Spotify Will Boost Music in Exchange for Cut of Royalties | Hacker News Reader

Spotify Will Boost Music in Exchange for Cut of Royalties

gizmodo.com

23 pointsjcdavis35 comments

Fuck. This. Entirely.

Any advantage afforded to a given artist by engaging in this service will vanish once everyone does -- the end result is Spotify paying artists less while the artists get nothing in return.

script: "But rewgs, many of our customers like this feature because it raises discoverability on our platform."

For those who didn't RTFA, this applies only to Spotify Radio, and to the "keep playing stuff like this after my playlist ends" auto-generated song selections..

I still think it's shady/shitty, but the scope does seem to be limited for now.

It does not say this will affect Discovery Weekly or Release Radar, although it's a slippery slope to those for sure.

> but the scope does seem to be limited for now.

Basically all I do on Spotify is to browse through song / artists radios to discover new music.

TFA isn't really news to you if that matches your usage pattern. It's immediately obvious how Spotify will REPEATEDLY suggest the same song. But I am glad to have my impression validated

And no, this isn't because "humans are bad at randomness and you don't actually want a random playlist of related artists"

Agreed that this is bad move regardless of scope, but I've read that _most_ users, when asked about the value provided by Spotify that they can't get elsewhere, point to their weekly algorithmic playlists.

I'm also a big fan of "<Artist> Radio" or of just making a playlist with 3-4 songs in it and then letting Spotify take over afterwards...

If I start seeing the same junk pushed into those playlists over and over, I will definitely reconsider my membership.

Will there a SuperPremium listener plan that defeats this so I can find good music rather than peddled noise?

> Will there a SuperPremium listener plan that defeats this

They should call it GroupiesDeLux

You want me to pay for being subjected to undisclosed advertisements? I'm afraid I will have to start pirating again.

The arguments in favor of piracy as far as helping artists are way less valid now. We have to start accepting that if we allow piracy, music becomes an under-valued public good and artists do not end up getting receiving the value the produce for society.

I did not make any of these arguments. Nor did I say anything about whether piracy should be allowed.

My favorite thing about spotify has always been the music discovery, and this completely ruins it.

As an artist, I don't know how to feel about this.

I could be not-completely-against-it if they:

Make this program available only for artists that have less than X Monthly Listeners, Give users the option to disable "boosted tracks" and set a reasonable ratio of organic/boosted songs (less than 5%, for example).

Some music distributors like The Orchard are doing something "similar" from their workstations: you can use the money you've generated from organic streams (and I think you can actually "borrow" the money they expect you to generate during the next quarter) to create paid campaigns on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

I recall a time when payola was done under the table and there were reasonable attempts to keep it a secret. Careers were made and ruined, documentaries were filmed, many eyebrows raised.

My, how times have changed now that it is done right out in the open.

Wait, I thought Spotify was a champion of fairness and level playing fields.

I’m confused.

Spotify is a champion of profit for Spotify. Just like any other for-profit company.

It's fair for us as consumers to do business with companies that align with our values. The idea of shareholder supremacy has been taken entirely too far in the U.S. and it's a large reason why musicians are increasingly struggling.

I don't think it's realistic to expect a company -- or any other organization really -- to behave in any manner except that which benefits the people controlling it the most. In this case, that's the shareholders.

True, but what benefits those people varies a lot depending on timescale, and who those people are.

E.g. short term profits at the expense of harming an industry or art vs long term profits by investing in its health.

Both are different ways for the shareholders to benefit.

It's not just a matter of timescale. The harm or benefits to the industry are mostly externalized, profits are not.

It is a matter of timescale.

If you profit by harming your industry (externalizing the harm) you benefit in the short term, but over the long term you risk the industry itself contracting, or another player finding a strategy that others in the industry want to support.

If you only care about short term profitability, then this doesn’t matter, but it becomes more important as the time horizon extends.

Harming the industry is not a problem for shareholders. They can sell their shares and buy ones in another industry.

Again, that is situational.

A stock that grows consistently over a long period is much better for shareholders than a series of quick pops.

Ask Warren buffet.

The vast majority of shareholders aren't Warren Buffet.

Thank you - you have now conceded the second half of my original point:

“what benefits those people varies a lot depending on timescale, and who those people are”

I certainly haven't. Whether Warren Buffet is an exception or not is mostly irrelevant since the vast majority of shareholders aren't like him anyway.

Seems like a very dainty way to say payola. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

I've switched a while back to a competing service. I've welcomed a DJ app support, lyrics. I miss spotify's autogenerated/profiled weekly/daily playlists.

What service.

PM.

I'll boost music for a cut of the royalties too, AND my name is slightly more reputable than Spotify's

Boosted music? Incredible! Who will pay me for listening promoted shit? Oh, I forgot, It is me who will pay them for listening shit! Bravo!

Because of this and some other issues I'm going to switch back to YTM. Feel free to recommend other platforms too

Hey Spotify, the 50's called: They want their payola back :)

I guess we have come full circle.-

Paying somebody to put a song before the public.-

Very negative view in the article, but as long as they are open about it to the listener it doesn't seem like it has to be a bad thing. It will provide some incentive for artists to pick tracks that will be popular enough to compensate for the reduced per play-profit, if they do this well, it's also a track that listeners are likely to appreciate. Basically the incentives here align, and as long as they don't start removing the existing mechanisms for discovery, there's nothing forcing artists to opt in to this.

> It will provide some incentive for artists to pick tracks that will be popular enough to compensate for the reduced per play-profit

That means it will push the extreme Gini coefficient of music revenue even higher. The best-sellers will be able to pay and further reduce the opportunity for smaller artists to build an audience.

I do not see this as a good thing.

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