r/Music • u/mrjohnnymac18 • Aug 01 '25
music Spotify used to seem like a necessary evil for musicians. Now it just seems evil | Music | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/31/spotify-musicians-david-bridie-ntwnfb267
u/Maleficent-Drive4056 Aug 01 '25
Spotify pays artists between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. For independent artists – especially those from the Pacific and First Nations communities, and artists without the machinery of major labels – this is insulting and completely unsustainable.
Why are pacific and First Nation communities particularly affected?!
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u/Kukuth Aug 01 '25
Because they would obviously make way more money from physical record sales if they don't even reach anyone outside their communities/s
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u/jungle_dnb_mix Aug 01 '25
Whats the easier way to earn 20 bucks as a musician? Get 4.000 streams on spotify or sell 1 vinyl at a show?
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u/smells Aug 01 '25
But to have vinyl, don't you need a pretty large upfront investment? and if your order volume isn't large is the profit margin after costs still $20?
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u/slayerLM Aug 01 '25
I think my band is paying close to $12-$14 a record on small batches of 300. We try and sell them for $25. If we’re trying to get them in a shop we usually try and do a deal for like $17-$19. This is with an upfront cost of about $3000. So yeah, not super profitable
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u/Kukuth Aug 01 '25
4000 streams on Spotify If you don't tour or sell your records in a specific part of the world.
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u/TheCloudForest Aug 01 '25
It's part of the "World Ends. Women and Minorities Most Affected." school of journalism.
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u/ThePotMonster Aug 01 '25
I always wondered what artists think their songs are worth on a per play basis. For me personally, there isn't any song out there that I think is worth more than a fraction of a cent for me to listen to and if they tried to charge me more I would probably just pirate their music.
In the past I could justify CD's because the internet didn't hadn't evolved enough to make streaming or even downloading songs a realistic option. Plus, having a physical copy of something and enjoying the album art made it worth the $20.
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u/naw380 Aug 01 '25
I’m an independent artist and I release my music through Bandcamp where you can choose the price you charge for your albums; I always just choose the minimum amount they suggest because I really don’t care.
That said, it does leave me incredibly aggrieved the idea that there is a small number of people making an immense amount of money from the collective efforts of artists such as myself who receive nothing for their contribution.
In the same way that companies will buy people’s data, where two separate companies stand to benefit from such a transaction and the actual human being that lived the life that created that data gets nothing in return.
It’s all just scummy and predatory and disgusting. The whole of it even maybe the world of it.
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u/jungle_dnb_mix Aug 01 '25
Idc about the value that other people assign to my music. Couldn't care less. What i do care about is me working on something, you getting to enjoy it and spotify taking the money and putting it into fucking military tech.
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u/FoolofaTook43246 Aug 01 '25
This is the issue right there. It's bad enough it doesn't go to the artists, but it's not like it's just going back into the infrastructure. It's making assholes rich enough to do horrible things with this money. I am considering switching to Bandcamp over this because it is dystopian honestly
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u/Huwbacca Aug 01 '25
That argument is frankly horrible.
"Their music was worth the price of an album when I couldn't download it, but now that I can, it isn't"
The value to you hasn't changed apparently, but ease of access makes the music worth less?
Honestly, is that something you're willing to stand behind? That they do the same work, you get the same reward, but they deserve less money because of circumstances beyond their control?
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u/XY-chromos Aug 01 '25
"Their music was worth the price of an album when I couldn't download it, but now that I can, it isn't"
Yes. A physical album / product costs money to manufacture, ship, and sell in a retail store. A digital file can be copied and distributed infinitely, for free.
Glad you understand!
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u/monsantobreath Aug 02 '25
It's like youre drawing all the wrong conclusions from an analysis of why the system is utterly disgusting and fucked.
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u/Adamulos Aug 01 '25
It's the difference of having a licence to play the song as long as the service allows you to
And the fact of having a physical copy of the song that you WILL have
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 Aug 01 '25
It’s not about ‘deserve’. Prices and wages are never based on ‘deserve’ they are based on supply and demand. The fact is people aren’t willing to pay much for music. This isn’t the fault of Spotify it’s the preference of consumers.
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u/ThePotMonster Aug 01 '25
Yeah, it's supply and demand. Streaming services have made the supply almost infinite.
Prior to streaming, I had to actually own the CD or in later years download the album from iTunes. But im both cases I was limited either by how many CD'S I was willing to carry in my vehicle, the storage capacity of my home, or in the case of iTunes, the storage capacity of my iPod.
Its not beyond their control, they choose to be on the platform.
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u/shilgrod Aug 01 '25
I wonder what the royalty's comparison against traditional radio.....I never assumed bands made bank off those plays either
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u/SkiingAway Aug 01 '25
In the US, terrestrial radio generally pays <10% of revenue for licensing the right to play music from the organizations that manage rights, and just like streaming, does not directly pay any fixed rate "per-play".
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u/shilgrod Aug 02 '25
I meant more of a how much does a band versus the separate distribution systems.....I understand that album sales are a thing of the past but I guarantee the labels hate it as much as the bands....hard to steal from zero
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u/WhiskeyT Aug 02 '25
I’ve always had the feeling that I’m having a different conversation about this than everyone else. The comparison should be to radio, not record sales.
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u/tn80 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
What gets me especially is that in the past year, there has been a massive integration of Silicon Valley Big Tech with military industries via companies like Palanthir and the role of venture capital firms that have their fingers in all the Big Tech pies, as well as the role of all the Big Tech companies in doing data-centre support for military purposes, along with cloud computing.
