL the revenue, for doing what, having a server with music on it. Amazing. Fuck spotify.

4realz OP ,

Wooh. 👀. This isn’t Spotify’s fault. They can’t pay artists if they don’t have money.

czech ,

To be fair- Spotify priced the service that doesn’t make enough profit to pay artists adequately.

4realz OP ,

Like the article explains, they can’t price their services too expensively, because of competition. If Spotify becomes $25/month, most users will move to Apple Music or YouTube Music, etc.

Dio ,
@Dio@lemy.lol avatar

Haha. Don’t be shocked by the reaction. We live in a world where a certain portion of ‘people’ Believe every thing should be free and corporations don’t need money at all and should just be willed in to existence and live off of the ether.

Etc. Etc. Rich people bad

Alto ,
@Alto@kbin.social avatar

Way to go mask off with the 'people' comment bud

SinningStromgald ,

Is that your blog or whatever you keep posting?

echo64 ,

Yes, it is. It’s entirely spotifies making. It’s the situation spotify has created. And the answer is absolutely not ‘starve artists even more than we do today’.

Maven ,
@Maven@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Okay, lets say I accept the thesis that Spotify is directly to blame for the demise of physical media and the rise of streaming. In the current moment, what is Spotify supposed to do that would satisfy you?

For every dollar I pay to Spotify for their music service, Spotify sees 33 cents of it. Much of that goes to running the service that people want access to. The label takes the other 67 cents. They pass about 2 cents of it on to the artists.

Let’s go full fantasyland, say Spotify cuts their own take entirely and somehow subsidizes the entire thing. The label is now making the full dollar, a full 150% of what they were making before. Well, is that better for artists? 150% of what they were making before is 3 cents on the dollar. Is that a solution? No, it’s barely a difference.

Let’s say Spotify triples sub prices so they can take only 10% for infrastructure. Most of their current subscribers won’t pay that, but let’s just pretend. Is 5.3 times what the artists were making before an acceptable amount? Six cents on the dollar? Weird Al would’ve made $60 off Spotify this year instead of $12. Is that satisfactory? Because that’s literally the most Spotify can do, even theoretically.

Spotify can’t solve the problem.

The problem is labels locking artists into contracts where the label gets to keep 90% or more of everything they make. Spotify has no say in that.

Conversely, if we go back to the current split, but have the labels share their cut with the artists 50/50, the artists are suddenly making 1650% what they were before. Snoop’d be taking almost a million dollars for his billion streams. These contracts made some shred of sense in the physical era, when you needed to own a studio and audio engineers and marketers and media factories to push and print a band, but even back then they were widely known to be exploitative. Nowadays, when any tiny town has a studio for rent and anyone can edit a killer track in their bedroom and go viral on social media? They’re a fucking joke.

The villain in this scenario is blindingly obvious, and anyone who believes otherwise is either a plant or a useful idiot.

Aatube ,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Have you ever looked into the operating costs of having a server with music on it which over 400M monthly active users use?

echo64 ,

I actually work in cloud engineering and regularly price this kind of thing up.

Their costs are salaries not aws bills.

EnderMB ,

But that’s practically true of any large tech company. It’s been conventional wisdom in the tech industry for over a decade that tech is cheap, people aren’t.

echo64 ,

Yes. Spotify needs to figure out their burn rate for their salaries because taking more money away from artists isn’t the solution like op wants.

cjsolx ,

But taking money away from employees is?

echo64 ,

No one is saying pay employees less. Spotify needs to figure out how to make its business work. That’s for sporify to figure out. If you think Spotify deserve more of the pie when they contribute… a download server, vs. the artists who do all the actual work, then you can honestly just fuck off. We live on totally different sides of the conversation, you want to shill for big tech, I want the artists that make the music to get paid.

chameleon ,
@chameleon@kbin.social avatar

Not that high. Spotify uses some pretty tight compression (not good, just tight); most users get 96-128kbit/s AAC, premium can go a bit higher if opted in. That works out to about 16KB/s or 58MB/hour, assuming nothing's cached.

Bandwidth pricing very much goes down with scale, not up. But even the non-committed AWS pricing at Spotify's scale is 2 to 3 cents/GB. You end up paying way less than that with any kind of commitment and AWS isn't the cheapest around to begin with.

Phlogiston ,

Is Spotify the villain here or is the “big three”? Because it sounds like Spotify is delivering a service and deserves some profit from that.

But what are the big three doing? Seems like they are just skimming because they hold the IP rights. Are they providing any service?

echo64 ,

Spotify picks it’s price point. It’s picked a price point (free) that meams artists can’t get paid. And it’s price point (free) means that artists can’t compete either.

So yeah fuck spotify, pay artists what they are worth and having servers to download mp3s on isn’t worth taking 1/3rd of the revenue. They should get less not more. Adjust their prices (maybe it shouldn’t be free so artists can fucking pay rent and spotify can pay employees)

Blaming artists for wanting to pay rent and eat food is some bootlicking bullshit.

Phlogiston ,

Blaming artists? What are you smoking?

I was asking if it’s Spotify which is relatively new and, as pointed out in the article MUST get this contract or die, or if the problem might be the big three that hold all the power in this negotiation.

Speaking of which. Isn’t it the big three that actually pay the artists. So how would Spotify, if they were so inclined, manage that payout? (It’s an interest idea though. I wonder what would happen if they offered a tip-the-artist button).

echo64 ,

Spotify is not new.

Spotify already manage their payout. To labels and indies. They screw over both massively.

phoneymouse ,

It’s not free. There are ads.

echo64 ,

It’s free. You are the product.

AnonTwo ,

Free is literally why they have the market they have. Completely silly point.

You can't assume the price point changes and the market remains the same as well. It's more complicated than that. We literally have talks of people leaving Netflix every other week from the constant changes being made this year.

echo64 ,

Yes, and they don’t deserve a market if they can’t pay artists to make the content. They should not exist if they can’t do that.

