It's not Spotify's responsibility to make sure indie artists are getting paid.
/s
If selling CDs through a store could earn you (using simple but realistic numbers here) $100k per year, and Spotify streams to the same audience size earn $1k per year, it’s not unreasonable to expect that Spotify should add a hell of a lot more value on its end, perhaps in the form of driving listeners to artists — especially if Spotify possesses the means to.
It would be nice if people cared about things beyond $$$ and worked on art for the sake of art
True but you generally can't buy groceries or pay your landlord with art.
And somehow, I've never seen anybody suggest that since Daniel Ek and his team love music so much, they should forego worldly possessions and work for the sake of bringing music to the people.
One day, we can hope.
Try listening to only amateur musicians for a month while you work. You might come back with an appreciation for just how much effort and money is required to produce the art you personally care about.
I wholeheartedly agree with the “effort” part and I also think, the comparison of music to code is very apt.
However, wouldn’t it be fair to say that the money investment for creating the music (i.e. a mastered WAV or whatever format) can be incredibly low these days? And even distribution is incredibly low cost.
So barrier to entry for recorded music has been lowered to almost zero (for music as well as coding) compared to the days of vinyl and mainframe computers.
Also, since it’s so incredibly difficult to make a living making music, I find that many professional calibre musicians are indistinguishable from amateur musicians if you go by music income.
I honestly expect these days I could listen to very good music for a month by people who aren’t making a living from music (i.e. amateurs). But I’d argue that actually is the problem.
Unfortunately I don’t know how to tell those musicians from the one’s who are making a living with music (professionals) on the major streaming platforms, so I can’t put this to a test.
Labels are dead. Studios are dead. The onus to procure the gear and space to make music is entirely on the artist now. Yes, costs for some gear have come down, but to do truly professional work you need to invest at least a couple thousand in a computer and software (DAW, plugins, etc), another thousand minimum in speaker monitors, another thousand minimum in acoustic treatment, plus let’s call it another thousand or two for various misc stuff (display, keyboard, mouse, a few instruments, a decent mic and audio interface, midi controller(s), cables, etc etc etc). I’d say dead bare minimum you need $6k, and that’s ignoring the fact that so much music software are going to subscription models. You can easily add another zero to that.
Plus you need the space where you can actually make a decent amount of noise, the time (and money) to learn to produce, mix, and master your own music — all lifelong and singular skills in their own rights with their own masters, totally apart from actually writing and performing anything.
Add on distribution fees (which aren’t quite as low as you think in order to get to any sort of “professional” echelon), business and legal fees, etc etc etc, and things get expensive fast.
The important distinction here between coding and music is that the cost has entirely moved from a label/management firm to the artist themselves. No one really makes music in a studio with a console anymore. Yes, it happens (I’m a film composer writing orchestral music, so I’m still doing it — yes, we typically pay for the orchestral recording sessions, whereas in the past film studios took on that cost, and that alone can cost well over $100k), but all in all music is made on a computer. Just because that’s the same tool you use to code, don’t think it’s at all the same to you buying your laptop compared to the days when IBM built its own mainframe (and of course businesses still routinely give out laptops to their employees). Coding can be done even on a shit $300 Acer with free VS Code, but you’ll have a hard time making any professional music on that same computer with free software.
There’s a lot more wrong with your assumptions (such as amateur and pro musicians making the same income) but I’ve typed enough for the moment.
Further apologies for not making it abundantly clear that I'm on your side on the topic that professional musicians deserve to be paid like any other profession including programmers.
So inadvertently my GP post probably come across as disputing your right to earn money with your music. That's the opposite of what I was trying to say.
My post was more an (obviously misfired) attempt to guide the argument away from the equipment and distribution expenditures side of making professional calibre music - since that's trending significantly lower and lower compared to the 70s and 80s. Therefore I believe professional musicians are doing themselves less and less favours by mentioning that argument.
I think the more successful leading argument would be the investment of talent and time. To me talent is a continuing valid argument, since as a music consumer I hate to lose the most talented musicians to being average in some other profession at the cost of them not developing that talent to the best it can be, and to publish their work for the benefit of larger society (including me). -- I'd also hate so lose the most talented programmers to other professions etc.).
And to maximize their musical talent, that talented individual needs to have the time and energy to invest by getting paid for making music. The required cost of gear only adds to that need, but I'd say that your time and energy is much, much more valuable than your gear with today's equipment. For example over 5 years, I'd say your time should be at the very least 5 to 10 times more valuable than your gear - quite possibly more. (That ratio was very different in the 70s and 80s with lower cost of living and higher equipment and distribution costs).
And hell yes, you should get paid - and my heart bleeds for you and so many other high caliber musicians, who are finding it increasingly difficult to make even a modest living with creating outstanding music.
p.s. I can't profess to be knowledgeable about your arm of the professional music business. I have however reasonably deep familiarity with other parts (assuming your definition of a professional musician would also include those parts). For what it's worth, I count a sibling, a sibling-in-law, and a nephew as current full-time professional musicians in performing live, producing, arranging, musical direction and such. And we are close, so therefore talk a lot. And it may not count anymore, but I also made my living with playing live music for a while before bailing out to become a software developer. Which in turn over the years funded my reasonably nice home studio - so I know the costs of acquisition, maintenance and continued upgrades quite intimately.
Agreed, I can become a developer for quite a bit less money in gear - but as I said above, the equipment cost pales to a rather small percentage in comparison to the time and energy investment while needing to eat, while keeping dry and warm/cool, and even more so when you're trying to support a family.
But above all: My very best wishes to you in trying to survive and hopefully find or continue your niche to thrive in the generally grim environment facing professional musicians - only made worse by the pandemic.