[Semaphor]

The long tail is indie music. Before Spotify the vast majority of small bands couldn’t make a living off it either.

If a band outside the mainstream could live off their music, it was concerts and merch, and that was usually already only for bands at decent labels.

I know and love a band that exists since 1997, not even once were they even thinking about giving up their day jobs.

I don’t like Spotify (I usually listen to specific albums of bands I like), but I feel it’s more of a problem for the middle-class of bands, not the small ones.

[coldtea]

>Before Spotify the vast majority of small bands couldn’t make a living off it either.

I'd say tons of small artists that can't make a living today, could make a living by selling 30-50K records back in the CD/Vinyl days.

[Semaphor]

The vinyl and early CD days (when there were far fewer small bands) are a long time from Spotify though.

There was an explosion of small bands brought on by the internet and cheap digital distribution, but I doubt people started buying more at the same percentage as the amount bands increased.