Spotify Is Eating the Entire Music Business?

[Freaqpeak]

2. You can't search for, sort or list music by Label / Record label name.

Its not intuitive, I had to google it but you can search by label. Search label:name eg label:sony

Wow.. Thanks!! I did not know that. Although the search doesn't really work 100% correct it was still useful to find some releases from labels catalog.

[ghettosynth]

For you and others looking for a way to listen to their own music collection (including in a browser) there's this: https://www.ibroadcast.com/home/

No, that's not what I was looking for. I think that people don't understand much impact a small amount of friction can have on individual choices. I don't even want to download music anymore. All of the file management is just a hassle. So I definitely don't want to set it p so that it is on a third party service. My point was simple, streaming has won because it is convenient. So, if you are a non-streaming service, like Bandcamp, then you need to make it just as convenient for me to listen to my music.

I will pay for music, even free music, for that convenience. No, I don't want to download it, I just want you to host it and let me play from it. The lack of that feature is the main reason that I stopped combing bandcamp for new music.

[Jbravo]

I'm wondering what Spotify will do with all the millions of tracks which get uploaded by hobbyists which have no or next to no plays. There must come a point when it's just not worth the disk space. Their catalogue must be growing exponentially and I wonder where it leads

[ghettosynth]

I'm wondering what Spotify will do with all the millions of tracks which get uploaded by hobbyists which have no or next to no plays. There must come a point when it's just not worth the disk space. Their catalogue must be growing exponentially and I wonder where it leads

I assume that you mean Bandcamp? Spotify doesn't really have this problem because, AFAIK, you can't just upload to spotify, you have to go through a distribution partner of some sort. So while I'm sure that there are many tracks that get zero plays and are uploaded by hobbyists, I doubt that they will do anything about that. Those hobbyists are also most likely their customer.

I imagine Bandcamp may have a problem with this. I guess I didn't generate enough income giving artists who released their records free $1 so their music could be in my collection.

[Calagan]

What I find amazing is the fact Spotify dominates the streaming business, never made any profit (!!!) and yet the music industry never made so much money than now.

So where is the money ?
Where is the money ?

Recently, a guy bought 2 of my CDs on bandcamp for a total of 30€. It became rare someone bought some CDs, so I was happy. Then, I did notice that when you take the various fees into consideration (I live in Europe and Distrokid has a lot of fees when you want to get back your money, without even speaking about the subscription), these 30€ are more than what I did earn on streaming services in the last 5 years. Ouch !
I felt truly bad when thinking about that. What kind of a system is it if a solo guy that crushed on your music actually represents more money for you that the thousand ones that listen to it on the streaming services since years ???

And while this time, "the music industry is growing and is full of opportunities" :
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligen ... hange.html

So where is the money ? I guess it's the same in the music industry than everywhere else : we entered recently in a neo-feudal economy, where everything (politics, economy and so on) is organized around the interests of 1% of the population (or maybe even 0,1%, when taking into account the whole world population, and not only Europe and North America).
Bill Gates pays less taxes than a local grocery store owner. In my country (France), where lives one of the richest guy on earth (Bernard Arnault), the wealth of the 500 richest families was multiplied by 4 in 20 years !
I don't know any sector of the economy that had such a growth !
And most people, because they became a bunch of decerebrate zombies, still vote for the interests of the 1% instead of their own interests. It seems they like that when very rich guys become richer, and they become poorer (Trump electors are mostly from the working class).
So I guess, the money is there, in the 1%. Some old guys with a tie owning some shares in the music, potatoe or handbag industry. Even the few artists that make millions and speak proudly about that (like Ariana Grande in 7 rings - I'm so angry my teen daughter is exposed to this shit) are just collecting crumbs - and it's funny to see they act like drug dealer kids when they earn their first money : showing off, buying a BMW and fancy clothes. But the money is not in these clowns' pocket.

P.S. : just as an exemple, Distrokid takes around 5$ each time I want to get back my profits. I mean, we are in 2023, I can personally send money to a friend or a seller with paypal, or even better wise, for a few cents. Why an international business like Distrokid is not able to do it while the guy in the street can ? No need to answer I guess, it's pretty easy to figure out.
I'm gonna change distributor, but it's a real pain in the ass to be obliged to do it each time the one you subscribed changes their policy.

[Jbravo]

I'm wondering what Spotify will do with all the millions of tracks which get uploaded by hobbyists which have no or next to no plays. There must come a point when it's just not worth the disk space. Their catalogue must be growing exponentially and I wonder where it leads

I assume that you mean Bandcamp? Spotify doesn't really have this problem because, AFAIK, you can't just upload to spotify, you have to go through a distribution partner of some sort. So while I'm sure that there are many tracks that get zero plays and are uploaded by hobbyists, I doubt that they will do anything about that. Those hobbyists are also most likely their customer.

I imagine Bandcamp may have a problem with this. I guess I didn't generate enough income giving artists who released their records free $1 so their music could be in my collection.

