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[-] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 1 points 3 hours ago

This is meaningless without sources.

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 47 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

ok, this is pretty outdated. I looked up around 15 different sites from the last 12 months, and is looks the common ground regarding payouts is like this:

  1. Bandcamp $0.85-$1.00 (via sales)
  2. Qobuz $0.0136-$0.022
  3. Tidal $0.012-$0.015
  4. Apple Music $0.007-$0.01
  5. Deezer $0.006-$0.009
  6. Amazon Music $0.004-$0.007
  7. Spotify $0.003-$0.005
  8. SoundCloud $0.0025-$0.004
  9. YouTube Music $0.005-$0.008
  10. Patreon (hybrid) $5-$50+ per subscriber

But there are some quirks with that list. Deezer for example, landing in the middle of the pack in general, has some rules since 2023 that are very pro-artist:

  • Artists with at least 1,000 monthly streams from 500 listeners get double weight in the royalty pool.
  • Streams earn more when a listener searches for your song than when an algorithm queues it up.
  • White noise, rain sounds, and other non-music content came out of the pool entirely, so those royalties now go to actual songs.
  • They are based in France, so the BuyEuropean crowd is also satisfied.

Spotify pays shit for single streams, but if you hit it big, you will also receive a lot more cash, making them more attractive for artist with an already existing fanbase.

Soundcloud on the other hand works pretty well to build up an fan base in the first place, during the time where you realistically can't expect to be living from royalities anyways.

Bandcamp is actually great if you are known enough to get album sales, but not known enough to hit big streaming numbers. (also known as "the bands that are probably worth listening to, while not being mainstream")

Patreon gives a steady income, but it also means more of an youtuber-style of life than an classic Musician - it puts you under pressure to put out content on a regular basis, and that is not every artists strength.

[-] justabaldguy@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago

I like this, thank you for the effort you put into making it.

A neat separate study would be of user experiences. I tried desperately to use Tidal but everything about it was inferior (for me) to Spotify. Bandcamp is at the top of the list, but my word they're even worse for finding, searching, and organizing playlists.

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[-] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Why is the list not sorted?

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 3 points 22 hours ago

sorry, i switched up tidal and qobuz. fixed now. Youtube is below because it is a music video platform, meaning that the amount of work you have to put in is quite a bit larger.

[-] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

Ah okay, makes sense I suppose. Thanks for explaining.

[-] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Yeah, it is not directly comparable in the case of Youtube. You might get by providing some static background or a loop for the video part, but let's be honest, if you are subscribing to Youtube for music, you expect full blown music videos, and it will hurt your numbers if you don't provide that.

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[-] Zannsolo@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

We are single handily putting cocomelon's wheels on the bus people's kids through college from streams in my house.

[-] BreadOven@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

This is far too outdated. OP should be ashamed. I wish Google play music still existed. Way better than YouTube.

[-] NegentropicBoy@lemmy.world 255 points 1 day ago

At bandcamp.com you buy the track or album and the artist gets about 85% of the money

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 99 points 1 day ago

Isn't there still Bandcamp Fridays where 100% goes to the artist?

[-] head_node@lemmy.world 62 points 1 day ago

There is. I don't think it's every Friday, but it's announced well in advance. A nice carrot to go grab everything you've been meaning to...

[-] phant@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago

Yep. Currently it's the first Friday of roughly 8 months in the year. Next one is the 7thof August.

[-] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 25 points 1 day ago

One time.com, at bandcamp.com

[-] nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago

If you're old enough to get this joke, your back hurts

[-] BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 5 points 1 day ago

Hey! Some of us watched that movie when we were four

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[-] Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

I thought bandcamp got bought out or changed some policy that everyone said bandcamp is going downhill?

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[-] squirrel@cake.kobel.fyi 98 points 1 day ago

Qobuz is missing and would be no. 1

[-] BevsDad@lemmy.ca 64 points 1 day ago

#2 at US$0.01873 but yeah. Definitely not mad that's where I'm spending my streaming money.

[-] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago

Qobuz ftw..... no money to the US (besides artist or record label i suppose), good quality. Don't feel like I'm sacrificing at all

[-] AWizard_ATrueStar@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Been thinking about Qobuz. I cancelled Spotify a couple years ago now and have just been relying on physical media and bandcamp, but I have been considering giving this a try. Any good?

[-] Tujio@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago

Good selection, but their algorithm wasn't great. Ex. I would be listening to a metal song, and it would pull up Rolling Stones next. Yes those are both things I enjoy listening to, but if I'm blasting Korpiklaani, I'm probably not in the mood for Beast of Burden.

Not too much of an issue, since I usually listen to albums, but still annoying. I've had much better luck with Tidal's algorithm.

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[-] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 64 points 1 day ago

Google Play Music hasn't been a thing since 2020. I doubt these numbers are accurate anymore.