In other words, just about all the Silicon Valley Big Tech firms are already deep into facial-recognition applications for implementing AI processes in military drone hardware. That means that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, OpenAI, and everyone else are already incredibly deep in this. But a fad-driven movement has emerged on social-media platforms hosted by these companies (that are supporting facial-recognition-guided AI drone hardware) to target Spotify for what its owner’s money might do in the future. This is such hypocrisy and inconsistency. Basically, all of Big Tech is already completely fucked and if you’re using Instagram to proclaim your opposition to Spotify, then you’re a hypocrite and a useful idiot for Big Tech. I fail to see why this is not more obvious to more people.
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u/Huwbacca Aug 01 '25
Everything is turning into a permission economy.
To be fully in line with your definition of a hypocrite, if you use any social media (which you do), have any subscription digital services (bet you do), have a smart phone (which you do) then you're also contributing to propping up companies that wish to push us towards permission economy.
Where the goal isn't to make money, but it's to have control over what people can do/access as this is worth far more than money.
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u/djsoomo Mixcloud Aug 01 '25
Everything is turning into a permission economy.
To be fully in line with your definition of a hypocrite, if you use any social media (which you do), have any subscription digital services (bet you do), have a smart phone (which you do) then you're also contributing to propping up companies that wish to push us towards permission economy.
It is difficult or impossible to exist in modern western society without those things without being a recluse
Many of these things have virtual monopolies and are exploitative but you me, and everyone else is effectively forced to use them.
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u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta Aug 02 '25
Bro I went almost a decade without a Facebook but trying to buy things second hand besides thrift stores or find concerts/things to do with my kid now is basically impossible
I miss the craigslist era tbh
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u/EconomistsHATE Aug 01 '25
The answer is that Spotify is an European company and we can't have that, can we? Every case of successful non-American tech must be crushed at all costs, that's also why you don't hear any complaints about Tidal, Pandora, Apple Music or Amazon Music - they are all American.
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u/ajnabi57 Aug 01 '25
I certainly have seen many American articles and books that apply this criticism to all platforms. I guess Spotify gets most attention because if it’s size and dominance. Not just because it’s European
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u/hidepp Aug 01 '25
Maybe Spotify gets the hate not because it's European, but because it is the bigger one.
Or because it's the most expensive one for the users.
Or because it's the one which pays less to the artists while pays millions for right wing podcasts to spread misinformation and conspiracy. Or spend even more millions on "AI for military weapons", all of this while still profits from the work of the artists.
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u/Lille7 Aug 01 '25
It doesn't pay artists less, its just used more. I you pay 10 bucks and listen to one song you will essentially be oaying 7 bucks per stream, if you listen to 100 songs you are essentially paying 7 cents per stream. The only reason other platforms "per stream" is higher is because people aren't listening as much.
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u/PrestigiousTap189 Aug 01 '25
also i should add that it’s because of their free tier that spotify pays less than anyone else, not because it’s used more.
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u/PrestigiousTap189 Aug 01 '25
if only it actually worked that way. all the subscription money goes into one big pot and then is divided by all the streams. so if you listen to only 2 songs that month from your favorite artist they are still just getting that fraction of a penny. the rest taylor swift, drake, etc.
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u/SkiingAway Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Kinda of. It's more like a bunch of pots by things like user country of origin + subscription status - basically things that differentiate revenue. Free-tier Spotify streams are not dictating where your subscription-tier $ go, AFAIK.
This is a part of why all streams aren't worth the same/why it's not the same payment rate to all artists. If all your streams are coming from India, where a subscription is ~$3/month, those users are not generating the same revenue as if they're coming from the US where it's ~$12/month, and that sort of thing.
(On a related note: Spotify operates in a lot more poor countries than most of the others do - which also depresses "global per-stream rates").
But their point is still partly on the mark - Spotify users use the service more heavily than users of the other major streaming services do.
It's not exactly obvious that things would be better for musicians if every subscriber started listening to 50% less music tomorrow. That would roughly lift per-stream payment rates by 50%, but that wouldn't change the size of the revenue pool and they wouldn't make more money.
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u/Lollerpwn Aug 01 '25
Lol what do I care where a megacorp leeching of artists is from. Spotify is just a middleman getting rich of providing quite little compared to the artists they make the money off. I've never met anyone using any of the services you mention. Everyone I know uses Spotify though.
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u/apistograma Aug 01 '25
Media has barely talked about how the Microsoft campus in Israel was one of the big hits from Iranian missiles in the recent conflict. They didn’t choose it randomly. Microsoft is extremely involved with the military industrial complex. To them it’s not a random big corporation, they correctly consider it a branch of the American empire.
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u/CrazyRandomStuff Aug 01 '25
I pay for Spotify to listen to my music 99% of the time and have found a lot of bands I never would have discovered without it. I still buy vinyls for bands I like as music is one of the very few medias that does need the support. Especially for more obscure genres or artists.
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u/KWilt Aug 01 '25
Yup, this is unfortunately the reality that a lot of people ignore. Hell, I literally just got back from flying 500 miles to see two small indie acts that I found through a song-suggestion playlist four years ago. I've been to half a dozen of their shows in that time, spent hundreds on tickets and even more on their merch, and it would've never happened had I not randomly decided to go to the 'song radio' for the Tally Hall cover of Just a Friend, because they're just that niche.
And hell, it must be working out for them because one of the artists just made a post yesterday basically saying they were done with anything not-music-related because thanks to all the support they get, they can make the music their exclusive full-time gig. Now granted, I obviously don't know the concrete number of people who found them through Spotify, but from the small sample I've gotten from talking to others at their shows, it pretty much usually boils down to 'oh yeah, got suggested them on a Spotify playlist'.
All this to say, Spotify is still scum, especially with them now trying to push out actual artists and replace them with AI slop, but they certainly were the necessary evil for some artists.
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u/AirRemote7732 Aug 01 '25
Before Spotify (and Internet generally) I used to listen to only really popular artists because those were the only ones that I knew. I can absolutely see that bands like Metallica who don't have to fight for visibility would be affected but I'm not really worried about them since they're already far richer than I'll ever be.
