[ProblemFactory]

Most streaming services take a similar cut of the revenue.

Spotify pays out 70% of revenue they receive to owners of the music, BandCamp 75%, SoundCloud 80%. Could be slightly better, but it's not outrageous.

The real problems for artists are:

a) they are not the owners of the music, their record label takes most of it, and the rest is split between the artists, songwriters, producers, etc.

b) bad deals with (but good for) the customers - ~10/month for unlimited music too good value

[jzb]

Not sure where you get 75% for Bandcamp. They take a 15% cut for digital sales, 10% for physical, plus processing fees.

Also, they’re not really a streaming service: you can preview a lot of music on the platform, but it’s primarily about buying music. It’s not really a good comparison to Spotify at all.

[maccard]

One of the (only) things I think Spotify gets wrong as a service is they’re too cheap. I pay for prime, Spotify and Netflix in my house - (we occasionally sub Netflix for Disney). A price rise to Netflix or prime would cause us to reconsider, but I think I would stomach Spotify doubling their price quite easily with no change in service.

[manfre]

Counter example, if they raised their price by more than $1-2, I'd cancel it. The music discovery hasn't been great and it mostly suggests playlists of the songs I already listen to. Inertia is the only reason I haven't cancelled and bought all the songs directly

[maccard]

See I think how you feel about Spotify is exactly how I feel about Netflix. I don’t use the discovery of Spotify much, if at all. The value is the catalog.

[nprateem]

They did and I did

[threeseed]

Spotify maybe cheap compared to Netflix.

But it is way overpriced compared to Apple Music (definitely) and Tidal (arguably).

Not having lossless audio and paying artists less is ridiculous.

[maccard]

We have duo for my wife and I, so Spotify is £8.50/month each. Apple Music is £11/mo.

60% of my listening is through a pair of AirPods over Bluetooth, 30% on a Sonos system and 10% using semi decent wired headphones. Lossless isn’t something that is a differentiator for me.

I have some music on both Spotify and Apple Music - the reality is that even with a few thousand streams per month we haven’t even made back the cost of 2 hours of rehearsal space. The reality is that for artists making a living off this, the problem isn’t the difference between 75 and 80% that Spotify holds onto, it’s the fact that the artist only sees 15-20% of what’s left over.

[Lanolderen]

Spotify is already steep in my eyes when I compare it to Netflix. Probably because I'm looking at video bandwidth vs audio bandwidth but paying for music more than you pay for movies feels weird in my monkey brain. No shiny picture, less money monkey say.

[maccard]

For me the value proposition is that there’s zero fragmentation. I know that by paying what I do for Spotify, I have access to pretty much everything. That’s worth a decent premium to me.

The problem with Netflix is the same as console exclusives in video games - fragmenting the ecosystem means I look at the service for the content it has vs the other services. But with Spotify it fills that niche entirely.

[threeseed]

> I know that by paying what I do for Spotify, I have access to pretty much everything

Apple Music, Tidal etc have almost identical libraries.

Catalog size stopped being a differentiator years ago.

[maccard]

I mean compared to video streaming sites - Netflix and prime have vastly different libraries. If Spotify and Apple Music had different libraries to the same degree, id probably bounce between them both and be more price sensitive. The fact that Spotify (and apple and tidal) have the full catalog mean the network effect is likely to be my main decider.

[pclmulqdq]

(a) is the real problem for many of the musicians who have vocally complained about this. If you look at most songs produced by record labels, you will see 5 songwriter credits, 10 producers, and a whole band to pay. Not to mention the army of recording engineers and the marketing staff.

[gwervc]

Those people are doing real work, it's normal they're paid too. If musicians want more for themselves they could cut middlemen and produce and commercialize themselves their music.

[pclmulqdq]

Absolutely, and they are pretty much all equal participants in the creation of the sound you are hearing. It's just one worker (the headline artist) who gets all the attention.

[ClimaxGravely]

It seems to be happening more and more these days. JPEGMafia is a good example

[kalleboo]

Doesn't Spotify still have a free tier? I think that would account for the biggest discrepancy in their payouts.

[Arnt]

But does Spotify pay the same rate to each artist, or does the rate depend on what deal an artist's record company has with Spotify?