Not sure what your proposed solutions are other than buy vinyl? Artists with the power and wealth to do so could collectively remove their music from the worst offender. Currently that is Spotify. If a lot more artists left when Neil and Joni did, Spotify might of cratered and things could of been a little better for everyone (except Joe Rogan). Then they could focus on next worst offender. If you cannot get the wealthiest artists to go againt their own financial interests at least temporarily, fans won’t either. That is why i focus on the sound quality. Not many fans are going to focus on how much each streamer pays, but something like lack of lossless streaming in 2023 has caused many to leave.
Bandcamp seemed to try and rely on benevolent consumers…that never works on even a moderate scale let alone something to replace the big streamers. Just like with the hollywood strikes, it really requires collective action of witholding your serices/content to have meaningful impact on the distribution of said content.
Boycotts are the customers best solution, but they really only work on a large scale if the alternatives are palatable to customers. Hence my recommendation to leave spotify for a somewhat better streamer.
Anyone ever suggest you shouldn’t shit on others proposed solutions/steps unless you have something alternative to propose?
People pay more all the time just because they think something is of higher quality, even if it isn’t. I mean that is like half the marketing industry. In this case, lossless is clearly higher quality and has absolutely driven people away from spotify to lossless formats, at a minimal additional costs to the consumer. That rate of lossless adoption by customers might be higher if there weren’t apologists continuing to convince people you cannot tell the difference.
You asked why people would move, and its absolutely higher quantity at minimal if any increased price. How many people can tell the difference doesn’t matter, it only matters how many people think they can tell the difference, and everyone likes to think they are special.
And i never mentioned Tidal…whos cost was never competitive. Amazon Unlimited at $11 a month ($10 with Prime) for HD and ultra HD and Apple at $11 is the same price as Spotify Premium. I’m very happy to see Amazon Unlimited, the service I use is over 3x the payout as Spotify on your spreadsheet. Based on that I’m at a loss why you don’t suggest to everyone to switch to Amazon Unlimited?
And you are ignoring what started all this, Spotifys potential plan to demonitze the bottom 0.5% if its streams. Given the 80/20 rule, that will likely impact much more than 0.5% of artists on spotify. If they face no material consequences in lost customers or important artists, do you think they will stop there? If they are successful, how many other services will follow suit?
0.000001% is so disingenuous. As is your partial quote of and not understanding my first paragraph. Discussing anything further seems to be pointless with you, and since you run this board and are the most active member I guess I’ll be the one to leave.
Still less than what I pay ($22.99 US, $32.99 AUD = $21.22 USD today).
No Tidal out there?
Do you have the family plan bundle? I’m only paying $14 USD for YouTube Music but I love it. The conversion @Listening_Wind did is the family plan price of YouTube music here in the US. We already got hit with a price increase in thr last few months…
I already watched a bunch of YouTube so the “included” YouTube Premium was worth it for me. Beyond that, YouTube Music lets you play YouTube videos directly like a streaming service. You could of course always access YouTube videos for free but I like being able to basically stream long sets certain bands beyond Gizz put on YouTube. This lets me make awesome playlists of live music that you wont find streaming anywhere except for Nugs.
I honestly have no idea how much YouTube Music pays musicians. I always feel caught in that idea from the Good Place that as a modern human its almost impossible to trace how ethical you’re being and get there completely. At the end of the day, I’m giving Google money, or Jeff Bezos money, or Songtradr money, etc… I try to support my local scene as much as I can through show coverage and buying merch since I get free media tickets and that will be (and has always been?) the best way to support the bands.
I sympathize with all of you however: the jaws of Capatalism are trying to squeeze further on art and it sucks… That’s why I love Gizz trying to make the industry sustainable in more ways than one. If only we could seperate them from Ticketmaster venues…
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Also, for me YT Premium is worth it just to remove the ads from the video side. I watch a LOT of concert videos on there.
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Yes I had family YouTube premium, which as you’ve established contained other benefits over just Spotify vs YouTube Music. I was already compromising on price for those, so a further ~50% increase on top of that just isn’t worth it. Especially when the rest of the ‘family’ were not yet sold on switching from Spotify.
Yep, I go to local shows, buy merch (favouring independent artists), occasionally buy digital on Bandcamp, and promote the fuck out of independent music in general.
‘FML’ was an exaggeration. It was nice to not support the lowest artist paying service for a bit, but I’m not hung up on my share of their shitty ethos and practise. I don’t even use a lot of the service (such as algorithmic playlists). The business of music has been fucking over artists for as long as it has existed.
There’s a lot of misconceptions with how Spotify pays distributors (again, they don’t pay artists)… and this is a pretty good write up from someone in the industry. Really makes that stereogum article embarassingly alarmist/misinformation.
I’m not saying Spotify is perfect (again, I am an employee I have bias) but the royalty pay out model is pretty complicated… ultimately this new royalty payouts will really benefit those artists who currently earn more than $3 per year from Spotify. Unfortunately those who do not earn $3/year from Spotify will not be paid out, but overall it’s good for up and coming artists who can get that 1,501st stream per year. They will make more money than they did before this policy was implemented.
Compare this policy to Youtube Music where you have to have 4,000 hours of content watched before you start earning money and I think this is pretty practical.
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We call growth for the sake of growth cancer… I was sad to see this all develop with Bandcamp. People taking a good model that was good because of the way that it was and changing it to “innovate”, “cut costs”, “loot and run”, whatever. If you’re not at the top of the charts or the top of the news headlines, you’re doing something wrong, ESPECIALLY if you’re not publically traded.
We had a venture capital firm do a similar thing to my last company. Buy up majority control, squeeze what they could by stressing and underfunding a good labor and capital equipment pool that worked, and then levae someone else with the wreckage once they either A. Accomplished their financial goals or B. Leave a good company with a tarnished legacy as they pull back out after realizing they cant make their financial goals. I was told when that company moved in, they said something along the lines of “dont take this personally, this is just our line of business”.
Well, find a new fucking business leeches…