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u/monsantobreath Aug 02 '25
"I have personal reasons for liking it. I am disinterested in the evil stuff that is necessary for me to be convenienced by it."
👍 Great job
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u/Cactusfan86 Aug 01 '25
This is NOT a defense of spotify but:
They are the symptom, not the disease. Music is devalued in people’s minds, they expect it basically free. Started happening with piracy and has continued with streaming. Streaming could vanish tomorrow and I suspect piracy would simply spike.
And with streaming the monthly cost is simply too low. Even if a non-profit streaming service formed where every drop of cash not needed for maintenance went back to the artists I just don’t think it would be able to pay out a living wage. Maybe I’m wrong but it’s hard to make 15 bucks a month for access to all music in history spit out a living wage for the musicians
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u/KaptajnKold Aug 01 '25
The problem is not Spotify. Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon and whoever else operate music streaming services, have next to no bargaining power against the record companies. There are only four four of them, and this along with current copyright laws, is the real problem. To an approximate degree, the record companies own the rights to the entire musical output of the past century. And they collect royalties for it all, and are consequently making money hand over fist. In fact record companies are profitable to an extent not seen since the heyday of CDs in the 90s, which is mind boggling when you consider the amount of competition there exists these days for consumers’ entertainment budgets. The reason that this doesn’t benefit artists is because the money gets divided out to everyone, including artists who haven’t published new music in half a century or more.
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u/teddygomi Aug 01 '25
I don’t think most people today understand how weird it is that old music is so prevalent in our society. Music in stores and in movie soundtracks are often decades old. This was not the case in the past.
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u/Threetimes3 Aug 01 '25
I was talking to my kids about this at one point. Back in the day somebody might tell us that such and such an artist was really good, or this album was great, but if we didn't actually know a person who had a copy for us to listen to, we had to take the gamble of paying $15 to blindly buy something that we may or may not like. Then if we didn't like it, we were stuck with it.
Now I can tell people an album is good, and they can be listening to it minutes later, with no risk.
Both my children listen to more "older music" then I ever did growing up.
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u/droo46 Aug 01 '25
People talk about how saturated the market is with new music, but it's also saturated with old music. Nostalgia is a commodity, and making all that old music just as easy to access makes it compete with new releases.
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u/frostygrin Aug 01 '25
It's a rather old joke that you're getting old when the stores start playing your jams.
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u/teddygomi Aug 01 '25
No, decades ago, stores generally played contemporary music and film scores were often showcases of new music releases. Case in point: look at the soundtrack to the film Back To The Future. This is a movie about time travel that primarily takes place in the 1950s; but the soundtrack is mostly new music.
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u/vittorioe Aug 01 '25
the majors have significant ownership stakes in these companies. What are you talking about?
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u/KaptajnKold Aug 01 '25
That’s not true according to any sources I’ve seen. See for example here: https://www.investopedia.com/news/top-3-spotify-shareholders/
Its also obviously untrue that the record labels own any significant shares of the other companies mentioned. Universal Music Group, the largest of them, was sold in 2020 for 3 Billion, which is a tiny fraction of the market caps of any of the tech giants. What this tells us is that Universal could not at that time have owned anything resembling a significant amount of those companies, or that asset alone would have made the Universal much, much more expensive.
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u/vittorioe Aug 01 '25
You have recency bias. The foundation was fully laid in collusion with the majors and Spotify is absolutely the new monster the industry created.
The major labels licensed their full catalogs to Spotify, but made sure the agreements were on their terms and that they made out just fine no matter what. Spotify paid the majors massive advances (with no requirement that any of that money trickle down to their artists). The majors got equity in Spotify (collectively around 18% – which is now below 7% after cashing out shares in the hundreds of millions of dollars), lots of kick-backs in the form of free advertising on the platform, and most egregious of all, higher royalty rates than indie labels and artists got.
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u/KaptajnKold Aug 01 '25
You are interpreting the facts very differently from me. Where you see collusion, I see the record companies giving Spotify an offer they couldn't refuse. And that has been my point from the beginning: Spotify did not choose the terms of the agreement with the record companies. They couldn't, because the record companies had all the negotiating power.
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u/vittorioe Aug 01 '25
Wait a minute. I misread your initial note, that’s my bad. I thought you meant that the majors had no bargaining power. How about that. Statement rescinded and glad we’re on the same page on this then.
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u/Owlcatraz13 Aug 01 '25
Again this argument always boils down to everyone likes to shit on Spotify, but all other solutions are completely unreasonable financially, or ends up being impractical.
It's really easy to say "support the artist by buying their albums' ignoring the fact the majority of the smaller artist have found a following because of streaming, not in spite of it. Thats not to say you shouldn't support your favorite artist,... go to the shows, buy the merch/records, but to denounce streaming doesn't make sense.
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u/mrbaryonyx Aug 01 '25
Again this argument always boils down to everyone likes to shit on Spotify, but all other solutions are completely unreasonable financially, or ends up being impractical.
While I don't necessarily disagree, I think its important differentiate that it's not unreasonable for people to purchase music straight from bands--that's how people listened to music for the entire twentieth century. It is not an unviable model.
What's unreasonable is expecting people to do that when they're used to streaming. As much as Spotify sucks, at some level we have to admit that it's an incredible platform and its basically spoiled a generation. If every single person whose ever complained about Spotify--just the people who complain--started buying direct, they could change the music industry forever, but they won't do that because they want what Spotify offers, which is "every song, from every person, right now, for basically free" more than they want artists to be compensated.
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u/heythisislonglolwtf Aug 01 '25
I use streaming to discover new artists then when I go to their shows I buy merch or something. I figure this is a nice middle ground, all things considered. But now I have entirely way too many band shirts lol. I just consider it a donation I guess.
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u/_CountZer0_ Aug 01 '25
I just had a blanket made from band shirts by Project Repat it came out really nicely.
