Technology

Sometimes, I see some of the takes on here, and it's hardly surprising that the fediverse isn't particularly popular.

Spotify are somewhat responsible for their current position. They hired too many people, extended into markets they didn't need to enter, and have a CEO that has blown money in places that didn't need it. Let's not forget that Spotify spent $300m on sponsoring FC Barcelona, which could have allowed Spotify to employ ALL of the employees it laid off for 1-2 years. Spotify had no need to give $200m to Joe Rogan, either! That's half a billion spunked up the wall on decisions that have done nothing for the company but cause grief. Instead, they could have focused their efforts on paying more out to smaller artists that provide the long tail for their service, while also making deals to promote merch and tour dates where possible.

With that being said, if you think that Spotify didn't play a huge part in making music streaming accessible you're just being contrarian for no reason. They provided (at the time) a solid application, good connectivity with services like last.fm, and had the social connection sorted from the start. Once phones took off, Spotify removed the need for mp3's for the majority of people, largely killing iTunes. Spotify was the winner of the music streaming wars.

Frankly, a lot of people were praising Spotify for their "good" severance package, but IMO shareholders should be livid, and should be calling for a new person at the helm.

I call bullshit. Yeah I'm sure they spend 2/3 of their income on rights holders, mainly Joe Rogan, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.

The average musician isn't making shit, and yet the spotify execs are sipping champagne.

Man, a lot of people here don't understand how the music industry works. From the perspective of someone who's been loosely following the music industry, what I've learned is that it doesn't matter if Spotify gave up 2/3rds of their revenue, or 100% of it, the artists would still make fuck all.

Why?

The labels love taking their cuts and as a result, artists make very little. Instead of taking the blame for giving artists a <10% cut of the label's revenue from their music (my understanding is that it's pretty common for musicians to get <10%, sometimes <5% if you're on a particularly shitty label), the labels are blaming platforms like Spotify.

Now, I'm not saying that Spotify is blameless, however I think there's a lot of misdirection from the labels going on. I don't remember anyone complaining about pre-spotify services like Pandora Radio for not paying out enough when they were largely ad-supported, which is another reason I'm not totally buying the, "it's cause it's free" argument either.

Fuck, remember Pandora?

I'll take "Unethical accounting" for 500, Alex

And the artists still don't really make shit from it.

How is this news? The price you pay for media of any kind I can think of goes mostly to the rights holders, not the companies physically delivering it to you. You may object to the rights holders being shitty record labels, but that term also includes independent artists. And more to the point, rights holders are by definition the people who are entitled to profit from selling access to the media they own.

If you want to get pissed at someone, get pissed at the record labels sharing a ridiculously small part of their licensing fees with the artists who make their product.

Equity.

In total, at the close of last year, SEC documents show that exactly 65 percent of Spotify was owned by just six parties: the firm’s co- founders, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon (30.6 percent of ordinary shares between them); Tencent Holdings Ltd. (9.1 percent); and a run of three asset-management specialists: Baillie Gifford (11.8 percent), Morgan Stanley (7.3 percent), and T.Rowe Price Associates (6.2 percent). These three investment powerhouses owned more than 25 percent of Spotify between them — a fact worth remembering next time there’s an argument about whose interests Spotify is acting in when it makes controversial moves (for example, SPOT’s ongoing legal appeal against a royalty pay rise for songwriters in the United States).

Furthermore, according to MBW estimates, which my sources suggest are still solid, two major record companies — Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group — continue to jointly own between six percent and seven percent of Spotify (Sony around 2.35 percent and Universal around 3.5). With Sony and UMG added into the mix, then, the names mentioned here comfortably own more than 70 percent of Spotify.

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/who-really-owns-spotify-955388/>

And yet, they still aren't even close to the highest paying service when it comes to musicians getting their cut.

https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians

It's hilarious that Napster now tops the list. I use Tidal, myself, since it's got great quality audio. Spotify is horrible quality for 2023.

If you want to support an artist pirate their music and see them in concert.

How much money would they want to skim to distribute the music? 33-66 split doesn’t sound so bad considered that they don’t produce the music, sign artist, promote them, etc

They can always start their own label if they believe that vertical integration will be more profitable for them.

They tried that with podcasts and it didn’t go as planned

Profit can be distorted based on how much you're paying your employees.

In this case royalties paid out to imaginary property holders means spotify is functioning exactly how it should. Those people are profiting, spotify's employees are being paid. Everyone directly involved has more money than they need.

I mostly listen to smaller bands and buy their stuff on Bandcamp. It sucks that Bandcamp was sold (twice now) and will probably go down the shitter, but that seemed like a more sustainable model. Also buying music is nicer than renting it for me.

Poor Spotify. Here's a Link to a documentary about the dark side of Spotify, by Slightly Sociable. Their illegal business, extortion of artists and support for scamming.