AnonTwo ,

That just leaves us nowhere to go though. We know artists aren't paid enough, but if our only answer is the one that clearly takes them out of business, then it's just sitting on a soapbox while another company comes in and does the same thing.

Either the solution has to be feasible or someone will eventually show up to ignore it.

To reemphasize, this is regarding "they have the market because they're free", it's not regarding something else like just paying the artists more, or getting a better deal with labels.

echo64 ,

You can buy music. You can use subscription services that are less shit to artists.

AnonTwo ,

I do buy music.

I know most people don't and won't though.

You can't make a solution that ignores evil and apathetic exists.

MossyFeathers ,

Unfortunately, my understanding is that at least part of the blame lies with the labels. Most labels have contracts with their artists that mean the artists make very little, if anything, off studio recordings. That means they make very little from vinyl sales, CD sales, Spotify streams, etc. If you wanna actually support an artist, you buy merch and go to live shows. My understanding is that this is how it’s always been and people are barking up the wrong tree. People are bitching about Spotify when they should be bitching about labels taking a massive chunk of their money. They’ve only become aware of how much money they’re missing out on because Spotify supposedly makes so little that they get sticker shock when they get their royalty check, but it’s really not entirely Spotify’s fault.

That’s not saying Spotify is blameless; but if Spotify’s hands are covered in shit, then the labels’ hands are covered in diarrhea and vomit.

echo64 ,

No, labels are shits. Spotify pays indie artists shit too though.

This is not a case of labels being greedy. This is a case of spotify being greedy and making a bad situation worse.

4realz OP ,

Spotify is definitely not the villain here, they have created the best music streaming platform in the world. The big publishers also can’t be called the villains per say, but it wasn’t so nice of them to force a small startup (Spotify in it’s early days) to sign contracts that will permanently force it to payout about $0.66 out of every $1 it makes.

echo64 ,

The “best music platform in the world” sure hates paying artists, tho. I know you are obsessed with labels, they pay indie artists fuck all too

Carter ,

The most popular musoc streaming service. Definitely not the best. They still don’t offer lossless musoc streaming and their lossy files use an outdated encoder.

GlitterInfection ,

Man, you weren’t alive before napster were you?

echo64 ,

Yes, I was alive in the time when artists could barely scrape by. Now, I’m alive in the time when artists can’t even do that.

GlitterInfection ,

You live in the opposite world of all of us. Or are just very confidently incorrect…

Before Spotify and the like the only artists that could make any money were hand selected by the record labels. Virtually all profits artists made were from merch sold at live shows, because the record labels took all the profits otherwise.

Now, artists that are independent can make money and get listeners much more easily. This is directly thanks to Spotify and the like. However the record labels are still the ones stealing most of the profits for artists they sign and record.

It is ONLY better for the artists now, despite it still sucking. You are blaming the improvement not the problem.

echo64 ,

Now, artists that are independent can make money and get listeners much more easily. This is directly thanks to Spotify and the like

You need to speak to an independent artist sometime about how they make money so easily thanks to spotify. (Spoiler, they don’t. At all. And they can’t sell physical anymore because of spotify)

Lucidlethargy ,

And yet, they still aren’t even close to the highest paying service when it comes to musicians getting their cut.

dittomusic.com/…/how-much-do-music-streaming-serv…

It’s hilarious that Napster now tops the list. I use Tidal, myself, since it’s got great quality audio. Spotify is horrible quality for 2023.

MaxVoltage ,
@MaxVoltage@lemmy.world avatar

as a young 20 year old i doubt those services have new music. Spotify has albums SAME day

im sure that works great for oldies like blink182 tho

ILikeBoobies ,

They do

crab ,

Spotify is horrible quality for 2023

To my surprise, even Spotify’s standard (not high or very high) is extremely difficult, if not practically impossible for the average consumer to differentiate from lossless (on better than consumer grade hardware). Upon hearing this, me and several friends decided to test it for ourselves by taking lossless files for several songs and resampling them to the same codec and bitrates that Spotify’s standard quality uses, then ABX testing the before and after with Foobar’s ABX and exclusive mode plugins (also tried the popular comparison website, but that’s apparently less accurate). One of my friends had access to a college studio, I have a dac and sennheiser, and the third had sony wxm4s. To our surprise, none of us could consistently differentiate the two. Its not perfect considering we didn’t grab the outputs directly from the streaming platforms, but that would’ve added extra variables like volume normalizing (louder sounds better).

Our conclusion is that the quality “difference” is likely placebo and probably a waste of bandwidth.

pup_atlas ,

I wholeheartedly disagree. I have more trained ears then most (worked in video production), but not by much, and when i got my AirPods Max, I thought they sounded awful at first. They were crunchy and dithered sounding in this weird way. I was gonna return them, but I did some testing, and discovered that I was hearing Spotify compression. I turned up the quality as high as it would go in the settings, and that made it a little bit better, but I could still hear it, and can to this day. I did some further testing by signing up for a tidal free trial, in addition to Apple Music. Listening in lossless was an entirely different experience, I could definitely tell the two apart blindly, without even specifically looking for sound quality. There were like 2 to 3 instruments in a given song that I wouldn’t be able to pick out in the lower quality audio, that I could easily pick out in the lossless audio. You have to have a pretty decent pair of headphones to be able to hear it, but some of the higher and consumer stuff can definitely hit that level, and when you do, it’s not something you have to go looking for, it sounds very obvious.

astray ,

I’m not trained in anything useful but I had a similar experience. It was like upgrading from a 720 screen to a 4k screen.

First ,

Do you realize AirPods Max/iPhone is capped at AAC/256 kbps over BT, and needs DAC -> ADC -> DAC to use a wired connection?

HexagonSun , (edited )

Yep, absolutely this.

You cannot listen to music losslessly with AirPods Max, cabled or not.

From Apple’s own site: “The Lightning to 3.5 mm Audio Cable was designed to allow AirPods Max to connect to analog sources for listening to movies and music. AirPods Max can be connected to devices playing Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless recordings with exceptional audio quality. However, given the analog-to-digital conversion in the cable, the playback will not be completely lossless.”

