www.theverge.com
www.theguardian.com
What streaming platform should we use instead?An interesting article on why you probably shouldn't be using Spotify anyway:
Spotify made £56m profit, but has decided not to pay smaller artists like me. We need you to make some noise | Damon Krukowski
What its Wrapped campaign doesn’t say is that indie musicians and labels are treated terribly, and deserve a better deal, says Damon Krukowski
I too would like more information on the varying artist remuneration models that different platforms offer.
Not even that. Maybe the major labels are winning. But Spotify? It actually made a small (for its size) profit last financial year through cutting staff, and is using the same ploy again.
There are more ways to earn money with companies than pure net profit. The company worth (market cap) is still estimated at $35.25 Billion, so if you trade shares, you still earn a lot if you bought at the right time (or are the original shareholder). If you bought shares end 2022 and sell them now you made about 131% profit...
That’s true, but profit from share values has to be realised by selling. The large investors aren’t going to sell quickly, and tbe shares look way overvalued to me right now. The value comes from the large user base and nowhere else, and that has to be exploited. So far they have no way to do that. The number of active paying users is still not enough to support any innovation and also a profit: the staff reductions are not affecting the core service yet.
There isa big difference between not being paid or thinking you're not being paid enough, though. Spotify does pay, I made $28 on it last year.An interesting article on why you probably shouldn't be using Spotify anyway:
Spotify made £56m profit, but has decided not to pay smaller artists like me. We need you to make some noise | Damon Krukowski
What its Wrapped campaign doesn’t say is that indie musicians and labels are treated terribly, and deserve a better deal, says Damon Krukowski
Those numbers are out of date, but I can't find better I also can't find a 2023 figure for Qobuz, but they were paying more than twice what Tidal paid in 2021 IIRC (and I think I posted in a thread here somewhere but can't find it). I believe part of that was a covid "bonus" that they introduced to pay artists more during the period they may not be able to work, so to see a 2023 figure would be nice.
Just focusing on Spotify is probably unfair, it is something that impacts the entire streaming industry. There may be lessons to be learned in music streaming from the video streaming industry, where instead of just recycling stuff you can get everywhere, you have some exclusive and desirable content. Amazon and Netflix and AppleTV bankroll original content, they are producers on top of streaming stuff you can get everywhere. The music streaming services dont do it. They just reuse existing stuff. And the stuff is subject to sudden licensing changes (which is also true with video streaming services, I have paidnfor stuff on Amazon Prime that then disappears).