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u/_Alex_Sander Aug 01 '25
I’m surprised noone discusses the free tier - it pulls in far less money for spotify ”per listen” - short term. But long term it results in market share: a big win for spotify. For the artists though? They don’t really benefit at all, they just get lower royalty payments ”per stream” (even though it doesn’t really work like that), and one could argue the value of music in general is diminished.
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u/Owlcatraz13 Aug 01 '25
yeah I mean not great not arguing there, but then again pandora was a thing before spotify blew up but I'm not sure their royalty plan.. I guess my point no one can give a good solution that doesnt involve streaming.
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u/Lollerpwn Aug 01 '25
What do you base that on that the majority of smaller artists have a fanbase because of streaming. What makes streaming so much better for smaller artists having to compete with the whole world for listens.
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u/KoniGTA Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Its discoverability. I am a power user of Spotify and I have discovered so many new artists and bands I wouldn't normally have known about, its insane. I have liked songs from artists ranging from literally 100s of monthly listeners to 1000000+. A couple of days ago, I found Kosmischer Laufer (as an example) who has around 10000 monthly listeners with average plays on their tracks <50000.
Spotify does makes discoverability of artists much easier, but the question is, is that a price artists are willing to pay for.
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u/disisathrowaway Aug 01 '25
The plural of anecdote isn't data, to be clear.
Buuuut, I cannot count the number of artists I've found due to Spotify. Be it daylists, artist radios, or just outright suggestions from the app. As a result of finding these artists I never would have otherwise, I catch them when they come through town, go to their sites and buy their music and merch and overall just end up spending money on them that they never would have received from me.
There's too much music to fit it all on the radio (not even discussing how Clearchannel has a chokehold on what gets to the radio) but there's infinite space online for music.
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u/SkiingAway Aug 01 '25
Non-sarcastically here: Exactly how else do you think they can build an audience today?
Terrestrial radio is nearly dead.
Record shops exist in far smaller quantity than in the past and tend to mostly stock stuff that is expected to sell, not DIY cassettes from the local kids. Customers coming into them also aren't typically looking for that, either.
The very small venue/bar with live music tier of venue isn't extinct, but there's far, far fewer of them than there were a generation or two ago and they reach a much smaller audience.
- Simply put - once people had ways to not be as bored at home at night they started going out less, especially for "it's a way to kill some time that's not sitting at home, maybe it won't suck" kind of entertainment. Which for most people but the most dedicated music consumers - is kind of what seeing the lowest tier of local bar band has traditionally been.
Opening slots for bigger acts and bottom-tier festival slots still exist but with tons of bands in the world, getting on the kind of tour that'll give you significant exposure, especially as a real unknown, requires a lot of luck/good breaks for you.
So, you've got streaming/the internet: It can still be an absolute nightmare to try to build a following, but it has at least eliminated a bunch of historic obstacles. A few I can think of:
You don't have to get past any kind of gate-keeper or financial hurdle for near-global distribution.
Potential listeners don't have to commit significant money to give your music a shot.
You can pretty easily communicate with people who stumble across your music if they like your stuff enough to seek out more about you (and they can actually find that easily).
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u/Lollerpwn Aug 01 '25
I go to concerts, I buy records, I buy merch. All of these should go more directly to artists than Spotify. Other people could do these things as well. Just resigning that big corporations make bank while artists get pennies is exactly how it stays that way. With Spotify people spend less on music than ever, the types that would buy an album once in a while have a subscription and that's it. In the meantime there's more artists than ever.
You could imagine a streaming service that doesn't have the major labels as big shareholders and boardroom members. That uses a fair algorythm not one to steer listeners to AI artists for example.
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u/Owlcatraz13 Aug 01 '25
I mean its kinda obvious right? 25 years ago you had to be extremely wealthy, connected, or lucky, while having to absolutely grind it out to be able to really gain a following... Today you can be a nobody sitting in your basement but with streaming, your talent is able to shine.... It not super difficult to hear about a new artist but alot more people are going to be willing to take a chance and stream an album, rather than spend 10-15 dollars on something they might hate.
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u/better_med_than_dead Aug 01 '25
Spotify was NEVER necessary. It took off because people are lazy and cheap as fuck, and don't really care if artists are fairly compensated or not.
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u/carlashaw Aug 01 '25
Just started my own music server. Buying and borrowng used CDs has been super fun and actually owning my music feels so liberating.
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u/RunningonGin0323 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
i get it, what the fuck do you all want me to do? i mean seriously, and I'll take all the downvotes. I've had Spotify for I don't know 15 years? I pay for the family plan. What the fuck do you want me to do? Spend thousands on entire albums and then replicate them across multiple devices for myself and/or my kids or pay ~$20 some bucks a month.
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u/mrbaryonyx Aug 01 '25
I mean, you are fundamentally describing how people got their music for the entire twentieth century. They didn't spend thousands of dollars because they didn't listen to that much music. What you're describing isn't impossible, it's just kind of a silly thing to ask when Spotify is offering everything for free.
Like let's make a deal, I won't lie to you and tell you you're unreasonable for taking that deal--you're not, obviously, but don't tell me its the only deal. It's not. It's just the best one. You're not choosing spotify over albums because buying albums is impossible, you're choosing it because it's great and you can't go back.
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u/EnanoMaldito Aug 01 '25
Nothing, you’re doing the right thing. It’s not youe job to feed some random person on the other side of the planet. As a consumer you are doing what is best for yourself and that is 100% OK.
This subreddit is absolutely deranged.
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u/mookman288 Aug 01 '25
When Neil Young started boycotting Spotify, that's when I took a harder look at the platform. It's abysmal. Not only does it pay musicians like garbage, but the actual product sucks too. There's really only one feature I miss since leaving, and that's the ability to remotely instruct a device to stream.
