[lotsofpulp]

> If you want to destroy productivity, firing people is a sure proof way of doing that.

In Spotify’s case, the business not making money, and hence not having a stock price that keeps up with the market, is also a way to destroy productivity. Higher productivity people are probably not going to want to work at a charity.

[bastardoperator]

So I guess you really dislike people in the OSS space who are considered the most productive of us all and essentially give all their work away for free, kind of like a charity.

Spotify is a jukebox. You put money in and music plays. It's not a new concept in the slightest capacity. If they haven't figured out how to turn a profit now will they ever?

[lotsofpulp]

No, it was badly phrased. Rephrase it to mean that the proportion of people that are at Spotify who care a decent amount about competitive compensation is probably pretty high, and so they will be paying more attention to the business’s prospects when evaluating their options.

[floor2]

> If they haven't figured out how to turn a profit now will they ever?

The corporate entity Spotify will never turn a major profit, but that's by design.

Spotify made a deal with the devil to come to terms with the record labels, and is now fully baked into a "Hollywood Accounting" set of terms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting) which ensure the real money goes to the power players of RIAA cartel.

It turns out, if you have good lawyers, you can structure a set of entities such that neither the artists nor the public shareholders of the streaming service get the money, but rather, the opaque production company or record label that sits in between it all.

[lotsofpulp]

There is no reason for conspiracy theories. Spotify simply made a bet in being able to be more than a commodified middleman, which has not yet (and may not) pan out.

Warner/Sony/Universal music groups are also not opaque, they are all publicly traded companies, just like Spotify. It just so happens that they have more negotiating power than Spotify, so they can dictate more favorable terms.

Also, artists are free to make deals directly with Spotify/Google/Amazon/Apple if they want to bypass the record labels.

[mikhael28]

OSS is amazing. But needs to figure out how to make money, otherwise it's not sustainable.

You ever hear the phrase 'theres no such thing as a free lunch'?

[qikInNdOutReply]

Have you ever seen some of the heavy hitters, programing game engines for open source? These guys do that, cause they want to recover some sanity after programing crap for companies all day. Sorry to say it, but great works will never flourish in some monpolistic mega cooperation with tribal infighting.

[WeylandYutani]

Spotify problem is that they are not a monopoly. Competition is brutal in music streaming.

I have no idea if Apple or Google are more profitable? Maybe someone can give an insight.

[bobkazamakis]

>Higher productivity people are probably not going to want to work at a charity.

Have you seen the things people create in minecraft entirely for free?

[lotsofpulp]

Replace with "higher productivity people in an organization like Spotify", which I doubt many people are "passionate" about like they would be Minecraft.