If someone thinks AirPods Max sound amazing, they’re agreeing how good compressed audio can sound, whether they realise it or not.

pup_atlas ,

If someone thinks AirPods Max sound amazing, they’re agreeing how good compressed audio can sound, whether they realize it or not.

Yes! (Kinda) I’m not saying lossless music is the end all be all, and honestly in normal life I prefer non-lossless, because its SOO much less data, and you can hardly tell the difference in normal listening anyway. What I was trying to express was how bad badly done compression can sound. Good compression exists, and it can sound nearly identical anecdotally, but there is a limit to how low you can go before you start hearing it, and I’m trying to say that I think Spotify has chosen a rate below that level by default. I switched to a higher profile and the problem is mostly gone.

pup_atlas ,

There may be other factors at play, Apple quite likes to compress stream data between their own devices, even on “standard” protocols (just look at their monitor collaboration with LG where they did the same thing to exceed the max resolution of an existing display signal). Regardless, there is a difference, and it is not a small one. It was immediately obvious to me after listening to a single song. Something about the pipeline is crunching audio to the level where it’s obviously degraded. This isn’t audiophile grade splitting hairs and “I think it sounds ever so slightly better with these gold cables” it was like the difference between 480p and 1080p video to me, enough to be actually annoying during normal listening, even if I was actively trying to forget about it.

First ,

Ok it sounds like what you experienced was caused by something completely different than detecting an audible difference between Spotify’s 320 kbps AAC encoding and lossless encoding, encoded over a 256 kbps AAC BT codec, but if you actually want to do a true A/B blind test of 320 kbps vs. lossless on your setup, here’s the place to do it:

abx.digitalfeed.net (select the first link - “The statistically valid Tidal test to make”)

BigBananaDealer ,
@BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

i figured having volume normalizer off would be the best quality

i think a lot of people that complain about the “bad” quality simply have the volume normalizer on, which makes the quality worse for some songs

Nighed ,

This is why I thought some of their recent actions that hurt the lowest played artists was strange, you want to encourage artists to NOT use the big publishers to help break their triopoly.

I think the most recent changes are fine in practice, but the optics are not great which probably matters a lot.

4realz OP ,

Exactly, Spotify is stuck between pleasing artists and the big publishers.

GenEcon ,

Even the smallest artists are making more than 1000 streams yearly. The only ones they are hurting are AI generated songs.

Nighed ,

FYI it’s 1000 per track per year, not per artist.

I agree though, I went through my instrumental playlist which has loads of indi stuff and the smallest I found had 10,000 plays

Edit - looks like I got a notification for this 4 days late…

onlinepersona ,

For a company that has revolutionized the music industry and changed the way we listen to music, one would expect Spotify to be making a lot of money.

How has spotify “revolutionized” the music industry? Are thy doing anything new? Streaming isn’t new, yearly reviews aren’t new, freemium isn’t new, discovery isn’t new… Is the revolution that it’s now a standard target for artists?

asdfasdfasdf ,

When Spotify was made available in the US, I don’t think there were any other services where you could, for free, choose a song and play it. Other services would just let you listen to similar music for free, but Spotify let you listen to the actual song you wanted.

small44 ,

Grooveshark

GenEcon ,

Which didn’t pay a cent to artists. It was basically pirating working in a greyzone.

small44 ,

think the reason the fediverse isn’t popular is because people have negative opinions of Spotify? As if these opinions wouldn’t also be prevalent on Reddit? As if having to see opinions you didn’t agree with was ever holding reddit back to begin with? I don’t disagree, I just mentioned it because it’s a streaming service that came before Spotify

modcolocko ,

Spotify literally changed the way people listen to music by being popular enough that the general way of listening changed from a purchase, listen forever model. To a listen to anything you want and never not have anything new, way of listening (but you don’t own anything).

A song is no longer worth a purchase of a cd, or dollar at itunes. It’s worth the 3 minutes of listening that it gives you when Spotify recommends it to you.

Obviously I’m biased. And also, yes, there were streaming services before Spotify, but nobody that mattered and with the influence of Spotify.

onlinepersona ,

Hmm… fair point.

CC BY-NC 4.0

EnderMB ,

Sometimes, I see some of the takes on here, and it’s hardly surprising that the fediverse isn’t particularly popular.

Spotify are somewhat responsible for their current position. They hired too many people, extended into markets they didn’t need to enter, and have a CEO that has blown money in places that didn’t need it. Let’s not forget that Spotify spent $300m on sponsoring FC Barcelona, which could have allowed Spotify to employ ALL of the employees it laid off for 1-2 years. Spotify had no need to give $200m to Joe Rogan, either! That’s half a billion spunked up the wall on decisions that have done nothing for the company but cause grief. Instead, they could have focused their efforts on paying more out to smaller artists that provide the long tail for their service, while also making deals to promote merch and tour dates where possible.

With that being said, if you think that Spotify didn’t play a huge part in making music streaming accessible you’re just being contrarian for no reason. They provided (at the time) a solid application, good connectivity with services like last.fm, and had the social connection sorted from the start. Once phones took off, Spotify removed the need for mp3’s for the majority of people, largely killing iTunes. Spotify was the winner of the music streaming wars.

Frankly, a lot of people were praising Spotify for their “good” severance package, but IMO shareholders should be livid, and should be calling for a new person at the helm.

abhibeckert ,

IMO shareholders should be livid

Why? Shareholders gave Spotify billions of dollars - they expect the company to spend that money. Shareholders are quite capable of depositing their own money in a bank if they didn’t want it to be spent.

My take is Spotify hired over 5,000 employees over 2020 and 2021 when the economy looked great. Then Russia Invaded Ukraine in 2022 screwing the global economy and particularly Europe which is Spotify’s biggest market. They’ve laid off about half the people they hired, which is unfortunate… but it’s understandable. The couldn’t have foreseen the economic shift.

