[hyperbovine]

I didn't watch either, but judging from the comments, it's the usual story: they are completely beholden to record companies, who own rights to nearly all of their catalog. Thus most of their revenue goes straight back out the door as royalties. Moreover, the recording companies can raise the rates pretty much at-will, which apparently they have done upon seeing Spotify starting to make a bit more money.

That is why Spotify are desperately trying to produce their own content, most notably in the podcast space, and I suspect why they also recently branched out into audiobooks, as every hour spent listening to an audiobook displaces a dozen or so royalty-generating song plays.

[alexpotato]

I'm surprised Spotify wouldn't take this to the next step and, borrowing a page from the old industrialists, try to vertically integrate and start their own music label and talent scouting arm.

You would think they could pull a "Netflix and House of Cards" to use all of their play data to find exactly which kind of niche singer/songwriter people would want to hear. They could then use their reach + algorithms to float their artists into people's "discover new" playlists.

[Sebb767]

> I'm surprised Spotify wouldn't take this to the next step and, borrowing a page from the old industrialists, try to vertically integrate and start their own music label and talent scouting arm.

Probably because music is spread quite far and the labels have a tight grip on the industry. If you want to have the music most people listen to, you need to have the top talent. Also, music is not as fungible as music is - if Spotify is lacking popular music, people are going to be discontent, use less playlists and use Spotify less in return.

> You would think they could pull a "Netflix and House of Cards" to use all of their play data to find exactly which kind of niche singer/songwriter people would want to hear.

I'm not sure this is working that well for Netflix. It has lot of pressure with competing streaming services that market their exclusives and their library is pretty lacking, compared to a few years ago.

[ghaff]

House of Cards was a home run. It was the nudge that made me breakdown and sign up for Netflix streaming after they split it off from DVDs. But these days, Netflix is probably the service that is closest to me pulling the plug. It's relatively pricey and there isn't a lot that I really want to see on it.

[Mindwipe]

> I'm not sure this is working that well for Netflix.

Netflix is pretty much the only service that is profitable, so it is.

Exclusivity works. Netflix made it work pretty well. Spotify can't.

[nemo44x]

Agreed. I mentioned this is another thread - they need to vertically integrate music. They have all the leverage as the distribution channel and controller of algorithms. To start they’d probably want to buy a label or pay money existing labels can’t afford for the people that can find and attract top talent.

In essence use their size to pay more than record labels and eventually acquire them.

[conradfr]

Do artists want to be signed by a label that will probably limit their exposure to only one streaming service?

[dagw]

They tried with podcasts. Several podcasters jumped on the chance to trade exposure for a nice big check. Don't know if it worked out for Spotify or not though.

[ghaff]

And not make their music available on CD/digital download? Taylor Swift is not going to agree to make her music only available on Spotify. That would be insane. Some small act might. In which case no one would care.

[oblio]

They're trying to be an aggregator but the record companies know this and they're businesses, not consumers, so they just put up an old fashioned cartel against the aggregator.

Turns out, cartel >>> aggregator.

[avereveard]

Also why they are pushing so hard for getting people outside their playlist with "jams" "radio" and the automatically enabled "similar content" features, so they can fill play time with low royalty music.