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richwater

> but honestly hasn't much improved the lot of artists and musicians

As a consumer of music, why is this my problem?

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This is a rhetorical question, right?

If you consume music then surely, you want the artists and musicians you support to be paid fairly for their work.

Why is that “surely”?

You're right, my bad, I assumed most folks would have a base level of empathy.

Well , it’s either I listen to it using this easy platform for us common folk, or I don’t listen to them at all. Or i pirate. It’s not that deep , you can get off your high horse.

There's no high horse. Your message doesn't answer the argument. The fact (A) that one wouldn't buy music if Spotify weren't available is not related to (B) not caring about how Spotify treats artists.

Even if A is true, it doesn't imply that one has no empathy for artists.

Between dead artists and art-for-art-sake artists we're not gonna run out of stuff to listen to, even if intellectual property was abolished tomorrow morning (as it should be). It only works for the 1 percent at the top anyway (due to power law distribution).

Can you or jrm4 explain why Spotify's royalty system (a 70/30 split in favour of the rights holder) is unfair?

If I had to guess I'd say it convinces artists to license their work for less money than they'd make if they stuck it on Bandcamp, but I'm not certain, and neither of you has explained it.

Spotify don’t pay 70/30 and the actual payout is not related to what individuals actually listen to.

For example, I could spend a month listening to only indie artists, but the lion’s share of my subscription would be paid out to major labels.

The Hypebot explanation suggests it's more complicated than that: https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2021/11/how-spotify-royaltie...

I have no idea whether it's correct or not.

I specifically said "hasn't improved much" instead of "unfair" because I do realize that it wasn't particularly fair before?

At present, it seems like the most fair thing would be to just be honest about the fact that royalties from Spotify and royalties from piracy for the vast majority of artists is roughly equal. :)

I prefer a world that supports artists to one that doesn't, but from a purely selfish perspective, there's already so much recorded music that I do love or will, if/when I eventually discover it, love, that I wouldn't run out of novel, great material that's to my taste, in two lifetimes. There are whole major genres I've barely even touched so far.

The effect on my lifetime QOL would be basically zero if no new commercial music were created ever again.

Potentially great music is not being made as a result of people not devoting time and energy to the craft I guess. Also just general empathy.

You guess?

Music is like the last thing that will stop being made because people can’t professionalize their craft.

You don't think it has any impact? Even on the margins? I think it's basically expected that musicians will give up some day and join the working world, in part because it's so hard to make a living in. If it's harder to make a living -> more people give up -> less music. If it's easier -> fewer people give up -> more music.

It’s not a question of whether it has no impact or not because that’s irrelevant. You would actively have to punish people for making music in order for music not to be made—that’s how strong that force is. (Well heck, maybe more music would be made in that case, out of spite and rebellion.)

No music at all is not the concern, music you like not being made by artists you admire is the concern. This is basically the entire premise of Patreon btw.

Yes, that is true.

But there is quantity and there is quality.

So surely there would be also some gifted people who happen to have the luxory to focus completely on the music they want to make, but those would be the exception.

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