> into fiscal gains
That does not contradict pay per stream, at all.
The new streaming model also isn’t going away because it’s changed the way consumers engage with music. Before I would have to gamble on CDs/records in a pretty high-friction process. You would pay for the big names because you knew they would put something quality out, so it wasn’t as risky to buy their stuff. Now the cost for me to switch to other songs is basically 0, so I’m much more easily able to find stuff I like.
I’d argue that this new streaming model is incredibly valuable and warrants Spotify’s high valuation. Though, I agree with your sentiment here. Artists and their music power Spotify, so it seems fair that they get the lions share of value. Right now, it doesn’t feel like that. However, I think in the long run artists will win because their music is truly inimitable. Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal, etc. are all fiercely competing on this distribution model. I haven’t seen a single feature that can’t be copied on any of these platforms. On the other hand, it’s basically impossible to copy another artist’s music (and make real money). Over time, I think streaming services’ margins will slim down because they must compete on price if they can’t compete on unique features. This will ultimately allow more artists to earn more money which is something I think we both can agree is what we want out of the music industry.
> while filling their own pockets nicely
Spotify loses money every year. Sure it has a market cap in the billions, but if it never makes money that wont last long.
This is a skewed way of looking at it, that highlights the positive and ignores the negative.
It’s a lot harder to turn musical talent, productivity (writing & performing songs), and popularity into money than it used to be. Spotify is a big part of that change—and yes, it probably would have been a different company if it weren’t Spotify, but so what? In our history, it’s Spotify.
Music isn’t just hit-driven. There used to be more house bands, more bands who could make a living from tours, that sort of thing. These days, musicians try to find an audience on Spotify and social media and make money doing performances, selling merch, and going on tour, but the amount of revenue you make from that kind of work is a lot less.
If you’re productive and put out two albums per year, and you want to make half of your money from streaming, let’s say $40k per year from streaming, you end up needing somewhere around 10 million streams per album (somewhere around $2500 per million streams).
That’s just for one person to get by. If you sold digital copies of your album, you’d only need to sell 6,000 copies per album to make the same amount of money (around $7 per digital album sale).
I remember being really happy to pay $10 for an album, just ten short years ago. (Yeah, I was a little slow to get a streaming subscription.)
That’s by design. The distributor benefits from this arrangement.
> The fact that these artists are there, still making new music, suggests to me that they are making it work one way or another.
We could say the same about, say, chickens laying eggs in factory farms.
That doesn’t match my impression at all—where I’m sitting, I heard artists complaining about how they’re unable to recoup album production costs, and how going on tour has turned into a grind, or artists are even losing money going on tour. I’ve seen people make Twitter posts or YouTube videos talking about how they can’t afford to make music any more. I guess you haven’t seen those posts—I think a couple have gone by the HN front page, but you see them more elsewhere.
It’s not just about being rich—recording a small band could easily cost, say, $2,000 if you do it for super cheap. If you’re not making any money from your music, then your music turns into just another expensive hobby, and you need to spend more of your time doing some other job. Your music ends up competing with family, relaxation, relationships, and personal health.
I don’t understand where you’re getting this impression that musicians are fine, that they’re doing ok, because it is just so different from what I see. There are some musicians who have steady work or have enough draw to make money on tour or through streaming, but the rest of the artists are just getting squeezed out, and it seems like it’s getting worse every year.
It seems impossible to square the fact that my listening is comprised of small acts who would never get mainstream radio time in a million years with the idea that it is harder to be a musician. What were those bands doing before, with, at best, a small local following? There’s just no way that the bands I like would reach me in the old days. How could a band have an easier time in a world where they have no exposure? How could harder dynamics result in a massive wave of more bands making music than ever before?
I’m not seeing this explained in your posts.
Nonsense. It's never been easier, and the change is so dramatic that it's an entirely different world than it used to be.
Anyone at all, alone, with no agent, label, production team, or any support whatsoever, can create and publish music and videos, for free, upload them to free hosting services, where they will live indefinitely and be available to a global audience on-demand. And if they're even a little popular, they can get paid. If they're really popular, they can get paid a lot.
Exactly when and how was it ever easier than this? Before, you needed an army of people and companies on your side, and had to be exceedingly popular to stand any chance of earning a penny. There were dozens of gatekeepers between artists and the fame and fortune they sought.
Before, you could play to local audiences. You even stood a decent chance of making a living doing that, or maybe enough that you could do that and have a part-time job. Nowadays it’s a lot harder.
This is where a lot of our big stars came from, in the first place. Some were in cover bands, or played piano in local bars for small audiences.
It’s easier than ever to get popular, but harder than ever to earn money.