Spotify removed the need for mp3’s for the majority of people, largely killing iTunes

Huh? Apple’s music service has about a hundred million users. Up from eighty million a few years ago. Spotify has more than twice that, but iTunes is hardly dead.

squidman64 ,

Apple Music the music subscription service is different from iTunes the music purchasing store. When’s the last time you heard of anyone buying an individual song / album on iTunes?

1371113 ,

When’s the last time you heard of anyone buying an individual song / album on iTunes?

I’m yet to hear a first time, and I remember when mp3s first became a thing.

Jtotheb ,

You’ve never heard of someone buying music on iTunes?

1371113 ,

Genuinely, never. It wasn’t that popular in my country.

blazeknave ,

Yarrrrrr

joel_feila ,
@joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

This is the way

small44 ,

I hear people buying music from Bandcamp everyday

lemann ,

R.I.P. Bandcamp

c0mbatbag3l ,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

What happened to Bandcamp?

lemann ,

It was purchased by Epic Games a year ago, who recently sold it to Songtradr, a licensing platform for background/‘mood’ music. Songtradr only retained 50% of existing Bandcamp staff (the rest were laid off a few weeks after the sale AFAICT, with the worst affected departments including Bandcamp’s editorial team and customer support. Epic Games handled the severance package, for some reason.)

People are pretty upset about the editorial team being laid off because it provided exposure for smaller/niche artists in a weekly publication. I’ve never checked it out personally checked it out because I never knew it existed - wishing I had now

Such a large layoff so quickly by the new owner feels like a sign of darker times ahead for Bandcamp IMO, seeing that it’s apparently been profitable since 2012 (Wayback link, new owners have nuked this from the site?). No need to milk the cow even more when the bucket is full…

olmec ,

I still buy music on iTunes. I prefer having my collection available on CD, but if I only want a single track or two, I just go to iTunes and buy the songs. This year, I think I bought 4 songs. It isn’t ton, but it is still in my mind.

postmateDumbass ,

removed the need for.mp3s

Im not sure this was a win

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

Also it hasn’t, because having your actual collection on a streaming service is leagues less convenient than a bunch of mp3s on a hard drive.

deweydecibel ,

Sometimes, I see some of the takes on here, and it’s hardly surprising that the fediverse isn’t particularly popular.

You genuinely think the reason the fediverse isn’t popular is because people have negative opinions of Spotify? As if these opinions wouldn’t also be prevalent on Reddit? As if having to see opinions you didn’t agree with was ever holding reddit back to begin with?

And yeah, Spotify made music streaming accessible, but the overall problem is they did what all tech companies at the time did: burned money to establish themselves hoping the profit would come later.

You’re praising them for killing iTunes, but maybe iTunes didn’t need to be killed. Maybe breaking markets with a type of streaming that wasn’t profitable and fucked over artists has given us a few years of good streaming, but the honeymoon is coming to an end, and we’ll all be worse off when the stockholders start demanding profit.

Same thing that happened with YouTube, basically. Company runs something at a loss for so long they’ve effectively broken the market and now that it’s time to make money, we’re all fucked over.

Strykker ,

No it’s not because people here don’t like Spotify, but the stupid ass takes y’all have that lead to Spotify hate bleed through in half the other content on here that people don’t like either.

That fact that you thought ops comment was about disliking Spotify specifically reinforces it.

teichflamme ,

Exactly. The amount of insufferable people with absolute shit takes that wouldn’t stand in the real world is amazing here on lemmy

c0mbatbag3l ,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

This problem existed on reddit too but it seems concentrated here, like all the people with shit takes who got ignored on reddit came here so there voice could be heard.

I wish the fediverse the best but at this point it feels like it’ll never progress past the few hundred thousand point due to the highschool level analysis of socioeconomic problems.

0xD ,

YouTube is fucking you over because they’re trying to get rid of freeloaders? How entitled.

Darkhoof ,
@Darkhoof@lemmy.world avatar

Completely agreed. If they focused on their core business they would’ve already been in much better shape.

small44 ,

In it’s whole history, Spotify only made profits in two quarters and if I’m not wrong the other streaming services aren’t profitable either so it doesn’t looks to me that the problem is just over hiring but the nature of streaming business itself You also underestimate the power of sponsorship especially sponsoring sport. I’m sure a lot of people are using Spotify just for that. Investing in podcast make sense because it’s more profitable than music, Spotify need to diversify it’s revenues. You said that Spotify have good connectivity with lastfm but that’s not true. Most of issues lastfm users have with lastfm is related to Spotify.

ribboo ,

I doubt Joe Rogan and Barcelona has only caused grief. There’s a reason huge companies throw absurd amounts of money on advertising and right deals. It’s often lucrative and worth it.

As we don’t have the numbers we can only speculate in what return they got on those deals. But it was most definitely not 0.

Tour deals, merch and independent artists are great, but you do not reach critical mass when it comes to a general audience that way. It’s basically like trying to advertise on the Fediverse versus advertising on Reddit.

frezik ,

Marketing like that doesn’t have solid numbers. Did sponsoring FC Barcelona cause people to signup to Spotify? How many? How much revenue did they get from each one?

Even when people fill in the “where did you hear about us?” option during signup, the data there is murky, at best. You can try to do tracking like “we saw a 20% increase in signups during and immediately after FC Barcelona games”, but that’s still just a proxy measure. Maybe it isn’t 20%, but more like 2%, and that could easily be noise.

These deals tend to have an amorphous “increase in brand awareness” that has little hard data to back it up.

ribboo ,

I can take your word for it, or I can consider the fact that basically every major company in the world does it. Somehow I don’t think it’s totally useless.

frezik ,

People who are good at marketing have convinced people with money to do it, yes.

Arcka ,

Yeah, that dude’s take reads just like climate science denial and flat earth conspiracies.

joel_feila ,
@joel_feila@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah spotify did wind up how most people listen to music, and podcasts. They had what people wanted and made it cheap. Then they also made a lot of decisions that wasted money. Dont know for certain but i doubt the exe there stopped geting big bonuses or pay cuts over those decisions

Lucidlethargy ,

Spotify has a lot of Blockbuster energy, but with a mixture of something far worse, since they did indeed stand by Rogen and profit off him.

themurphy ,

Honestly, Spotify is only half bad compared to the real scumbags of this industry, and that’s the “rights holders”.