I switched to Tidal for music that I don't intend to purchase in physical format. It has its share of problems and controversy. I don't think there's a streaming platform that doesn't.
In the interim few years, I've been buying CDs and Vinyl on sale and adding them to my collection. You often get a digital copy when you purchase (always on bandcamp.) I can't stream on the go, but it's my library.
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u/komilo Aug 01 '25
Good time to mention tomorrow is band camp Friday! Cancel your Spotify and start buying an album on band camp every month instead
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u/martinkaik Aug 01 '25
In case you're interested in a different platform to listen to music, and most importantly, actually support musicians in what they do I would recommend:
• Bandcamp (https://bandcamp.com) You can stream and buy music, as well as merch. A huge percentage of the purchase actually goes to the artists, so it's great if you care about indie artists actually be able to survive.
• Subvert (https://subvert.fm) As Bandcamp was recently sold to corporate, and following their recent enshittification process, Subvert is stepping in as a community-driven alternative, thanks to their community-ownership model.
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u/Prophet_Of_Helix Aug 01 '25
Well, the problem is as you point out, any major move from any of the big streaming services to other services will just result in them getting bought and turned into a big corporate streaming service.
The only people getting punished in this scenario are consumers, who are expected to migrate their entire music catalog every few years to a “more ethical” streaming platform.
Or, people can push for legislation to help overall
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u/martinkaik Aug 01 '25
The difference is that Subvert is owned by a collective of artists, labels, supporters and workers. So any major decision (like selling) would be democratically decided by the whole community who literally owns it; so there's no risk of Spotify or others absorbing it just because the founder wanted some easy cash (see Bandcamp).
Subvert has a really interesting ownership model, I suggest checking it out on their website, as they explain it better than I do.
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u/wildwalrusaur Aug 01 '25
Music industry profits are higher now than they were in the heyday of iTunes.
Spotify isn't the problem. Yes, the labels are gobbling up a big portion of it for themselves.
But the real heart of the "problem" is the democratization of music. The pie has gotten bigger, but the number of slices has increased a thousandfold.
The reality is, that the era of pop/rockstars like Elvis and MJ is an anomaly, historically speaking. For most of human history, outside of the rare court musician, it simply wasn't a profession of its own. As music recording and publishing has become more accessible we're witnessing a return to the norm.
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u/CaptainPriceFromMW Aug 01 '25
I'm starting to build up my vinyl and CD collection. I'm a broke young adult, but I can't keep supporting Spotify.
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u/Mitrakov Aug 01 '25
You can and should do both. I hate that people knock Spotify - and themselves don`t support their faves. Use Spotify for its convinience, but buy merch and support artists directly
But no, people spend 10 bucks a month and they think it`s enough to feed everyone
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u/Ok-Call-4805 Aug 01 '25
That's pretty much what I do. If I hear something I really like on Spotify I'll usually go and buy the CD of it. Spotify is like the catalog for me to browse before I buy.
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u/Wolfpack48 Aug 01 '25
And yet could do the exact same thing with another streaming services such as Apple Music.
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u/Ok-Call-4805 Aug 01 '25
I know I could. My point was just that I use streaming services as a jumping off point before actually buying something.
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u/gerryflap Aug 01 '25
Yeah exactly. I'm not sure what amount of money people expect to go to artists and where they think Spotify will pull all that money from. The 5-ish euro's a month of my shared family plan split over all the artists I listen to would never result in a livable wage for most of them, even if there are ten thousand of me with a similar taste. And Spotify also needs money so they can keep shit running smoothly and pay their UI designers to make the UI more confusing and useless with every update. Innovation is expensive
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u/braincandybangbang Aug 01 '25
They had 250 million lying around to pay Joe Rogan... they also make money from ad revenue.
The "poor little Spotify" angle doesn't really hold up.
If Spotify can't afford to pay the artists supplying all the content that makes their platform worth anything at all, then maybe it is a terrible business model and they should have gone out of business a long time ago. But somehow they remain afloat despite not making profit until recently.
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u/somniforousalmondeye Aug 01 '25
I still have my old 200 CD case I used to carry around. I would never actually USE it again, and I only have the disks. No jewel cases or booklets. I have found myself wanting to own those again. Just because A. I like having something physical to look at/read. and B. It pisses me off how in the streaming era certain things like movie soundtrack albums are not available, or how an artist can replace an original version of a track with a modified one. I want the song as I remember it. Or you have jackasses like Billy Corgan who remove entire albums on a whim.
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u/sprauncey_dildoes Aug 01 '25
‘There are alternatives’. Like what? Is it just a matter of switching to Deezer?
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u/Ne0n_Dystopia Aug 01 '25
The studios are evil, the producers are evil, the streamers are evil, distributors and ticketmaster are evil. Tough being a musician these days.
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u/BunnySlaveAkko Aug 01 '25
Don't know how these artists think I'm going to find their music if it isn't available to stream. Something does need to change but most people don't even have a way to play physical media let alone finding a store where you can listen and buy without it being an overpriced "retro" gimmick. Obviously before streaming I bought a lot of physical music but it was always someone I already listened to or heard on the radio. My music library expanded like 1000x when streaming came around and I am still easily finding new music that I like through streaming.
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u/kingofshitmntt Aug 01 '25
Just to mention there is a aritst owned coop platform coming to replace band camp its called Subvert
found at: http://www.subvert.fm
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u/pentultimate Aug 01 '25
Ive removed my music and will be deleting my account this weekend actually. What a waste
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u/Ok-Metal-4719 Aug 01 '25
So the person is removing their music from Spotify because they consider Ek evil yet didn’t mention pulling their music from Apple, Tidal, YT and others which means they don’t find what those companies and top folks do or have done that bad?
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u/whipstickagopop Aug 01 '25
I think it's cause spotify pays a lot less per stream to the artists compared to the other ones.
