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Comment by Milner08 | Hacker News Reader

Right, but the money has always gone to a middleman, be it record companies or Spotify. If Spotify gets any more expensive I can guarantee people will go back to privacy, music will become less accessible and those niche bands that Spotify knows I may like will never get found.

I understand the need to get paid more, but I am not sure killing Spotify is the solution.

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Those niche bands will put their music for free online until they are well known to get their fans pay for the music, as they did in the 90s and 00s.

Its not about it being free online, its about discovery. Spotify is currently excellent for discovering new bands. TPB? Not so much.

> I understand the need to get paid more, but I am not sure killing Spotify is the solution.

If Spotify doesn't compromise, killing it would be the only solution, but this union doesn't have the power to do that initially. But this will never work because you have a infinite stream of new musicians wanting to be listen without receiving money for that.

Killing Spotify would be terrible.

New musicians want their work out there....without Spotify(or similar) it will be back to just blasting out your music for free online everywhere so you can get bug.

Spotify at least gives them some revenue while they increase their fandom.

And what do you expect to happen to Spotify when the musicians leave for someplace that pays them appropriately?

The answer is piracy again.

For a moment in time, piracy of movies and series was at a low point. Recently, with the fragmentation of all the different streaming services it's rising again.

The real answer is that Spotify will melt under its own inadequacy and the new platform will thrive. You adapt or you die, and I would have no sympathy for Spotify if they couldn't adapt.

Presumably these new brands have to charge their customers more in order to pay the artists more, right? I’m about at the max of what I’m willing to pay for music per month...

I don't care if its Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music or some new competitor. But if they get more expensive they will not win people over.

Musicians have complained in the past and threatened to leave and some have left... just to then come back.

I'm trying to come up with a word for that.. I think it starts with a M and ends with a Y and has a onopol in the middle somewhere.

It's hard to argue that Spotify is a monopoly when Apple Music, whatever Google's service is called now and Tidal have pretty much the same selection. And you can buy DRM free music still on iTunes and Qobuz. And even physical media. Oligopoly at worst.

Aren't Spotify deals typically coming from the record companies themselves, not the musicians? Unless artists reject the current record company model, Spotify isn't going to be able to fix this problem for them.

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