It’s not the artists who created the music I’m talking about. It’s the record companies taking the largest piece for themselves.

They are the ones earning on other people’s talent and success.

residentmarchant ,

But…but…muh “discovery”

jsh ,

I’ll die on that hill. 90% of the artists I listen to, I found through spotify’s algorithms.

dumpsterlid , (edited )

Ok, but why not find a human that curates the kind of music you like? They are called DJs.

I don’t understand why we need to get rid of human DJs that seems like the last job we need to replace.

edit why do y’all think I am talking about radio DJs? You…. know there are wayyyyyyy more DJs out there than just radio DJs right?..…right?

….like y’all know mixes exist right? Like mixcloud or whatever?

Sheltac ,

Sometimes my car decides to play some radio before connecting to my phone. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of owning a not-too-nice car.

Radio DJs are little more than advertising agents nowadays. Or worse, wannabe entertainers.

BirdyBoogleBop ,

Yeah but sometimes they do a 10 minute takeover and play a song I like which all the pop people call in saying it’s shit.

Hackerman_uwu ,

Compare the top 40 to your Discover Weekly and the answer is obvious.

dumpsterlid ,

I hate the radio, I’m not talking about radio DJs unless it is the very occasional weird college radio station that is fun just for the curveballs.

I’m talking about all the other DJs, real life human beings who for fun spend hours hunting down the kind of music you listen to and arrange it into mixes. Like a recommendation algorithm but a human! There are plenty of them, you might not know of one that exists for your specific niche, but rest assured they definitely exist.

They play sets for bars and stuff with music they have collected in whatever genre they are into, it is a whole thing.

I don’t know why I am explaining the concept of a DJ.

thrawn ,

You’re explaining because people know DJ to mean radio or in person, and neither are practical in context, so everyone is confused on how it’s relevant. People who use streaming service algorithms probably aren’t looking to go to a bar or event every time they want a recommendation.

Not to mention that bars and stuff with music usually cater towards upbeat music. If you’re sure these niche DJs exist, why not name some, or at least provide vague instructions on locating one? It would be a lot more useful to provide actionable advice to people looking for recommendations based on their taste

dumpsterlid ,

I am not talking about having to go anywhere to listen to DJs.

Ok, Mixcloud

TunaLobster ,

There’s a classical station in Dallas that calls their programming music with context. And they’re right! When there’s a good DJ in the booth you will end up learning something about the music being played.

ChicoSuave ,

I use Spotify to avoid other people. You go to clubs and listen to what people spin? Too crowded. I’m happy with an algo that knows my tastes and find that shit for me.

dumpsterlid ,

facepalm no, DJs often put mixes up for you to listen to. Again mixcloud is a good example.

mean_bean279 ,

Yeah, let me go ask my DJ friends I totally know and are also a Californian who enjoys South African Deep House and Prog House, or post rock, but not post metal.

Do you know how many people exist that can do that for me? Exactly zero. It’s perfect for computers and algorithms. Humans are amazing at creating music and knowing where it fits, but they aren’t the end all be all of knowing where more like it exists. Especially when it’s not like I can reach out to my favorite artists of South African Deep House (like Kyle Watson) and ask him personally for recommendations. He’s busy with a job.

Mixes also don’t often times give you the full song for you to understand whether you truly like it, and they often have obscure remixes that aren’t released due to creator copyright or other rules. You’re creating a problem to complain about.

dumpsterlid ,

Yeah, let me go ask my DJ friends I totally know and are also a Californian who enjoys South African Deep House and Prog House, or post rock, but not post metal.

Do you know how many people exist that can do that for me? Exactly zero.

Hmm, let’s see if I google “South African Deep House DJ Mix”

First result: m.soundcloud.com/deephouse_sa

This is what drives me up a wall, people WANT to believe that only robots can help them with their super specific artistic tastes because they are too niche even if it means ignoring tons of artists and curators out there who’s passion it is to collect and share that specific type of music.

We have been sold AI curation as a way of placing a corporation between you and the communities of listeners and curators who share and find the types of music you like so art can further be corporatized and divorced from the artists who actually create the art. A corporation isn’t going to promote humans sharing music they have collected with humans because if that human gets popular they could just go somewhere else with their fans, i.e. there is a community and corporations see that as a threat compared to an algorithm they own and can manipulate any way they want.

I am not saying never use algorithmic recommendation, but it is depressing how the vast majority of people seem to have utterly abandoned the idea of being interested in communities of humans collecting music and sharing it in artistically arranged mixes.

can , (edited )

Well, their CEO Daniel Ek’s investment company Prima Materia "invested €100 million ($114 million USD) in Helsing, an artificial intelligence company based out of Europe that assists in military technological ventures. "

So I’m happy to take my *streaming business elsewhere.

blazeknave ,

After being the earliest adopter of free and paid that I know personally (and I work in tech), Joe Rogan was the nail in the coffin for me. I was already paying for YouTube premium (download for subway, and close screen while playing) and saw music was included so the decision was simple.

hexual ,
@hexual@lemmy.world avatar

This was also exactly why I moved away from Spotify.

Mango ,

What does a record company even do? Why do they have rights?

lemann ,

In the day and age of streaming sercices like Spotify, record labels/companies like Sony Music etc should not exist IMO.

Back when people purchased their music from brick and mortar stores on vinyls, cassettes, and CDs, they had a place to facilitate a relationship with distributors etc to get your music on the shelves, handle marketing and a bunch of other stuff. Nowadays, this all can be done digitally, independently.

Edit: clarify record label

rigatti ,
@rigatti@lemmy.world avatar

Basically they fund artists to record and then handle things like promotion.

Mango ,

Yo. I can be a record label. Come hang out in my apartment while I pay the bills and BAM! I get all the royalties!

