Is this guy the greediest bitch on the planet?

[Nikki1989]

It’s bad enough that he’s worth BILLIONS based on stealing and giving away other musician’s music... but now he’s suggesting bands make MORE music for HIM to make more money! Stop giving money to the CEO of Spotify and actually give it to the artists themselves for all their hard work. Buy physical media from them. Support them. Cherish being able to hold it, the new smell when opened, actually sitting and reading the lyrics and liner notes, and having ownership of something that exists.

[Lynx122]

Music is not worth a lot of money even without a guy like him. People overestimate how much money music brings in, aside from concerts it's pretty much pennies. People say the movie business is dying but it's still 10 times bigger than the music business so what does that say?

If you wanna support an artist go to their concert and buy a T-shirt or something. But these people willingly joined the music business. They can quit at any point and get a job.

I'm not subscribed to Spotify so I'm not giving him any money, no worries.

[LiamJHayden]

Yes! It takes more than 800,000 streams per month to earn a wage of $15 an hour, so you definitely can’t rely on Spotify royalties, especially as an emerging artist.

[RebelinSteel]

One of the big issues with streaming is that the model is unfair to smaller artists, while for the larger artists they get a crazy amount of money coming in.

The other question is, would the smaller artists have made more money by simply releasing vinyl as it was prior to streaming?

I 100% agree it is unfair and a broken system, this is for all music providers, however it also need to ran as a business and be taxed as such.

A possible solution would be to apply weighting to the downloads in tiers, starting with a higher number upto 100k downloads, then gradually decreasing until you have minor amounts at a billion.

For Ed Sheeran he apparently made $9 million per song on Spotify

Taylor Swift $131 million

however those figures are likely incorrect as the following link shows different numbers

https://routenote.com/blog/highest-earning-spotify-artists/

While yes I would like having physical media, it clogs up rooms after a few years, where as I have a load of Music available on Apple Music and share with family.

I also like being able to have a huge range of music in the car or when jogging or when travelling, so actual physical media would be a big step backwards for me.

What I have not really seen is any real options to change how the streaming pricing works.

I don’t think simply increasing the price per stream works as then those top artists just get even more rich and charge even more for merchandising and tickets.

[Nikki1989]

Between my husband and I we have over 25,000 CD's and over 10,000 vinyl, and we have room for it in our average 3-bedroom house, so I don't buy the not enough room excuse that people keep bringing up.

[RebelinSteel]

How many kids do you have?
For a couple with an average of 2 kids in a 3 bedroom house,
A record box holds between 50-100 records, that’s 200-100 record boxes, with each box being circa 33cm by 33cm, that is a lot of area solely for records.

I don’t have kids but I would not have that much clutter.
Also how do you manage to play in the car.

Final one is plastics, a move to vinyl globally would dramatically increase environmental waste.

Anyhow what is your suggestion other than vinyl to make streaming fairer across the board?
Paying a higher price per stream is great for top artists.
How many artists would not be discovered without streaming is another side to it all.

[Nikki1989]

We have no kids. We just a room we converted into a music library.

[RebelinSteel]

So what other than vinyl, cds etc would work?
I fully agree your starting artists and those not hitting the billions are not being paid enough.
But John and his mates release a record, it would need radio air time to be heard outside of their home town.
With streaming they get a wider audience, there are likely artists around now that would have never succeeded waiting for radio air time for a cd they released.
If the streaming for artists were increased say 10 times, should the likes of Taylor Swift benefit for a 10x increase in her profits?
As I said, I agree they are not paid enough and Streaming companies are milking them, however what is the fix to make it fair?

[SueShe]

You don't get rich by being kind. That applies to practically everyone that has a lot of money and stating with people like Elon Musk that has stepped all over his employees.

Every single billionaire on this planet has, at one given time, misused other people for his sole benefit. However, there are also good men and women among them that recognized that they cannot take their money into their grave. People like Bill Gates have donated a lot of money for charity but before that, a lot of those self-made billionaires were totally corrupt.

I am not aware of how this guy proceeds but it is a known fact that artists don't get the recognition for their hard labor. This is unfortunately how capitalism works in many areas of the world where putting money in your own pocket is more important than giving recognition and an appropriate wage to those that make you rich in the first place.