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u/qazplmo Aug 01 '25
Daniel Ek is investing in drones because Europe has completely neglected its defence. Please convince me there's something wrong with this?
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u/Open-Egg1732 Aug 01 '25
Okay, so Spotify is bad, YouTube music is bad, Amazon music is bad... what the hell do I use then? Im not going back to CDs or buying individual songs on iTunes.
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u/4wordSOUL Aug 01 '25
Yep, cancelled my Spotify subscription.
I would love to subscribe directly to a service that actually pays artists a living wage.
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u/Nice-Walk-8921 Aug 01 '25
There is a couple of extra insidious things Spotify has done of late; they made a cap of needing a 1000 streams per song for payment, a further kick in the teeth for smaller independent artists and also seem to be behind pushing a lot of junk AI music themselves.
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u/Vic_Hedges Aug 01 '25
Spotify’s influence is due to the fact it gives music consumers what they want.
its the consumers that are at fault.
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u/mrbaryonyx Aug 01 '25
Redditors want musicians to be paid, but they also want a service that gives them every single song ever made, right now, for basically free.
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u/Lollerpwn Aug 01 '25
How is it the consumers fault the middleman are taking more of the cut than artists are getting. Not our fault Spotify teamed up with the Major labels to fleece artists.
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u/Mitrakov Aug 01 '25
Yep, I don`t understand why almost nobody seems to understand that. You can`t be acting high and mighty spending 10 bucks a month on music
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u/Welshhoppo Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
If I had to pay market rates for all the music I listen too i'd have to be a millionaire. I've listened to 1800 different albums in the last year alone.
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u/Bovine_Joni_Himself Aug 01 '25
Which is much better than $0 a month people were spending in the P2P streaming days. At least it's possible to make money playing music again.
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u/jnighy Aug 01 '25
Not saying they're perfect (far from it, but we do the best we can in this shitty situation), but damn, I'm so glad I moved to Apple Music
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u/CaptainSnatchbox Aug 01 '25
Industry dipshit scared artists into thinking that giving away their entire catalog to everyone for pennies was going to be better than letting a few people steal it for nothing and it ruined everything. It was so incredibly important for people to actually pay for the art they want to experience and it should never be presented as a buffet of options for you to access.
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u/AliceLunar Aug 01 '25
Used to pay for Spotify until they cancelled it and wanted double the money for the same product, now I just use it for free and get the same product whilst they try to tempt me with deals that are worse than what I used to pay.
And with how much they force shit AI music in all of their playlists they will never see a penny from me.
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u/crusader-kenned Aug 01 '25
What’s the difference between Spotify and pirate bay? You don’t pay to be on pirate bay. (And the quality is higher)
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u/istareatscreens Aug 01 '25
It takes talent to make music, lots of talent. Writing apps that stream music less so. The balance of power is over due to swing back into the favour of the musicians.
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u/Eason85 Aug 01 '25
A big thing that happened that is often glossed over is that the record labels sold out to save their bacon, at the expense of artists. It was the artists who made the labels, but the artists who end up with the rawest of deals.
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u/Psych_FI Aug 02 '25
Happy that I’ve used Spotify only a handful of times and have no interest in it.
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u/fourthords Aug 02 '25
Wait wait wait, the service that required a Facebook account to use, you're saying is actually a shitty & evil company‽ Say it ain't so!
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u/dajuice3 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Are we going to keep pretending $15 CDs were worth $15?
Piracy made it easy to listen to what you want. It's why we don't properly rate albums anymore because we skim music.
It's not as cut and dry. I'm so sick of the owner of spotify makes so much more than the artist!!! Yes because they created and maintain a distribution platform that allows you to pick and choose what you hear almost instantaneously.
We could confront the fact that people casually listen to music don't want to pay $15 bucks for 3 songs they like and hope that the other 12 aren't trash like before streaming.
The world evolves around you and everyone is responsible. If you press your own CDs, do your own distro, and maintain all your rights you'll have more money you'll also have a lot less time on your hand.
Everyone is greedy. With streaming if your shit sucks I can just stop listening. In the CD age I had to hope and pray that shit was good or I was stuck listening to garbage.
Honestly come to terms with the fact that there is no more forced purchasing. Make your albums purchase only and see how quickly they get pirated. Is that Spotify's fault? No that's shitty people. Or maybe just maybe you don't make a product people want to keep listening to repeatedly.
Edit: Also the old age people are clamoring for so artists make what they "should" had the shitty bonus that if you lost the physical media you had to buy it again which helped inflate numbers. Stealing got easier. I think people want to pretend that there are more hardcore listeners than there really are. People want to listen to 1 or 2 songs and in the old days to do that you had to buy a whole album. I'm also not going to buy every song for $1 that shit will add up. The game has changed there is more variety ease of listening has changed and we have more stats to tell us how we spend our money. I spend $144 a year streaming music. But I can tell you that I listen to more than 10 albums a year. I feel like it just creates more of the haves and have nots and puts power back into the labels hands because the barrier for exposure is higher. I'm not going to buy a $15 album to maybe like it I'll buy the one I know has 3 or 4 songs on it cause I hear them on the radio like the old days.
I think artists have to come to terms with they are being paid what people are willing to listen.
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u/Wolfpack48 Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
There was this thing called a 45. If you only wanted to listen to the hit, you didn't have to buy the album, you only had to pay for 2 songs. People have always purchased singles. No one has ever been "forced" to buy an album. Albums only became popular because there was enough good music on the entire album to warrant buying the whole thing, and if the band was good enough, you had people clamoring for all your albums, and you had a real following. The problem with now is that many bands aren't good enough to warrant album purchases anymore. So, back to singles and mix tapes, er, "playlists."
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u/gt0rres Aug 01 '25
I reckon it would be pretty unpopular to defend Spotify, and I'm not gonna do it. But regarding the low income musicians get from it... Has anyone put some sense into the numbers?