Sounds like stealing with extra steps. Actually it sounds like just being rewarded for having money to begin with.

clgoh ,

Actually it sounds like just being rewarded for having money to begin with.

That’s most of the economy.

Mango ,

If I can personally promote a subreddit to 8.5 million subscribers with no talent of my own, anyone who can make decent music can handle their own shit.

rigatti ,
@rigatti@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, promoting a subreddit and promoting yourself as an artist are the same thing.

Mango ,

I didn’t even have to sing.

MossyFeathers ,

Man, a lot of people here don’t understand how the music industry works. From the perspective of someone who’s been loosely following the music industry, what I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter if Spotify gave up 2/3rds of their revenue, or 100% of it, the artists would still make fuck all.

Why?

The labels love taking their cuts and as a result, artists make very little. Instead of taking the blame for giving artists a <10% cut of the label’s revenue from their music (my understanding is that it’s pretty common for musicians to get <10%, sometimes <5% if you’re on a particularly shitty label), the labels are blaming platforms like Spotify.

Now, I’m not saying that Spotify is blameless, however I think there’s a lot of misdirection from the labels going on. I don’t remember anyone complaining about pre-spotify services like Pandora Radio for not paying out enough when they were largely ad-supported, which is another reason I’m not totally buying the, “it’s cause it’s free” argument either.

Fuck, remember Pandora?

spacebirb ,

Labels are an outdated concept that needs to die. Now that you can find any music from just a quick search artists shouldn’t have to rely on them, at least not as heavily, for advertising.

GamingChairModel ,

There was a very, very brief moment from about 2005 to 2011 or so where there was money to be made directly by artists on iTunes or the other music stores where the tracks were like 99 cents each.

But people stopped buying as soon as Spotify became popular, and now any artist that wants to release on Spotify without a label still doesn’t make much money.

TheFriar ,

Relatively “large” truly independent bands like KNOWER are starting to give true home recording a base of proof of functionality.

Power to bandcamp.

downhomechunk ,
@downhomechunk@midwest.social avatar

You’ve got my heart working overtime. Louis Cole is a monster.

abhibeckert ,

Artists aren’t forced to sign a contract with a label. They do it because they want to.

They do it because the label will often invest a million dollars in the artist upfront before the songs are even available for the public to stream.

Good recording studios are expensive to hire. And if you want a video track to go with it… those are even worse.

QueriesQueried ,

Uhhhh, dunno about that one. Pretty sure it’s public knowledge labels will go to almost any lengths to ensure artists cannot be independent, especially when they’re small. Good recording quality is quite readily available in many large cities, either as a paid service (which sometimes is still outbid by labels), or through a public library. Many of the issues of “labels investing in artists” loop back around to “labels have made it physically impractical or impossible for the artist to invest in themselves”.

pelespirit ,
@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works avatar

Why isn’t there some kind of genre music search for all artists without a label, Foss of course. From what I understand, when you’re starting out in music, getting people to hear it is the hardest part.

Alexstarfire ,

Ehh, you’ve got a different but similar problem these days. Before, it was hard to get the word out so even finding new bands was difficult. Now, there are so many artists that you’ve got to find a way to stand out. Still need marketing. That’s what labels provide.

Plopp ,

You don’t need to give up the rights to your music to a third party for them to do marketing or handling legal matters for you. You just need to pay them for their services. And you should be able to choose from several competitors in the market, based on what they offer and what you want/need/can afford. So yeah, record labels shouldn’t exist anymore.

nihth ,

It’s not needed, but for some reason artists keep signing, so there is probably something they provide that makes it worth it

Plopp ,

It’s because it’s the only game in town.

Zerlyna ,
@Zerlyna@lemmy.world avatar

I still use pandora free daily!

raptir ,

Pandora didn’t replace buying music. They did not add the “on demand streaming” option until after Spotify was prevalent.

echo64 ,

Indies are on sporify too. Spotify pays them shit too. Label or not.

wolfshadowheart ,

They just changed the rules so that if smaller artists don’t get a certain number of plays they don’t even get a payout.

GenEcon ,

With less than 1000 streams per year.

This is solely to kick out the AI generated music, which is already taking a significant share of the payout from the musicians.

This change is not against smaller artists, but for them.

t0fr ,
@t0fr@lemmy.ca avatar

I kind of call bullshit on that take.

There’s definitely AI generated music that can surpass 1000 streams per year and many real bands that cannot.

lolcatnip ,

Less than 1000 streams is like a band being unable to fill up a 100-person venue for a 10-song set once in a year (for the kind of band that plays live gigs). Opening acts for obscure bands play more than that. If you’re that unpopular, you’re hardly a band at all.

They didn’t say all AI generated music gets less than 1000 streams; they implied most of it does.

t0fr ,
@t0fr@lemmy.ca avatar

But then are you implying that those bands that are that unpopular are undeserving of getting paid even a little? Because they’re not a “real” band?

lolcatnip ,

Stuff that nobody wants to listen to just takes up space and clutters up searches, making it harder for people to find the stuff they actually want. It had negative value for the platform and for users. That’s why they went the AI stuff gone. If a few actual bands miss out on a few dollars of revenue as a result of Spotify getting rid of the outright junk, I’m not gonna shed a tear over it.

t0fr ,
@t0fr@lemmy.ca avatar

You don’t have to shed a tear. But I find your take incredibly harsh on bands that are trying to start out and find their audience.

Eliminating low quality AI content is desirable for me as well, but nuking even more incentive for bands that are starting out is the wrong thing to do in IMHO

GenEcon ,

Even if you are starting out thousands streams is nothing. I have a few friends who have a band. Its really small, basically everyone who listens to them knows them personally. They have 20 monthly listeners, but almost all of their songs on their own have 1.000 yearly streams – because Spotify puts them randomly into their automatically generated playlists.

Meanwhile kicking all the ‘bands’ out with less than 1000 streams allows them to pay the rest more.

lolcatnip ,

I don’t actually know anything about where bands are supposed to find an audience, but I don’t think bands who haven’t found an audience should expect to get paid, the same way I don’t expect to get paid for going to a job interview or engaging in a hobby. If a band doesn’t have an audience they can reliably entertain, what they’re doing is self promotion for their own benefit, not entertainment for the benefit of an audience.

wolfshadowheart ,

I thought it was 2,000?

