| Music consumption has basically never been in a better place. What Spotify pays artists, and how many employees at Bandcamp get laid off are minor, in the big picture. My music consumption goes something like this: 1) Queue up a known band on Spotify. See what else similar to them Spotify puts into a playlist 2) Listen to the new music, decide what I like or don't like 3) Head over to Bandcamp or Discogs with the stuff I really like. Buy it in vinyl and DRM-free digital. Put it in my Subsonic server. 4) If it's not available, head to P2P app of choice - they always have it. Yes, Bandcamp and Spotify might be ephemeral, but Spotify did wonders for discoverability - there are a lot of albums from tiny tiny bands I'd never have bought if it weren't for Spotify, and Bandcamp helped re-establish the market for physical, DRM-free media. Music has never been in a better place. I finally get to have my cake and eat it too. What people are complaining about (Spotify not paying enough to smaller artists) is conveniently ignoring that I'd have never even heard of those artists 25 years ago, because they couldn't have paid for distribution. Spotify didn't reduce what artists make, they redisributed what I spend across way more, but smaller, bands. |
I have to agree. I’m 66 years old. When I was in my late teens, I was intensely into music and doing my best to explore and learn about a variety of genres.
It was hard. I couldn’t afford to buy many albums, the music played on the radio was limited, and the only way to hear obscure music that I had read about was to go to a large public or university library and hope that they might have the records in their collection.
Now I can listen to nearly any music I want to with just a few clicks. There are also many great streaming channels for discovering music I didn’t know about—I particularly like BBC Sounds, especially Radio 3. My 19-year-old self never could have dreamt of such riches.