Well I did mean Spotify. It’s very easy to use a distributor and very affordable too. Apparently there are 60,000 tracks uploaded every day. I wonder if they will have to be more choosy in the future or have a higher bar on quality

[bermudagold]

I'm wondering what Spotify will do with all the millions of tracks which get uploaded by hobbyists which have no or next to no plays. There must come a point when it's just not worth the disk space. Their catalogue must be growing exponentially and I wonder where it leads

I assume that you mean Bandcamp? Spotify doesn't really have this problem because, AFAIK, you can't just upload to spotify, you have to go through a distribution partner of some sort. So while I'm sure that there are many tracks that get zero plays and are uploaded by hobbyists, I doubt that they will do anything about that. Those hobbyists are also most likely their customer.

I imagine Bandcamp may have a problem with this. I guess I didn't generate enough income giving artists who released their records free $1 so their music could be in my collection.

Well I did mean Spotify. It’s very easy to use a distributor and very affordable too. Apparently there are 60,000 tracks uploaded every day. I wonder if they will have to be more choosy in the future or have a higher bar on quality

exactly...I was just about to quantify the noise floor before you did...what stakeholder, using what mechanism, could possibly assess and curate that volume of product?...that is ultimately the sad irony, is that the democratization of access has actually decreased your chances of breaking through the noise

[ghettosynth]

I'm wondering what Spotify will do with all the millions of tracks which get uploaded by hobbyists which have no or next to no plays. There must come a point when it's just not worth the disk space. Their catalogue must be growing exponentially and I wonder where it leads

I assume that you mean Bandcamp? Spotify doesn't really have this problem because, AFAIK, you can't just upload to spotify, you have to go through a distribution partner of some sort. So while I'm sure that there are many tracks that get zero plays and are uploaded by hobbyists, I doubt that they will do anything about that. Those hobbyists are also most likely their customer.

I imagine Bandcamp may have a problem with this. I guess I didn't generate enough income giving artists who released their records free $1 so their music could be in my collection.

Well I did mean Spotify. It’s very easy to use a distributor and very affordable too. Apparently there are 60,000 tracks uploaded every day. I wonder if they will have to be more choosy in the future or have a higher bar on quality

Those are 60k tracks uploaded by paying customers. Storage space is cheap. Affordable is not free. So as long as some of you think that you're going to be the exception, which, BTW, is the same reason that idiots vote for the rich guy looking out for himself, then you are helping to fund the machine.

[ghettosynth]

exactly...I was just about to quantify the noise floor before you did...what stakeholder, using what mechanism, could possibly assess and curate that volume of product?...that is ultimately the sad irony, is that the democratization of access has actually decreased your chances of breaking through the noise

The "soundalike" AI does a pretty good job. I have a very narrow set of listening tastes on Spotify. At least in the sense of what I listen to frequently. Every once in a while I do some weird search for covers of a classic or something, but mostly I'm listening to a very narrow selection of downtempo electronica. The AI does a great job recommending stuff. The only thing that I wish that it had was a "don't play this shit track ever again" button for when they occasionally get it wrong. No Spotify, just because I like Elania Radigue does not mean that I like silly monk voices in my music.

[dayjob]

What I find amazing is the fact Spotify dominates the streaming business, never made any profit (!!!) and yet the music industry never made so much money than now.

So where is the money ?
Where is the money ?

spotify still operates like a tech bro start up. they got venture capital money, high stock valuation, then extracted money from their stock. so, daniel Ek or whatever his name is.. is worth billions because he converted stock. that's how he and others there got paid. gains go to the top.

and to get where they are they made a backroom deal with major labels to get access to their music catalogues. they gave the labels billions in stock. i think it was $4 billion. and they structured it so it's in their financials in a way that means the artists whose music they got access to see none of that money.. only the labels. it was essentially a bribe. all this is known. you can google to find all the details if you want. you don't have to take my word for it.

spotify owns part of distrokid. it's all double dipping on the money. everything is a service. you pay a fee every year to use distrokid. the music is just a service to them. that's all it is. it's an asset they can leverage to extract capital from the system.

[enCiphered]

Spotify used to own a minority stake in DistroKid, but they sold two-thirds of their stake in October 2021. They still own a small stake in the company, but it is less than 10%.

[ghettosynth]

What I find amazing is the fact Spotify dominates the streaming business, never made any profit (!!!) and yet the music industry never made so much money than now.

So where is the money ?
Where is the money ?

Recently, a guy bought 2 of my CDs on bandcamp for a total of 30€. It became rare someone bought some CDs, so I was happy. Then, I did notice that when you take the various fees into consideration (I live in Europe and Distrokid has a lot of fees when you want to get back your money, without even speaking about the subscription), these 30€ are more than what I did earn on streaming services in the last 5 years. Ouch !
I felt truly bad when thinking about that. What kind of a system is it if a solo guy that crushed on your music actually represents more money for you that the thousand ones that listen to it on the streaming services since years ???

