[josefritzishere]

Spotify is ardently anti-consumer and anti-artist. Their business model extracts revenue by siphoning off artist royalties through label rev-share and then compounds the issue by restricting royalty payouts. Further siphoning off revenue by loading the playlist with AI-trash is not even their worst offense. They're a company begging for an artist boycott.

[izacus]

Yeah, can't wait to go back to Sony installing rootkits on my playback device to make sure we don't pirate their CDs.

[bdcravens]

Isn't this the result of consumers devaluing art? We want a $12 all you can eat plan, which tends to favor package contracts on the supply side. The direct-to-consumer model for music has been mostly rejected.

[steveBK123]

Consumers want fast & cheap then want to find fault and point fingers when it isn't good.

By historical norms, music is hilariously cheap. And $12 isn't even the floor, you can get a $17 couples plan, or a $20 family plan split 6 ways. Or $6 for students and they throw in Hulu TV with it! And theres are 2025 dollars.

In peak CD mall rat era, Northeast HCOL area minimum wages were $5, gas was $2/gal and CDs were $20+ for new releases, each. Or inflating that $20, is $38/album in 2025 dollars. And teens with allowances and/or jobs would buy more than 1 per month.

No matter how the pie is sliced up, there just isn't that much revenue coming in the front door.

[pixl97]

Did (most) consumers ever value art? There has always been the very wealthy that commission art, but it seems like throughout history more for less is the typical behavior.

[roywiggins]

Well, the 90s, I guess.

https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/

[Kuinox]

This is the result of companies screwing over consumers for years.

[mingus88]

The model to look to is bandcamp

[roywiggins]

Sony being bad doesn't mean Spotify isn't also bad.

[izacus]

No, it means that Spotify is way way better - for both us, the consumers, and the authors which can reach way more audience way cheaper than through the old publishers.

[mvdtnz]

A DRM scheme from 20 years ago is not the one and only alternative to Spotify.

[ghaff]

I can 99.999…% guarantee that if you buy a CD and rip it today you won’t be rootkitted.

[izacus]

No, you're right - any modern alternative is going to be massively more invasive and abusive to conumers than CDs ever were. And it'll only work on one or two brands of players.