Spotify Is Eating the Entire Music Business?

[dayjob]

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

sort of.. if that's the goal. i know a lot of people engage w/streaming just for fans and don't think of it as part of the income stream. but a lot of people have a different model. play lot's of shows, have dedicated fan group, sell files/merch/vinyl/tapes/cds via places like bandcamp... and actual record stores. it's not gonna work for everyone but it does work for some people who have a certain amount of profile already.

i think spotify etc would be a more agreeable thing if their rates was more fair and they were just generally less dickish about it all. daniel eck has said some some pretty stupid things.. tone deaf things. investing in military technology was another forehead slapper but whatever... "it's a$$holes all the way down, sir."

i do think there's a problem w/all the passive listening and general devaluing of art.. the commodification/branding of every experience and every thing created.. i think that's another reason some people have a more bespoke kind of approach to what they do w/their music/art whatever.

in the end i'm not gonna complain about what one person chooses to do w/the thing they create and how they distribute it.. but i think it's absolutely fine to shit on those platforms and call them out. their priority is not to the musician or the listener.. it's the shareholder they care about.

[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

i do think there's a problem w/all the passive listening and general devaluing of art.. the commodification/branding of every experience and every thing created.. i think that's another reason some people have a more bespoke kind of approach to what they do w/their music/art whatever.

yes I totally agree. I'm not sure there's any way around that. The spotify subscription did just go up supposedly because labels are demanding greater compensation but I bet it's a miniscule amount

[ghettosynth]

The spotify subscription did just go up supposedly because labels are demanding greater compensation but I bet it's a miniscule amount

It went up $1. Now, I don't care about $1, but, the constant trickle of inflation with subscription services is exactly the trigger that makes me reconsider their value. If it wasn't for hulu, I would have canceled this morning. I didn't even notice the increase email TBH.

I recently went through the exercise of adding up all of my subscription costs. It's not very high mind you, but it's useful to multiply that by 12 and ask if there's anything that I'd rather have instead of spending money on things that I don't use very much.

[jancivil]

Yeah, I'm not in the music business and I'm not much of a consumer. Can I mute myself now.

[_leras]

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

Well they have standards for what gets onto their new releases and genre playlists, quite a lot of curation.

But if you can't get on those, you're on your own as far as driving listener's to hear your music.

[osiris]

https://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/techno ... index.htmlFrom 2013:
/Since the introduction the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, music sales have plummeted in the United States -- from $11.8 billion in 2003 to $7.1 billion last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. When adjusted for inflation, revenue has been more than halved since Apple (AAPL) launched the iTunes Music Store./

[Jbravo]

“ In 2022, streaming revenues reached 17.5 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, the highest ever recorded and more than six times the figure given for 2015, when music streaming revenue amounted to 2.7 billion. Streaming revenues now account for over 67 percent of total global recorded music revenue”

https://www.statista.com/statistics/587 ... g-revenue/

[vurt]

welcome my son, welcome
to the machine.

[dayjob]

[osiris]

Spotify owes me 86 cents but wants $1.07 to give it to me. Dat's capitalism.

[Shabdahbriah]

I confess, I clicked on a link in a post once (a couple of years ago) and was sent to spotify... I glanced at the maze of 'trendy' vomit and left, never to have listened to a single track, nor have I e.v.e.r given a moments thought to needing or wanting a "play list". I have way too much cool-shit to do, to be bothered with yet another thing to keep-up-with. TBTH... I couldn't give a flying-rats-ass about, or what happens to the draconian/mainstream music "business".

[masterhiggins]

One of my favorite things about Spotify are the artist "radio stations" where I've discovered artists I didn't even know existed. They also have a lot of Spotify original radio shows that harken back to the radio shows of old, like Suspense or Gunsmoke.

It's legitimately the only subscription that I don't complain about. I used to like Netflix, but it's only become more and more expensive to the point where it's no longer worth it. Spotify, though, has endless music and shows that never get old. Also, waiting for my computer to sync my 200GB iTunes files to my iPhone was so goddamn annoying. In short, it's awesome.

[dayjob]

One of my favorite things about Spotify are the artist "radio stations" where I've discovered artists I didn't even know existed. They also have a lot of Spotify original radio shows that harken back to the radio shows of old, like Suspense or Gunsmoke.

It's legitimately the only subscription that I don't complain about. I used to like Netflix, but it's only become more and more expensive to the point where it's no longer worth it. Spotify, though, has endless music and shows that never get old. Also, waiting for my computer to sync my 200GB iTunes files to my iPhone was so goddamn annoying. In short, it's awesome.

Sure. Great for consumers but not so great for artists. You pay for the convenience and that money goes where? Shareholders make all the gains.

[sqigls]

i buy music straight from the artist, Bandcamp preferably, i never use a streaming service.
I find new artists all the time, by digging through 'crates', just like the good ol days.
It's lossless, and doesn't require the internet to play. I don't see why i would ever use spotify, as a listener nor as an artist. I feel offended when people label the work of an artist as "Content".
I might be old school, but i'm in it for the MUSIC and i support real artists not money grabbers and posers. f**k everything else.

[ghettosynth]

I confess, I clicked on a link in a post once (a couple of years ago) and was sent to spotify... I glanced at the maze of 'trendy' vomit and left, never to have listened to a single track, nor have I e.v.e.r given a moments thought to needing or wanting a "play list". I have way too much cool-shit to do, to be bothered with yet another thing to keep-up-with. TBTH... I couldn't give a flying-rats-ass about, or what happens to the draconian/mainstream music "business".

You can't really use spotify like that if you're into more niche stuff. IMO, it's best when used as a recommender against music you already know that you like. I don't get recommended trendy stuff. The most trendy thing in my playlists is probably Amy Winehouse. My front page and curated new tracks playlists do not contain anything that the masses listen to regularly. I like to create playlists of stuff that I like and then listen through the recommended tracks that Spotify thinks belong in that playlist. It helps me discover content that is in the vein of what I want to listen to on Spotify.

As an example, here is the first track in my "discover weekly" mix provided by spotify. Note that it has 10k views on Youtube. I don't have any need or desire to keep up with all of everything, but I do like hearing new music and spotify does a good job of recommending to my niche tastes.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Homler