Kuma ,
@Kuma@lemmy.world avatar

Do you know how the merch shops works? Spotify seems to be a reseller of some kind. How many % of the money is going to the artist usually?

MossyFeathers ,

Not talking about Spotify merch, didn’t even know that was a thing. I was talking about buying merch from the artist themselves.

scottywh ,

Lots of people still use, and even pay for, Pandora.

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

They just want your personal and behavioral data to sell to third parties for shady purposes. After all, AI’s don’t feed themselves

derpgon ,

How does me listening to “I’m Blue” on repeat help, especially in case of AI? I fail to see the connection.

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

1000086422

bigthink.com/…/is-spotify-spying-on-you/

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

1000086424

www.wired.com/…/spotify-tracking-how-to-stop-it/

pacology ,
@pacology@lemmy.world avatar

How much money would they want to skim to distribute the music? 33-66 split doesn’t sound so bad considered that they don’t produce the music, sign artist, promote them, etc

They can always start their own label if they believe that vertical integration will be more profitable for them.

They tried that with podcasts and it didn’t go as planned

echo64 ,

33% is a massive amount for effectively just being a download service. massive

wolfshadowheart ,

For reference, the Steam store of the gaming distributor Valve charges 30% of each sale, however the Steam service provides quite a bit of incentive. Having community and discussions easily accessible, cloud storage that links to screenshots and saves, branches, I’m sure there’s more.

Meanwhile Spotify gives you, what, playlist creations?

Rendh ,

Because servers and traffic are free. Totally forgot how you don’t have to pay the people keeping the service alive either. A steam game you download once? Maybe once a year? Music gets streamed (downloaded) every single time unless you decide to download it. Can we maybe not pretend like Spotify does fucking nothing?

wolfshadowheart ,

I didn’t mention servers because that is their only cost next to employees.

If they aren’t paying artists well, well what’s the point of having servers.

Maybe can we not pretend like Spotify is some up and coming startup that barely breaks even because of their benevolence?

Rendh ,

Because apparently these servers cost enough that even with 400mil users they aren’t making profit? The point of Spotify is giving paying customers what they want so that hopefully Spotify can make a profit. Unsure why that’s so unacceptable for you? And small artists have been paid like shit long before Spotify was an idea. Take that up with the actual music industry. Or maybe accept that turning your hobby (making music) into a job just doesn’t pay the bills for everybody that tries. I have no idea how you can blame Spotify for payouts bigger than on YouTube or Twitch when it’s the music industry fucking with the numbers.

wolfshadowheart ,

Many of their executives make over $300,000 and the CEO is a billionaire. I don’t know how you can’t blame Spotify for payouts.

ashok36 ,

Servers and employees. Nothing else. Got it. No office space, no advertising, no royalties.

What a genius business plan. No wonder they’re so successful.

wolfshadowheart ,

Then I’m sure their executives would be happy to take a pay cut to make the business profitable.

echo64 ,

servers and traffic are basically free, it’s very low cost - their expenses are salaries not servers.

abhibeckert , (edited )

Meanwhile Spotify gives you, what, playlist creations?

Distribution is hardly free. There are massive overheads - do you know all the details of sales tax law in your own country? What about in hundreds of other countries? They’re all different. And what about refund laws? That’s also different in each country. If someone writes you an email in a language you don’t even recognise… do you just ignore it? To give one example in my country if a customer asks for a tax receipt after a purchase, you are required by law to give it to them. That’s hard to comply if you don’t speak the same language as the customer. Spotify handles all those headaches for you.

What if your bank tells you they have refunded the payment someone made to buy your album, pending an investigation into wether or not the cardholder actually authorised the payment and received what was advertised. Can you prove it wasn’t a stolen card? Can you prove the album was delivered to the customer? The bank isn’t going to do that for you - they’re happy to just refund the payment (and might charge the seller a $50 processing fee…). Spotify is able to provide proof and will fight people who demand unreasonable refunds. You probably can’t prove it, which means anyone who wants a free album can just buy it and complain to their bank. And trust me, it will happen. Might not even be your customers asking for refunds - it might be a rival band that wants you to suffer. If there are too many refunds, the bank will just take way your ability to sell stuff.

GenEcon ,

Spotify takes 30 %, too. The ‘one third’ in the headline is just rounding.

And the question should be if digital markets and platforms should take 30 % or not. Because every platform does so from Steam to Apple App Store to Spotify.

Besides that Spotify offers more than Steam imho. Playlist creation, discovery algorithms, individualized playlist generation, AI DJs and if you consider Steam to also be a social platform, Spotify is too.

echo64 ,

the actual article we are commenting under thinks its outrageous that Spotify only gets 30% and things artists should get less. so it’s not “should they take 30% or not”, the question posed is “why are the greedy labels not letting spotify take even more” for some reason, madness

abhibeckert , (edited )

Distributing the music is basically free these days - at least for the artist/label anyway. Artists can pay about ten bucks (per album) to various cloud services which will handle distribution - and that includes global physical CD distribution (via an online store, not retail stores). That cost is often $4 per disc and paid by the purchaser.

Recording an album and music video can cost a fortune, and marketing the album can cost an infinite amount of money. That’s where the record label spends most of their money and it’s not a fixed figure - it gets negotiated for each album. AFAIK the split between the artist and label usually varies depending on wether the label’s investment has been paid for yet. And marketing is an ongoing expense, the label can keep spending money on that indefinitely (and the artist probably wants them to keep spending money on marketing).

chitak166 ,

Profit can be distorted based on how much you’re paying your employees.