And while this time, "the music industry is growing and is full of opportunities" :
https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligen ... hange.html

So where is the money ? I guess it's the same in the music industry than everywhere else : we entered recently in a neo-feudal economy, where everything (politics, economy and so on) is organized around the interests of 1% of the population (or maybe even 0,1%, when taking into account the whole world population, and not only Europe and North America).

Of course this is where the money is. So it doesn't make sense to bash the consumer that is giving the industry $120/year. This is more than what I was giving the industry before I started using streaming services and enough to make me wonder whether I want to keep doing it. It's less than what I was spending during the CD heyday and a LOT less than what I was spending when I was actively spinning vinyl.

They are keeping the money for themselves so stop putting your stuff on there until you get a better deal. I can assure you that it isn't taylor swift and friends that keep me streaming. I don't care if I ever hear one of her boring idiotic songs again.

Y'all want someone else to provide a service for which you don't want to pay the provider of said service the amount that the provider wants to set it up. So why aren't you setting up your own collective? I can tell you why, because it's expensive and you'll run into the same limitations that everyone else runs into.

[osiris]

This reminded of something similar about Apple after it won out against Napster
https://themusicnetwork.com/forget-naps ... to-ransom/
Here's a taste: iTunes launched as a program in 2001, and was touted as a way to rip music from your CDs, and store them all in one central location – much like a jukebox. Of course, you could also use iTunes to play and store illegally gathered files from Napster and the like, plus any music ripped from CDs you borrowed from friends. In a way, Apple were taking ownership of music storage, curation, and even the playing of it.
Then the iTunes store launched in April 2003, and immediately devalued music further – ironically, by putting a price to these files. The service was touted as a legal alternative to Napster and its contemporaries, whose legal status was well documented enough to scare off would-be users afraid of being taken to court for downloading a Mission Impossible II song. The price of a single song was set at 99c in the US, $1.49 in Australia. The same program you had been using to catalogue your music had suddenly turned into a store, and you could buy anything you pleased.
Apple was never invited into the music industry. They stormed in and started taking hostages. They saw a dire situation and provided a solution. They were the ones selling $10 bottles of water during a heatwave, and were filling them up from the taps of those they sold it to. Because the record industry was so incensed by the gall of those stealing their music, they went to war with a format, instead of accepting that the way in which people imbibed music had irreversibly changed and taking steps to capitalise on this.
They introduced copy control CDs that got jammed in PCs and wouldn’t play in car stereos; they sued Napster and similar companies, rather than either working with them, or developing their own MP3 distribution centre, and they tried to make piracy a moral issue when it was simply one of convenience and scope of access.

[dayjob]

This reminded of something similar about Apple after it won out against Napster
https://themusicnetwork.com/forget-naps ... to-ransom/
Here's a taste: iTunes launched as a program in 2001, and was touted as a way to rip music from your CDs, and store them all in one central location – much like a jukebox. Of course, you could also use iTunes to play and store illegally gathered files from Napster and the like, plus any music ripped from CDs you borrowed from friends. In a way, Apple were taking ownership of music storage, curation, and even the playing of it.
Then the iTunes store launched in April 2003, and immediately devalued music further – ironically, by putting a price to these files. The service was touted as a legal alternative to Napster and its contemporaries, whose legal status was well documented enough to scare off would-be users afraid of being taken to court for downloading a Mission Impossible II song. The price of a single song was set at 99c in the US, $1.49 in Australia. The same program you had been using to catalogue your music had suddenly turned into a store, and you could buy anything you pleased.
Apple was never invited into the music industry. They stormed in and started taking hostages. They saw a dire situation and provided a solution. They were the ones selling $10 bottles of water during a heatwave, and were filling them up from the taps of those they sold it to. Because the record industry was so incensed by the gall of those stealing their music, they went to war with a format, instead of accepting that the way in which people imbibed music had irreversibly changed and taking steps to capitalise on this.
They introduced copy control CDs that got jammed in PCs and wouldn’t play in car stereos; they sued Napster and similar companies, rather than either working with them, or developing their own MP3 distribution centre, and they tried to make piracy a moral issue when it was simply one of convenience and scope of access.

don't forget that the very first version of itunes had a music sharing feature in it. you could share with people "in your network" or something. this was yanked almost immediately after release so i barely remember the details.

and yeah.. the labels totally missed it. the time for them to take their destiny in their hands and make their own platform for music delivery quickly passed.

regarding CDs.. yeah.. some of that stuff was wild. i recall the people who invented the CD format said that technically these things the labels are releasing are not CDs because they are a different format.

i did some reviews of CDs for a southern CA music mag and would get like 20 Cds in the mail at a time. i got one of those copyrighted Cds once and it wouldn't play in my computer which is where i listened at the time since it was hooked up to the studio monitors.. so, instead of reviewing the music which i couldn't hear, i reviewed the CD format and the label's stupidity.

[Jbravo]

i think the streaming vs CDs thing sailed years ago. If you want to get heard and don't use Spotify (or similar) then you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. Do you want to get heard or stick it to the big man because you can't do both. It's not a good way to make a living but it's a step which gets you out there