Because if you're telling me starting artists and bands struggle to get a decent income in comparison to what they used to get in physical media times, it's a shame. But, on the other hand, if you're telling me Shakira won't be able to buy herself a third yatch, I couldn't care less.
I just feel there is no single 'baddie' here, more people are to blame in this system. And nowadays, with PR and social media and marketing teams plaguing absolutely everywhere, there are just too many leeches in the process. For each musician that gets unfairly treated and underpayed, I feel there is a greedy one who feels like they should live in a golden palace because they sing well (or not even that).
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u/toikpi Aug 01 '25
While I agree with the point that u/Speleobiologist made about musicians aren't millionaires, Spotify has made much more money than any musician.
Daniel Ek is richer than Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Taylor Swift combined, he is twice as rich as Jay-Z. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spotify-ceo-wealthier/ Daniel Ek is far richer than ANY musician.
Who should get the money the musician or the streaming service?
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u/Lost_Recording5372 Aug 01 '25
Ek is pure fucking evil as well. I'm Swedish and I'm having a hard time thinking of a businessperson from here I think is more famously disgusting and sociopathic.
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u/Speleobiologist Aug 01 '25
It might be viewed in a different light if you listen to artists who aren't already fucking millionaires. There are a lot of those.
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u/d-signet Aug 01 '25
Musicians never thought it was a necessary evil , they all made a far better living before streaming
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u/17lOTqBuvAqhp8T7wlgX Aug 01 '25
Everyone conveniently forgets the bit when tonnes of people stopped buying CDs and started downloading illegally. That’s what was before streaming, it was a terrible time for the music industry.
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u/d-signet Aug 01 '25
Thats not how it played out
Piracy was always rampant. "Home taping is killing music" as the adverts in the 80s said
The difference was the mindset once streaming happened.
Yeah, LOTS of people used napster, likewise, usenet, etc
But we always recognised the value of what we were "stealing" and a significant number of people used it as a free radio service. We would download tunes for free, and if it was any good we would buy the album.
Many didn't, but many did. We wanted to make sure the people putting out good music still got paid for it.
Streaming essentially convinced people that the "value" of an album was essentially zero.
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u/mrbaryonyx Aug 01 '25
Piracy is not worse than streaming lol
A lot of people did not know how to pirate. Your mom and younger brother and most of your friends did not know how to pirate, and sometimes the methods you used were unreliable.
Spotify is easily accessible for everyone.
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u/RayTracerX Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Not really, smaller bands found it way easier to market their music and got more worldwide listeners they would never have got otherwise.
In my country it started a small band revolution, and spotify numbers lead to radio airplay and bigger shows they never dreamed of before. My friends have a band and they say that without Spotify it would never have been worth it to even put out an album.
Think of it this way: before Spotify, those bands would only have hardcore guys who go to the shows buying the music. Those guys still do that and now you also have the chance for the rest of the world to listen and also buy the music and merch. I got a lot of merch and music of bands I would never have known about if it wasnt for Spotify.
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u/GoodOlSpence Aug 01 '25
Case in point, a band I used to be in. In the early 2000s, we toured around the south east. Made a name for ourselves in the region and sold CDs where we could. The internet was still in the early years, and it helped a little, but it wasn't enough.
Cut to today, our music was uploaded onto streaming services in the last year and we now have a new following even though we haven't played together in well over a decade. We are now gearing up to sell merch and vinyls all because we gained traction on streaming.
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u/RayTracerX Aug 01 '25
This happened to a lot of bands. One of my favourite bands Porcupine Tree had a hiatus from 2010 to 2021. And they say that when they returned they were surprised they were bigger than ever, selling more albums and tickets and merch and that they had a huge demand they never had before. That was all the internet and platforms like Spotify still allowing people to try them out even when they werent marketing themselves anymore. Their spotify numbers steadily increased over the years despite them not doing anything.
Thats how I found about them in that period too.
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u/MasonP2002 Aug 01 '25
The same thing happened with one of my favorites, New Medicine. They were on hiatus from 2015 to 2019, which is when I found them myself, and came back specifically because they kept growing in popularity on Spotify despite the hiatus.
They've gotten way more popular since they returned now too, and just got their first certified gold single mainly from streaming.
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u/Sebas94 Aug 01 '25
Yeah, Spotify is no different than YouTube on that regard.
The goal is exposure so that they can make more money on life performances.
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u/fanboy_killer Aug 01 '25
“All”? I don’t doubt the high sellers made more money before Spotify, but the rest was probably struggling.
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u/MightBeWrongThough Aug 01 '25
Really? I'd love to know if there is more or less full time professional musicians post spotify
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u/d-signet Aug 01 '25
Qty != quality
Sure, anybody can get released now , hell, they don't even need to exist. AI can get a Spotify contract.....in face Spotify is stealing money from artists by creating their own AI artists.
Find an artist who was around pre streaming and prefers the new model
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u/FudgingEgo Aug 01 '25
Did they?
You buy a CD for $15, the artist gets $1.50 of that.
On Spotify you have to listen to any of the artists music 500 times.Now, an artist releases a album, they get your $1.50 then they don't release anything for 4 years.
On the other hand, an artist releases an album, you listen to them on Spotify for 4 years, you've easily hit 500 songs played, probably even more.Let's do another route, a band who no longer release music. Let's say System Of A Down, you buy all their albums between 1998 and 2005. 20 years later, they've released no new albums, you've not spent a single penny on their music in 20 years.
Or, you listen to their music on Spotify and over a decade or so, probably give them another $10-$20
The artists who benefit from CD sales are those who you would buy the album listen to it like 3-4 times, realise its shit and then never listen to it again. But they've got the $1.50.
The other spectrum is artists who sell a OBSCENE amount of CD's make more in a really short period of time.
