Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's Spotify that is paying them less, it's consumers.

With Spotify, I can listen to hundreds of new songs every month for $10. That would cost a fortune with CDs or buying digital downloads.

View on HN

Most people bought very few records in the past. FM rádio and cassetes where extremely popular because of that. I think that there is far more today between Spotify and Apple Music than there was between all labels during the CD era

With Spotify, the music industry is collectively able to extract $120/year from you for your at-home music listening experience. Would they be able to extract more with buying CDs or digital downloads? Or would you spend a similar or smaller amount, and simply consume less?

Zoom out a bit and take a group of friends 20 years ago vs now. A CD would commonly be shared/ripped, unlikely that everyone in the group buys the same record. Nowadays I wouldn't be surprised if sharing music is much less common since the monthly fee is quite low and good value.

I think now they can extract $120 in subscription fees, back then they might have been able to extract $120 in each person buying 4 CD's a year for $30.

My gut feeling (that might be completely wrong) is that the total value extracted probably stays roughly the same or goes up with an increase in disposable income.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com