In this case royalties paid out to imaginary property holders means spotify is functioning exactly how it should. Those people are profiting, spotify’s employees are being paid. Everyone directly involved has more money than they need.

thedirtyknapkin ,

except tht artists, which is more the fault of the rights holders in this case really…

Jay ,

I believe Spotify is largely responsible for its own financial struggles. Knowing that 2/3 of their revenue goes to the greedy labels, they should consider scaling back on operational costs and excessive investments in advertising and celebrity podcast deals.

In a way, it serves them right. Spotify plays a significant role in transforming music into a product akin to fast food, prioritizing mass consumption over artistic value. This approach not only impacts their profitability but also contributes to a broader devaluation of music as an art form.

So fuck Spotify.

phillaholic ,

Spotify plays a significant role in transforming music into a product akin to fast food, prioritizing mass consumption over artistic value.

Have you never heard of Top 40 before?

Jay ,

Absolutely, I’m aware of the Top 40, but my point is about how services like Spotify are amplifying the dominance of this type of quickly digestible music. While the Top 40 has always reflected popular tastes, Spotify intensifies the focus on ephemeral hits rather than promoting a diverse range of music and independent artists. Additionally, the technology behind Spotify, where artists or labels aren’t compensated if a track is skipped within the first 30 seconds, further influences this trend. It shapes not only what we listen to but also how we value music.

phillaholic ,

I don’t agree with that at all. I’ve started listening to 10x more small artists via Spotify than I ever had through any other medium. They’ll never be on the radio or anything like that. Spotify has recommended these artists based on what I listen to, I haven’t sought them out.

I don’t believe radio pays artists anything do they?

Jay ,

My experience has been different. Even without Spotify, I’ve found a large number of new bands over the years through websites, reviews, and music videos on YouTube. This shows that there are multiple ways to discover diverse music.

My main concern is about the broader impact of streaming on the music industry. While Spotify can be a fantastic tool for discovering music, it’s important to consider how its business model and algorithms might influence musical production and consumption patterns. Yes, artists do receive royalties from radio plays, but the system is different from streaming. My worry is that the streaming model, especially in terms of payment structures and engagement strategies, might inadvertently prioritize certain types of music, potentially overshadowing the rich diversity in the music world.

phillaholic ,

I think you’re twenty years too late on that worry. Most artists didn’t make any money once iTunes came out and singles became popular.

LordWiggle ,
@LordWiggle@lemmy.world avatar

Poor Spotify. Here’s a Link to a documentary about the dark side of Spotify, by Slightly Sociable. Their illegal business, extortion of artists and support for scamming.

donuts ,
@donuts@kbin.social avatar

I call bullshit. Yeah I'm sure they spend 2/3 of their income on rights holders, mainly Joe Rogan, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.

The average musician isn't making shit, and yet the spotify execs are sipping champagne.

StinkyRedMan ,

You know they don’t pay the artist directly? Like with physical the ones taking the biggest share are the labels… Also the average musician isn’t making shit cause compared to a very few bigger artists they represent an extremely low percentage of the overall streams on the platform.

giggling_engine ,
@giggling_engine@lemmy.world avatar

“not making profits”

Just massive salaries and equity

snek ,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

Taylor Swift somehow being a hallmark of the times makes me wish the whole world would end in a giant ball of fire.

___ ,

She’s not the worst role model we’ve ever seen, so at least the world isn’t completely mad. I think her music is mediocre, and don’t understand the fanfare, but to each their own.

snek ,
@snek@lemmy.world avatar

I think as a person she’s fine. But as a branding machine… meh.

rab ,
@rab@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m glad bands I like aren’t big so I can afford to go to their shows :)

Candybar121 ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    snek ,
    @snek@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m 30…and you? (kinda afraid to ask at this point lol)

    Darkhoof ,
    @Darkhoof@lemmy.world avatar

    The rights holders are the record labels. As much as artists want to complain about Spotify they should direct their criticism to their record labels.

    Corgana , (edited )
    @Corgana@startrek.website avatar

    Spotify is far from powerless in this arrangement too. Nobody is forcing them to be in this business.

    ky56 ,

    Pretty sure Spotify is more powerless than you think. The record labels nearly burned their industry to the ground in the 2000s over digital piracy.

    Netflix wouldn’t be around today if it wasn’t for their move into becoming their own movie studio thanks to just about every big Hollywood studio pulling out, arrogantly thinking that they can each run their own service for a bigger slice of the pie. Newsflash, it’s going really bad. Especially for Disney, who deserve everything coming to them.

    I reckon if Spotify makes even a small move to undermine the big record labels, they would yank all the popular music. Spotify either wouldn’t last long or best case they down size into a niche music platform.

    restingboredface ,

    it’s going really bad. Especially for Disney, who deserve everything coming to them. <

    I can’t like a statement hard enough. Amen.

    echoplex21 ,

    Basically the moral of the story is that Spotify should have followed in their footsteps and become their own record company.

    chitak166 ,

    Moral of the story is people should stop lowering their standards so those richer than them can be even richer.

    jonne ,

    Hold on, what’s going to happen to Disney? I got the impression they’re really eating into Netflix’ market share. They basically own a huge chunk of the content most people care about.

    small44 ,

    What about independent artists?

    Blackmist ,

    If they were getting as many listens as Taylor Swift, I’m sure they’d be making bank. But they’re not. A listen ain’t worth a lot and never has been.

    rab ,
    @rab@lemmy.ca avatar

    Average musician probably makes more than you think youtu.be/qjb-pJIfQXI?si=Zbi54GvD3NqomIrv

    NaoPb ,

    Yeah it’s all the fault of the rightsholders. Definitely not bad management.

    Not that I’m a fan of rightsholders but this is more like shifting the blame.

    where_am_i ,

    400m subs x 100$ a year on avg = 40 billions in revenue. Even if only 25% e.g. 10 bil is retained by Spotify it’s a lot of money to maintain infra and pay stuff.

    blackjack , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    spiderman ,

    I will be ready to pay for Spotify again if they bring that.

    Kyoyeou ,

    Honnestly Deezer Student has “HIFI” file on in so it’s great for me But I’m quite certain when Spotify HIFI will be launched I’ll already pass on to Quobuz because I wont be a student anymore

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