[zirobi]

> I love that people are looking for alternatives to Spotify and I don’t know how to explain to them that it has never been ethical or sustainable to expect to have unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music for $10/month.

— Ross Grady, missing the point.

This has nothing to do with Spotify and everything to do with the market for streaming services.

It takes an unbelievable amount of money to operate a service like Spotify and consumers have not yet demonstrating a willingness to pay more than $10-15/mo for pretty much any mainstream digital subscription.

That leaves a very small amount for artists. Which is wrong. But what are you going to do?

Either customers pay more, which they won't.

Or artists leave Spotify for platforms that pay them more in hope the increased cut compensates for significantly lower volume, which is unlikely.

Or someone finds a way to run a global streaming service at such a reduced cost that some savings can be passed onto the artists, which would've happened already if possible.

[wwweston]

If consumers don't have the willingness to pay for a media service that not only covers operational costs of distribution but also fairly compensates those involved in making the media, then... that sounds pretty much like the definition of unethical and unsustainable. You can argue that the cause is consumer price sensitivity and it still won't change the ethics and sustainability issue. Although I think that's also missing the point, which has to include how consumers came to have this expectation in the first place, and the role that Spotify has played in setting that expectation.

When a Spotify exec called artists "entitled" for wanting payouts on the order of a penny a stream last summer [0], I went looking around to see if anyone was doing better and approaching that. Turned out Apple Music had gone there [1].

Maybe that's recently become possible with the economics of current digital distribution tech. Maybe Apple has an edge from leveraging infrastructure they need for other services anyway. Maybe they're subsidizing it. I don't know. But I do know that the economics of streaming services have to include substantial efforts to do right by media creators with audiences at multiple scales if they're to remain ethical.

[0] https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2021/06/29/spotify-executiv...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/16/22387453/apple-music-arti...

[zirobi]

You're absolutely right that it's unethical but whether it's sustainable is yet to be seen. So far the evidence suggests that it is.

[CPLX]

> That leaves a very small amount for artists. Which is wrong. But what are you going to do?

I mean, you could start by taking a glance at the billions of dollars amassed but Spotify’s owners as a starting point.

[zirobi]

Completely agree, but they're playing a game with artists which is something like "How little can we pay them and still have enough material for the average consumer to pay $10-15/mo to believe they have all the music in the world?" and they're not going to start paying artists more of their own volition.

So what action does that leave?

[newsbinator]

Unpopular opinion: I get a lot more value from the output of Spotify's owners than I get from billions of musicians.

I only listen to hundreds of musicians and Spotify gives me those hundreds for $15/mo.

Those hundreds change by 10% ~ 30% every month into other hundreds.

I don't feel any ethical need to compensate musicians I don't listen to. And the ones I do listen to I don't feel strongly enough attached to to pay more than $15/mo for recurring access.

There are perhaps 10 whose permanent media I would buy and replay, if they left Spotify.

[CPLX]

> I get a lot more value from the output of Spotify's owners than I get from billions of musicians.

I bet you don't. Since without the musicians there's no music, and without Spotify there's Apple Music, CD's, Napster, and so on and so forth.

The degree to which people attempt to ignore the value of recorded music from a financial standpoint always bothers me. It's one of the most enduring and useful things that makes people happy in the history of civilization. It's important to nearly all people in all cultures on earth, and unites and inspires us.

The largest peaceful gatherings of human beings that have ever happened, and ever happen, are people getting together to hear music performed.

So I disagree. I think you aren't actually allocating the value of music creation vs music distribution correctly,

[newsbinator]

I don't listen to billions of musicians: I listen to hundreds of musicians. I don't go to concerts or see live music performed.

Spotify's owners have made it easy for me to listen to those hundreds I like. I don't get any value at all from the creation of those billions I don't listen to. I get daily value from the creation of Spotify's owners.

[Chris2048]

Billons in profit? Based on music subs?

[CPLX]

Daniel Ek (born 21 February 1983) is a Swedish billionaire entrepreneur and technologist. Ek is known for being the co-founder and CEO of music streaming service Spotify.

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

When he was born he didn't have billions of dollars. Now he does. Pretty sure it came from Spotify.

[Chris2048]

Could be stock in Spotify, which is speculation, not corporate profit. The fact that they got 2.5 billion investment show people think it will make money, not that it's making money.

[yostrovs]

I'm of the opinion that being a musician shouldn't imply that there should be money in it. It's a fun hobby for many and the reason it's so popular to try to be professional. 99 percent of musicians don't make any money off of it, and so crying about the ones that want to live off of their hobby doesn't achieve anything. I have musician friends. They all have regular jobs like I do. I'm a juggler. I don't expect to live off of juggling.