I refuse to subscribe to any streaming services. Fortunately I have enough music on vinyl, cd and digital format. Some of it I have not listened to yet.
Everything that Spotify (and similar) does is solely in service of the listener, which by design makes this near-impossible to fight. People LOVE it… and when I explain the artist’s perspective, even the genuinely sympathetic don’t change their listening behavior.
There are streaming services which feature artist payouts 10+ times larger per stream than Spotify. The one I use is Qobuz. It helps, too, that there's no billionaire CEO that needs to be paid.
The fact that people hear "streaming" and immediately think "Spotify" is heartbreaking. It's hard to believe that this platform has dominated so quickly and thoroughly, given that its only benefits vs. other streaming platforms are "social sharing" and its sheer ubiquity. Even if its artist payouts were far better, those features would be some pretty weak tea indeed ...
I figure that since streaming is not going anywhere, I'm trying to support the best factors within that technology.
Thing is, Spotify dominates market share and once you add in Apple, Amazon, and Tencent there’s hardly anything else that registers. Qobuz doesn’t even show up on our royalty statements, neither does Tidal…
Yes -- I agree that the situation is dire. I've done my best to be very public about it and talked to people who started with Spotify out of sheer ignorance and never even knew how bad the platform is for anyone other than the company's top brass. I've converted a few and will continue to do so.
Much of the value generated by artists comes from rewarding the technology (the streaming platforms), rather than the main players, the artists themselves.
The web3 brings some hope for an artist-centered model. 🤟
I think the solution is political, as it always has been, not technological - we need a voice at the negotiating table and we need regulation. This is a problem of labor v capital. Web3 is already awash in capital and seems destined to duplicate all the same problems.
Blockchain is a useful toolset when applied to the right problems. Venture capital is the primary game master behind the web3 zeitgeist — and that mechanism gave us Spotify. New music is the property of its creators in search of direct distribution to listeners. It is a tractable problem when you start to think about who actually creates and owns and controls the intellectual property.
I agree, except for the part about "in search of direct distribution." The community we have for analog sales includes many valuable partners for musicians: stores, distributors, labels... they all can claim a well deserved share of our physical sales. Part of what I think has gone wrong in digital is the systematic elimination of that community. This has only served to concentrate power and income in fewer and fewer hands in the industry.
You are not wrong. My comment about direct distribution should be more nuanced. The very small payouts to music creators are an issue for me, in part, because they discourage new work. From an economic perspective the problem is one of massive transaction costs. From an engineering perspective, this is a friction problem. Because music is both a gift and a commodity, I also regard it as a political and ethical problem.
I also mourn the loss of the community I think you're talking about -- the one that existed way back in analogue times. What I hope and work for is not a revival of that community (it is gone), but the conception and birth and health of a new one.
Another delicious post which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The Guardian did a good job coming to the nub of the problem on the slightly unrelated topic of dynamic ticket pricing.
“Music streaming services such as Spotify have all but destroyed artists’ ability to earn money through album sales. That means country-hopping tours have become a much more important revenue stream. In that sense, an Oasis fan who streams Don’t Look Back in Anger without paying for it is partly complicit in the eye-watering mark-up they might be charged to see the Gallagher brothers actually perform it.”
I refuse to subscribe to any streaming services. Fortunately I have enough music on vinyl, cd and digital format. Some of it I have not listened to yet.
Everything that Spotify (and similar) does is solely in service of the listener, which by design makes this near-impossible to fight. People LOVE it… and when I explain the artist’s perspective, even the genuinely sympathetic don’t change their listening behavior.
Interesting
Yeah total bs.... screw Spotify and the rest.... I’ll be giving NFT$ a shot asap. Can’t be any worse.
There are streaming services which feature artist payouts 10+ times larger per stream than Spotify. The one I use is Qobuz. It helps, too, that there's no billionaire CEO that needs to be paid.
The fact that people hear "streaming" and immediately think "Spotify" is heartbreaking. It's hard to believe that this platform has dominated so quickly and thoroughly, given that its only benefits vs. other streaming platforms are "social sharing" and its sheer ubiquity. Even if its artist payouts were far better, those features would be some pretty weak tea indeed ...
I figure that since streaming is not going anywhere, I'm trying to support the best factors within that technology.
Thing is, Spotify dominates market share and once you add in Apple, Amazon, and Tencent there’s hardly anything else that registers. Qobuz doesn’t even show up on our royalty statements, neither does Tidal…
Yes -- I agree that the situation is dire. I've done my best to be very public about it and talked to people who started with Spotify out of sheer ignorance and never even knew how bad the platform is for anyone other than the company's top brass. I've converted a few and will continue to do so.
Much of the value generated by artists comes from rewarding the technology (the streaming platforms), rather than the main players, the artists themselves.
The web3 brings some hope for an artist-centered model. 🤟
Thanks but I’m wary of expecting tech to solve problems created by tech
I agree but this technology is decentralized and gives back the independence to the artists in the basic element, the price of their music
I think the solution is political, as it always has been, not technological - we need a voice at the negotiating table and we need regulation. This is a problem of labor v capital. Web3 is already awash in capital and seems destined to duplicate all the same problems.
Blockchain is a useful toolset when applied to the right problems. Venture capital is the primary game master behind the web3 zeitgeist — and that mechanism gave us Spotify. New music is the property of its creators in search of direct distribution to listeners. It is a tractable problem when you start to think about who actually creates and owns and controls the intellectual property.
I agree, except for the part about "in search of direct distribution." The community we have for analog sales includes many valuable partners for musicians: stores, distributors, labels... they all can claim a well deserved share of our physical sales. Part of what I think has gone wrong in digital is the systematic elimination of that community. This has only served to concentrate power and income in fewer and fewer hands in the industry.
You are not wrong. My comment about direct distribution should be more nuanced. The very small payouts to music creators are an issue for me, in part, because they discourage new work. From an economic perspective the problem is one of massive transaction costs. From an engineering perspective, this is a friction problem. Because music is both a gift and a commodity, I also regard it as a political and ethical problem.
I also mourn the loss of the community I think you're talking about -- the one that existed way back in analogue times. What I hope and work for is not a revival of that community (it is gone), but the conception and birth and health of a new one.
Absolute fire.
Another delicious post which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The Guardian did a good job coming to the nub of the problem on the slightly unrelated topic of dynamic ticket pricing.
“Music streaming services such as Spotify have all but destroyed artists’ ability to earn money through album sales. That means country-hopping tours have become a much more important revenue stream. In that sense, an Oasis fan who streams Don’t Look Back in Anger without paying for it is partly complicit in the eye-watering mark-up they might be charged to see the Gallagher brothers actually perform it.”
https://substack.com/@simonjcampbell/note/c-67506357