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Comment by barbazoo | Hacker News Reader

It makes me sad to time and time again learn that the low prices of services I love are unsustainable and instead subsidized by treating someone unfairly downstream.

I wish I could be told what the ethical price for something is and I might actually pay it.

And if that price is too high, then maybe that service shouldn't exist in the first place.

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I think the 90's (Napster, Kazaa, etc.) has proven people are simply not going to pay that kind of money for the product (music).

The music industry also seems a bit like a "winner takes all" market where there are a bunch of top grossing artists which make an insane amount of money and a much, much larger part which can't make a decent living out of it.

Almost every major internet content industry is winner takes all. That is just the nature of power law distributions. Ask your average social media influencer how much they make. Also your average YouTuber/Twitch streamer. It is not unique to the music industry, just that the music industry is older and has more inefficiencies in the form of middle man that don't contribute much in value production but still takes a large cut.

> has more inefficiencies in the form of middle man that don't contribute much in value production but still takes a large cut.

Not to go laser-eyes Marx, but this is definitely not unique to the music industry either

The ethical way to pay for music is to actually buy it from a site like Bandcamp, instead of perpetually renting it from Spotify.[0] Expect to pay about $10 for an album.

Bandcamp usually takes a ~20% cut, but now has regular events where they waive their cut.[1]

It should be clear that $10/mo is not a sustainable price to pay to listen to any and all music ever recorded.

[0]https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-much-more-money-artists-e...

[1]https://isitbandcampfriday.com/

I don't think this will work. I can spend 8 euro for spotify subscription, but if i had to pay for albums, I'll buy maybe two a month, then resort to piracy. I don't think this is very unethical, bc even if there is no piracy, I still won't buy more than two albums. I'll listen to free music on soundcloud and YouTube, fm radio, whatever, but I won't pay more.

Wait - how are you responsible for the fact that the artists sign away their rights to shitty big labels that take the majority of the money that work generates? How are you responsible for dumb decisions musicians make?

I bet you also think grocery workers are dumb for agreeing to work while demanding better working conditions and fair pay.

They are not dumb decisions. An indie artist HAS to sign with labels if they want to make it in the industry. That's the way it's been and we've accepted for decades that that's the way it will be.

Mistreating workers is not okay. Workers joining the status quo to make a living is not dumb. Calling them "dumb" online is deplorable, however.

It's something that's changing drastically every day. An indie artist is more and more able to record and upload their own song to spotify today than any time before.

Just being able to upload to Spotify does not make a sustainable career. You need marketing, and you need to build up a wide and loyal following of people who will buy your stuff.

Do you know you have to pay the distributors to upload? Its not like YouTube. From the getgo you are paying someone.

Why don't you become a musician and try to make it before laying it out like this? They hardly have another choice. Do you immediately assume 95% of artists are entrepreneurial fools?

There are lots of musicians who aren't producing a living-wage's worth of value to listeners.

They do have a choice: they can get a better paying job if they don't like the amount they can earn from music. Society should not be responsible for funding someone's passion when there isn't demand.

And yes, the expectation that you can earn a good living just by being a recording artist is foolish. The vast majority of musicians throughout history have been unable to do so.

You sound like my Dad (who was right).

Get a better paying job is very easy in this business. The lowest of the low would be better paying.

Artists have literally shown up in the comments here explaining that it's not that simple, and that these rates are issues for people who sign to small/indie labels and even artists who own their own labels.

Also, "if you're abused it's your own fault for being dumb" is usually a take you want to be pretty careful with.

Being unable to monetize a hobby is not abuse.

There was time before streaming that artists absolutely needed record labels and that was the set of circumstances under which they signed deals with record labels. Before Youtube and streaming services record labels provided distribution of your product to local markets as well as promotion of that product in local markets both in stores and on radio. The overwhelming majority of the big 3 records label's catalogs are from that era. How exactly does that constitute "dumb decisions musicians make?" Your logic is absurd and seems to predicated on somehow being able to predict the future.

I'm not sure you get how the music industry works. Getting a record contract isn't quite like getting a CS degree, passing a coding interview, and being handed 125k and benefits by HR. But sure, all these musicians are just dumb idiots. Have some respect for artists (unless you hate music, I guess).

I think it is sustainable if we can cut out the middle man, the royalties go mainly to labels and less so to artists. E.g. if an artist doesnt use a label on Spotify im sure his revenue will be higher and the current price would be sustainable. I think the royalties that go to labels are unsustainable

Doesn't services like Spotify make that easier?

AFAIK while you need a distributor and can't just upload your stuff like you can on Youtube, there's a bunch of them that seem to give the artists everything.

If the artist choose to go with a label that takes their royalties, that's on them. If they do it because they want the visibility and services, that has a cost.

Music is a field where a lot of people do it just for fun, and it's quite saturated. Supply (as in diversity of products) way outweigh demand.

I would just like to know why there is a need for a distributor in Indie Spotify artists? Its an agent. This agent doesn’t do anything.

I make music, I own all rights, I upload to streaming service, I should get all cut from streaming service. What does said agent do?

> It makes me sad to time and time again learn that the low prices of services I love are unsustainable and instead subsidized by treating someone unfairly downstream.

In general, price competitiveness on the market is based on some form of workforce exploitation.

I know it's not a zero sum game and so on, but someone is paying the difference on the discounted price you are offered.

There is plenty of money and it is sustainable, it's the curse of the middle man taking all of the money. If an artist uploads their own songs to spotify, there's plenty of money for the artist.

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