Show HN: Facebook pays indie musicians .165% of average | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Facebook pays indie musicians .165% of average

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16 points6stringmerc9 comments

Meta: this is a regular post, not a “Show HN”

meta: it is not clear to me if 6stringmerc on HN is the same person as austin_on_guitar on IG -- I feel like unifying this would make it clearer if this is you showing your own work, and would also help you drive playbacks from your HN posts

Even if it is the same person it would not qualify as a Show HN ( ”Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with” )

How is Facebook comparable to Spotify or Apple Music, let alone iTunes?

Are these payments made for music used in reels (similar to TikTok), where the music isn't the point of the video, and might be used only for a few seconds, as compared to a platform where someone is listening to (and paying for!) music deliberately, and for its own sake?

The average is computed from platforms that offer one-time "purchases" and also those that pay per play, so that figure is misleading. It's interesting data nonetheless, just to compare the absolute values for services in the same category.

What prevents the artist from not doing business with Facebook if they don’t like the pricing?

Is it possible this person is just on some entry level deal that anyone starting an account gets? He has 17k plays over 10 years. He's making $15/year on streaming, I suspect if you start to get volume you get a better deal?

Conspicuously absent from the list is bandcamp.

Yup, and Kickstarter as well.

I realize I'm a bit of a fossil, but I do feel better about giving revenue to the artist as much as possible (Bandcamp, Kickstarter, Amazon downloads). I don't get exposed to the same breadth of music, but the band actually sees some money. I suppose the ideal situation would be to use a Spotify-type service for finding new bands, and then using a more direct route to pay for those I like.

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