[-] IMALlama@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

I was thinking the exact same. YouTube music just isn't the same and they can't stop messing with the UI.

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[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

Bandcamp (on which you can stream music): 100%

[-] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago

Ive been out of the loop for a long time, but Napster pays more than "reputable" services?

What a timeline

[-] dressedandconfused@mtgzone.com 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Napster switched from music to AI agents earlier this year

[-] Wispy2891@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

They pay this to the actual musician or to the publishers that will then give even less to the real artist?

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 22 hours ago

I suspect that depends on whether you're self-published or have a record deal somewhere.

[-] GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You should see how much money artists make from the sale of a physical album - may as well be nothing. It all goes to publishers, distributors, execs, producers, marketers, and everyone apart from the artist. Decades ago when albums were AUD$30, about $3 of that made its way to the actual artist if they were lucky.

Artists haven’t made money from their music sales since long before streaming was a thing. They’ve always made almost all of their money from concert ticket sales and merchandise sold at shows.

While getting virtually nothing for all the times their music is streamed might seem bad, it isn’t looking at the whole picture. More streams = more fans = more concert ticket and merch sales. Streaming services are a net positive for artists overall.

[-] groats_survivor@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Your examplewould be #1 on OPs list by an order of magnitude

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[-] dressedandconfused@mtgzone.com 9 points 1 day ago

This info is outdated, Napster does not do music anymore. I spent five years using it, but last year more and more tracks started disappearing from the database, to the point the service was unusable, and when I went on their website to unsubscribe I saw they were no mention of music strraming, just their AI agents productivity stuff.

[-] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 day ago

Has anyone seen how AI-pilled Napster is now? Their home page makes me wanna throw up.

[-] krashmo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago
[-] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 9 points 1 day ago

No it doesn't, but someone bought the name and started a completely new music thing with that name

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[-] vrek@programming.dev 34 points 1 day ago

Wait... Napster still exists?

[-] comador@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

Yup https://www.napster.com/

They're very AI centric these days, but their streaming service isn't bad.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 40 points 1 day ago

well that's an utterly horrifying page

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[-] pricklypearbear@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

The site confused me on what Napster is trying to be.

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[-] kurmudgeon@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

How do you stream music from Google Play? I know that you can stream music with YouTube, but Google Play?

[-] blayde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 day ago

This is referencing Google Play Music from back before it was shutdown in favor of YouTube Music. In that case, this is from around 10 years ago give or take

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[-] vogi@piefed.social 24 points 1 day ago

At least for Spotify you can't really set a price per stream as they use a fixed money pool all artist take from. The most probable reason behind that is so Spotify can commission their own music (or nowadays just generate it) which they then push to the front page so they can pay themselves and do not have to pay as much to real artists.

They were accused of doing just that in multiple occasions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_on_Spotify

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[-] assembly@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago

Except I have like 12k streams on Spotify and have never gotten anything from them. I have a small number on other platforms and have received at least something from them.

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[-] kingofras@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Overly complicated industry presented as overly simplistic graphic gets tons of votes from uneducated denizens. More at 11.

To name one thing: each of these uses a different definition for what a stream constitutes.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

What pisses me off about this was a video I saw on youtube a few years ago. Originally recorded from a twitch stream.

Snoop dogg was to be interviewed by some music promotion stream. He showed up 45 minutes late, and when the host was interviewing him, he asked why snoop was so late. To which snoop responded with something like "DAAAAMN! I'M HERE, AIN'T I??? DON'T WORRY WHY I'M LATE! YOU ASKIN STUPID QUESTIONS! I GET HERE WHEN I WANT TO GET HERE! THIS IS RIGHT ON TIME!!!! WE WENT TO GO GET CHICKEN! CAN'T A MAN GO GET CHICKEN???"

Then later in the interview they asked him about when he was going to release a new album. And he responded by going off on a rant about how albums don't make money. Then he started saying all he made from spotify from people playing Doggystyle (the album that made him famous back in 1993) was $42,000 in a month.

He was complaining about getting $42,000 from an album that came out almost 30 years prior at that point. All he did was grant spotify the right to stream his music. He didn't record new music. He didn't make some new project. All he did was sign a contract to make passive money from songs that were recorded a decade before most listeners were even born.

I lost all respect for him when he casually dismissed an entire year worth of some peoples pay, to be paid to him monthly, for doing nothing. He acted entitled that it wasn't enough. That it was insultingly low pay for a month of work.

As much as he's wrong to take that tone, I'm not defending spotify either. They've been caught, multiple times, creating fictional AI bands, so the small amount they do pay, they don't have to pay. The idea was to slowly push real artists out, and create new pop culture icons discovered through their app. Which they don't have to pay for ever.

I don't know what the plan is if ever their plan had worked, and people started demanding a tour.

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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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