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Google admits Spotify pays no Play Store fees because of a secret deal | TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 18 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I like how in a thread discussing how Spotify had been lying about their cost structures you're continuing to take their word for how fairly they compensate artists.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They're a public company, they're required by law to share financial info.

    Do you perhaps have better data though?

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    From what I understand that 70% they're paying artists is from "profit."

    And from another comment in this thread:

    Their last quarterly financial statements shows $65 million profit on $3.36 billion in revenue.

    And then you have stuff like this:

    https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/20/spotify-to-spend-1b-buying-its-own-stock/

    So lets assume they make $65 million in profit every quarter between when that article came out and April 21 2026 (the period the article states they were doing buybacks). I count 18 quarters in that period. So if my math is correct that is $1.17 billion in "profit" in the same period of time they plan to do $1 billion in stock buybacks. But artists are only getting 70% of said profits. So that's about $819 million to artists in the same period of time Spotify is doing $1 billion in stock buybacks.

    So we have a mega corporation playing creative accounting and doing stock buybacks instead of paying artists more. Classic.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    lets assume they make $65 million in profit every quarter

    Where do you get this number from?

    Hasn't Spotify been operating at a loss for most of its existence? Wouldn't that mean they paid 0€ to its creators most quaters (if it was actually calculated off profit)?

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