I’m not even mad about it. It’s background music and clearly people are enjoying it. Just because they smashed out 15 tracks in a single session doesn’t make it unfit for purpose. That’s just how Jazz music is.
These are everywhere…
The masterpiece hanging in the museum was fully intended to be actively appreciated. The background on the box of cereal is ... just a background on a box of cereal. It's still art though.
A low effort watercolor by an amateur is still (an attempt at) art and remains a watercolor even if no one appreciates it.
art has no function except to be observed by an audience. if they enjoy it or not is immaterial. its purpose is to be observed.
the design of a box of cereal has a purpose - to sell you the box of cereal by making it attractive/stand out/fit the brand.
graphic design, when it has purposes beyond being observed, is not art — it’s a craft.
like engineering.
although graphic design/engineering can become art when it has no purpose except being observed.
edit — enjoyment is immaterial and the bits about graphic design can be art etc.
"The Bird showed up two hours late to a three and a half hour recording session. They recorded one take each of six tracks, but the recording engineer was surprised when they started so he missed the first half of the first track. And that's how we got the five tracks on <INSERT CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED ALBUM HERE>."
Although, I’m pretty sure there’s a ton of really complex and difficult jazz out there (IIRC it is one of the most advanced genres, whatever they means; I don’t do music). But that isn’t what we’re looking for on the chill whatever ambient music channels.
And in the end, the real money for musicians is syncs, shows and merch anyway. Spotify streaming revenue is tiny in comparison.
A wether is a castrated ram.
My Discover Weekly from Spotify used to be awesome. I found a bunch of new artists that I really liked and tons of great new songs. Recently it's been a bunch of old stuff that I've definitely heard of before. So I've mostly stopped listening to it.
Discover Weekly went from something I was excited about every Monday morning on the train, to something I forget to check most weeks.
There's a handful of songs it puts on every few weeks, for literally years now, despite me skipping them every time and never once listening to the band or song by choice.
"jazz improv" is probably just that, start with a generic beat / atmosphere and improvise and noodle on top of that. Sounds great to me, I wish there was more low barrier to entry live music like that. But I suppose there's no market for e.g. an in-house band working shifts for background entertainment, and they can't compete with jukebox software.
Look: If you give a damn about what you're listening to, you can go over to Spotify and create your own playlists filled with music you care about (assuming they have the artists you like in their catalog). In that case, the artists will get paid accordingly.
But Spotify has realized that a lot of people use it for background noise and don't give two shits whether what they're listening to is a "real" band or music-like content squeezed out of sweatshop sessions in Sweden or whatever. I can't fault them overmuch for taking advantage of the actual listening preferences of its users. If you feel cheated by this, spend some time curating playlists on your own.
Tacking on the CEO-shooter's mantra to your message is shameful. This isn't healthcare. This isn't killing anyone. It's a fully optional service that happens to be popular. Trying to link it to anger over being denied healthcare is ridiculous.
I'm just rambling without much explanation sorry, but I'm gonna hit the reply button anyway!
They do not pay out per stream. They pay out a set % of their total revenue to rights holders. Spotify has to pay the exact same amount of money before and after that change.
The savings for Spotify is in not having the (not so insignificant) administrative overhead of trying to make hundreds of thousands of basically worthless payouts to different individuals that are worth <$5 or even <$1.
I think it's fairly reasonable to draw some sort of lower bound on the minimum you need to reach to get a payout, especially in a world where basically anyone can put music on their service.