[arnvald]

I’d love to see a streaming service where my payment goes to artists I listen to.

Spotify pays 70% of their music revenue to publishers based on the total number of listens. All revenue is put together and split based on the global numbers. Which means that niche band I like will get next to nothing. Instead if they account for 50% of my listening time in one month, they should get 35% of what I paid to Spotify that month. Unfortunately big labels will never agree to that.

[darkwater]

But, unless they put some thresholds on minimum listens, isn't basically the same thing what they do and what you propose?

35% of 1 is the same as 0.000000035 of 10.000.000

[squeaky-clean]

If you and I both pay $10/mo to listen to Spotify, and we are the only subscribers. If I listen to 1 song by Sabrina Carpenter, and you listen to 99 songs by Taylor Swift. Then of our $20 (after Spotify's share) 1% of the money will go to Sabrina and 99% of the money will go to Taylor. Because Taylor was played 99x more than Sabrina. Even though for both of us as users, our respective artist was 100% of our listening.

It doesn't calculate your amount of listening and determine the payout based on that. All listens are pooled together and all subscription money is pooled together. And the payout is determined based on that.

[collabs]

No, because let's say OP pays USD 10 and listens to only one song one time -- obviously, Linkin Park In the end -- right now, the payout is almost nothing.

With OP proposal, they would get USD 7.

[PunchyHamster]

no. if you listen only to niche musicians, all of the fee goes to most popular one regardless.

It also promotes botting, as spotify only counts listens, bot listening a ton to a fraudulent artist will siphon money away from essentially everyone.

"Money only goes to artists you listen" would be very good change

[mikepurvis]

Not all listens show the same intention. If I go to the barbershop and they're playing Spotify top-40 playlists running all day long, that is very different from me actively choosing what I want to listen to for a few hours a months while I'm listening in my car, or putting on Friends Per Second while doing the dishes.

My $7/mo should be going to the artists I actually chose to listen to, not the stuff that droned passively for hours in background environments. Particularly when I'm actually a high margin customer for Spotify; the cost to them of my subscription is low since I spend so little time on the service. That makes it all the more galling that my subscription cost is mostly going to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.

[darkwater]

I mean, I understand and agree, and I'm pretty sure that Spotify Premium users are very skewed towards less mainstream tastes, so I agree it would be better for smaller artists and would probably change the power balance (well, if we forget that music labels exist). But yeah, if as others pointed out you were to give 70% of your subscription cost to the artist that composed/performed the single track you listened this month, it would be very different.

[iso1631]

It would be better.

If my listening is to Ed Sheeran for 9 hours a day and I pay $10, spotify take $3 for a platform fee, and Ed should get 10% of the rest - $7

If your listening is to Dave Smith for 1 hour a day and you pay $10, spotify take $3 for a platform fee, and Dave should get 10% of the rest - $7

That would be a fair way of distributing the revenue

But it's not. Instead Ed Sheeran gets 90% of listens and Dave Smith 10%, the listen pot is $14, so Ed gets $12.60 and Dave gets $1.40

[mikepurvis]

At the end of the day, indies need to be on Spotify much more than Spotify needs them there. But for mainstream artists, it's the opposite; so the representatives of top-40 artists are the ones dictating the terms of how the system works for everyone, and unsurprisingly the system they've settled on is one that seems fair enough as long as you don't think too deeply about it, but ensures that the biggest slice of the pie goes to themselves.

[collabs]

To play the devil's advocate, if we do this, your favorite artist will get paid less if you listen to others using Spotify radio shuffle feature vs if you stay on the artist page and only listen to that one artist?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[AlecSchueler]

If you listen to the artist less then they will receive less of your money. What's the issue you're seeing there?

[arnvald]

Well, if I listen to a shuffle radio then the artists I listen to will get paid, right? Which I’m fine with, it’s not that I want to support one specific artist (I can buy their album or merch if that’s my goal), I just want the money I pay to go to artists I listen to, not to the people from top charts that I don’t care about

[rcxdude]

That sounds like the intended effect. I think the objection is that the user's payment is being diluted by all the other listeners. Someone who listens to spotify constantly is going to influence the payouts much more than someone who listens to it occasionally, even though they are paying the same amount to spotify and the latter user might have only subscribed to listen to one band.

[QuercusMax]

How bout this: artists whose songs are played on shuffle only get a small percentage compared to those who users play on purpose.

[munksbeer]

I'm not sure I follow your logic.

100 people subscribe to spotify and listen for 100 hours a month each, for $10 a month. You listen to your favourite artist for 50 hours and other stuff for 50 hours. No-one else listens to your favourite artist.

I assume that if this is band is treated as the "average" Total listening hours = 100 * 100 = 10,00. Total money: 100 * 10 = $1,000. They get: 50 / 10,000 * $1,000 = $5

That seems fair? Obviously some bands won't have negotiating power when they first start and might get less, or some get more, but that feels like how the industry always worked, and not something to do with spotify?

[Dylan16807]

You don't see the problem because you're using the same number of hours for everyone. When you have some accounts using 500 hours and others using 50 there are problems. And the 500 hour account is more likely on autopilot and reinforcing whatever's already popular.

[munksbeer]

Why is that unfair? Do the maths for me please?

[arnvald]

Let’s say I listen to 10h a month of a single artist, nothing else. So 100% of my payment (minus Spotify take) should go to that artist.

Let’s say you listen 90h to another artist, and nothing else.

In the current model both artists are put together, 100h and let’s say $20 to split. Your artist gets 90% because they’ve been listened to for 90h, so they get $18 and my artist gets $2

In my model my artist gets $10 because they get 100% of what I pay and your artist gets $10 because they get 100% of what you pay.

The difference is 50/50 vs 90/10 split

[munksbeer]

Ah right, I get it now, thanks.

[HDThoreaun]

The unfairness comes when you spend an abnormal amount of time listening. If you listen less than the average user then the bands you like won't be getting x% of your money that lines up with your listening habits.

[munksbeer]

Why is that unfair? Do the maths for me please?

[sidrag22]

I always thought it was a really cool idea to bridge the spotify streaming idea with local style purchasing, so say 10$ a month and the user gets ~3$ per month of that to "buy" media. so it defaults initially to their most played artist unless they indicate they want to buy something in particular instead.

Artists get big cuts when people buy their music, and if people decide to cancel their paid subscription, they still have the bought media available with no predatory gating like spotify uses to try to coerce people to resubscribing.

[lacy_tinpot]

Listening is no longer profitable. Artists cannot sell listening. What they can sell are live performances.

Digital music just becomes marketing for live performances.