Do I think artists could get paid more from streaming? absolutely, do I think streaming is paying artists who would have normally seen their revenue streams decline as they're not releasing music anymore or take long breaks between albums? absolutely.
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u/d-signet Aug 01 '25
You've overestimated the amount that Spotify pays.
4 years between albums was always a standard release cycle for any bands of note when I grew up in the 90s.
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u/Puzza90 Aug 01 '25
Nonsense, many artists wouldn't have had the exposure needed to break into the industry without streaming.
Musicians have always been exploited, be it labels, venues or now streaming, they create the art then middle men reap the rewards
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u/d-signet Aug 01 '25
Yeah, everyone is one that same contract as Taylor Swift
Find a single artists who was around pre streaming that prefers the new model
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u/Melodic-Flow-9253 Aug 01 '25
*musicians who got lucrative deals, many of which are now screwed by said deals
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u/IntensityJokester Aug 01 '25
Ancient person here. I mostly buy mp3s/4as. CDs I want are hard to find. It is very easy to pirate stuff these days but I still have mixed feelings about it. In the old days we dubbed to cassette from the radio but the copy was lower quality, might get a commercial. Then you could dub your friend’s onto cassette, and then onto Cds, the fidelity and ease just kept increasing. nowadays god help those trying to make a living as an artist.
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u/Ashamed_Sherbert_149 Aug 01 '25
Used to be “play my song, support the artist.” Now it’s “play my song, support… someone’s yacht.”
Streaming royalties out here doing less than expired store credit.
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u/EconomistsHATE Aug 01 '25
Spotify pays artists between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream.
That's between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream more than KaZaA and Napster did. Maybe we really should return to the olden days of MP3 and FLAC collections downloaded through P2P systems, that would save users a lot of money.
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u/Rage_Like_Nic_Cage Aug 01 '25
Lmao every single thread.
Article: “Here’s yet another artist/musician/industry insider talking about how streaming & spotify in particular is killing the industry, and here are the numbers showing it”
Reddit Armchair ExpertTM : “No, you’re wrong”
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u/rewindanddeny Aug 02 '25
Think it's mainly down to the bullshit stories people tell themselves to justify not being prepared to pay for people's work.
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u/qazplmo Aug 01 '25
I mean the numbers support the fact there is more money than ever in the industry? So please explain how it's in fact you that is the not the "armchair expert"
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u/Rage_Like_Nic_Cage Aug 01 '25
numbers support the fact there is more money than ever in the industry
more money concentrated at the tip top and with Labels/execs and ticketmaster. Not for the artists themselves.
Also, I trust the artists actually in the industry themselves saying how streaming has been a financial strain on them over any of us Redditors just going “no you’re not”.
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u/qazplmo Aug 01 '25
Do you have any data that smaller artists are struggling more than in the past? Of course artists are going to say they're not paid enough (literally everyone will say this).
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u/slumdungo Aug 01 '25
The Spotify hate boner is exhausting. It’s even more hilarious when people spout businesses like Apple or Amazon as the moral alternatives.
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u/Comfortable_Copy_815 Aug 01 '25
It's wild how every layer of the music industry has become a squeeze play on artists, from streaming pennies to merch table fees. And you're right, the outrage over Spotify feels performative when most tech giants are already knee-deep in way darker shit.
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u/dasaigaijin Aug 02 '25
Spotify is investing HUGE stakes (literally millions) in military AI driven weaponry. Specially AI drone weaponry.
What that means is that every time you listen to music (on their platform) you are killing people.
I know that sounds outlandish but it’s true.
Look it up.
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u/PRETA_9000 Aug 02 '25
Yep, I keep telling this to everyone. These bastards would be comical in their villainy if it weren't effecting real people.
Imagine being so twisted that you turn people's art and self expression in to funding for instruments of death.... and not only that, but announce it to the world with pride.
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u/dasaigaijin Aug 02 '25
It’s insane isn’t it?
Either nobody wants to listen to what’s happening or people just don’t care.
I’m going to be pulling my music from Spotify next week.
I can’t be a part of this.
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u/PRETA_9000 Aug 02 '25
One of my friends went to check an album she released a few years ago only to find it had been wiped and replace with AI generated songs using the same art and name.
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u/dasaigaijin Aug 02 '25
Yes that is happening a lot actually. Specifically out of China.
A lot of guitar riffs are being ripped of and paired with AI to make basically the same song but under a new AI artist name and then using click farms out of India to generate streams to milk the payout from Spotify which is basically……. $16 or so.
All of this just to create death machines for profit.
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u/UdoBaumer Aug 01 '25
I’m honestly glad that I never uploaded my music to Spotify and I still got to do soundtracks, shows, etc. I will never pay Spotify to profit from my art, and I will continue to buy from artists directly.
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u/MDFHASDIED Aug 01 '25
My free trial ended yesterday, started on YouTube Music today as apparently that's loads better (we'll see).
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u/eating_your_syrup Aug 01 '25
Musician's job is to create music so that shareholders can maximise their income from investing into a company that shares it and they drain out even more than the old pre-internet label model did.
This leads to musicians rising prices for gigs since tours are no longer worth it as loss leaders for album sales. Which of course the labels and middle men (ticketmaster etc) leech off of even more these days.
In reaction to this musicians start pushing for merch sales as a bigger source of income. Which is again leeched by labels (taking a % of merch sales from tours) and venues (venues introduced table fees just for having a table to sell merch at a venue can be at worst like 15% of revenue, not profit). This has been so bad that apparently in states some bands have a separate van or something outside of the venue where they sell their merch. Except expensive parking fees to appear soon if this becomes a common thing.
End result: everything costs more for fans while providing less for the actual artists and most of what we pay ends up for the middlemen and the only way to win at this game is to become a "pulling full stadiums" level attraction.
Yes, that's very simplified but pretty good example of how most modern innovation is actually just finding ways to leech more between the source of a product and the consumer of said product.