[Nikki1989]

Spotify currently is only paying $0.00437 per song stream. It is obscene.

[SeriouslyNotSerious]

Great insight as always, @sueshe! 👏

[SueShe]

The problem is that those artists cannot afford not to be misused and exploited as it represents one of the very few chances to become known.

[SueShe]

@SeriouslyNotSerious Thank you for your kindness :-)

[Grond21]

I don't think Bill Gates is a good example of a quality billionaire at all, given out he has exploited and killed so many people in the developed world.
But you are right that there are a lot of businesses that are leveraging their Monopoly against the creators. Amazon is a good example of this too. They are greeting a stranglehold on authors and it's pissing a lot of people off

[WhiteSteve]

Even worse, I play hockey with the cousins of the guy who developed Napster all those years ago. They more or less run the league, and they play on one team sponsored by the guy’s new company. The Napster guy pays for everything for them, uniforms, league fees, etc. He’s off in Silicon Valley somewhere getting paid to put his name on the next failing company. The cousins all had officer roles in Napster and I think are pretty rich from it, although their aesthetic is like “thought you were in biker gang at first but realized you’re just a World Of Warcraft computer nerd with a long scraggly beard”, lmao. One will always have a handle of Fireball whiskey in one hand😂

[Iron_Man]

Go Panthers on Saturday night

[WhiteSteve]

@Iron_Man Yeah, good luck to the Cats, man👍

[Iron_Man]

Thanks they have a good chance this year

[Kaneki05]

Your failing to see a bigger picture here, Spotify still significantly helps Artists and there is many good reasons why such sign up to Spotify in the first place.
Do you really think big named artists would care to use Spotify if it didn't benefit them in a good enough way? Do you think anyone would?
I'll give you some time to think more about this maybe you'll come to realize what your missing and the fact they willingly sign up knowing it's going to benefit them greatly.

[Nikki1989]

I couldn't care less about big-named artists. They will make their money regardless. Think outside the box occasionally. I know many people in bands and almost all of their income comes from merch. Almost none comes from streaming services.

[Kaneki05]

Oh my so you don't even know what small creators get from Spotify when they are the ones who in fact benefit the most from it?
Indeed that's how they make income, merch and tours. Do you know how more people come to know of them to buy such merch and become a fan in the first place?

[RetroReviews]

Many individuals and companies are greedy, for music go to the mode earn app not only is it free but it pays you to listen to your favorite tunes I can't post the link cuz g a g has a tissy about it will say I'm spamming anybody interested you can DM me I can send you the link there

[Friendlybro79]

I don't know enough but honestly every artist should be allowed to sell their own digital copies of their music on their own website and bypass all these platforms. They should be allowed to make way more off every download.

So many talented artists get screwed. If it were up to me we'd give them a way to incentivize them better than CEOs.

[AngryCarl]

The music industry soiled itself when they forcibly replaced LPs (which were fun to own) with CDs (which were overpriced shit). I have sympathy for the artists but the industry has been screwing them over from day one. The industry lost control of the music, deservedly so.

I don't use Spotify, I don't see a need for it. If you want to support a band go see them live, buy a shirt.

[superchan2011]

That's how a lot of rich people are. Greedy and selfish as fuck.

[Agape93]

I'd say martin shkreli. Taking life essential medication and jacking up the price

[DrPepper12]

Amen!!! Preach!!! These pricks along with ticketmaster have DESTROYED live music and disincentivized artists from creating new stuff. $.0002 a play isn't worth it and that's what top tier artists make!!

[TommyMountainFigure]

I wouldn't touch Spotify with a barge pole. In fact, I still prefer to play and mix vinyl than any other media!

[Sonorous]

I enjoy over 3,365 tracks from various artists. If I tried to support all of them in the way you provide, I'd go in major debt.

[Bklynbadboy12]

I've never heard of him and I don't use any of this pay music sites cause I have satellite radio in my cars

[pethouse]

I hate Spotify! I usually resort to YouTube. Spotify be playing to many damn adds.

[Enginn]

Spotify is promoting their music. If bands want to work with them then I think thats their choice.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

Yes, it looks like it.

[AviatorTom]

I don't use Spotify

[loveslongnails]

I've never used Spotify nor would I ever.