How do platforms like spotify not offer "great service for both consumers and producers"? They offer the same 70/30 split as steam, and I'm not aware of any widespread consumer discontent for spotify, aside from maybe their reputation for underpaying their artists (see previous point).
https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
Or maybe it's just that Spotify is a subscription split between all the listened tracks whereas Steam is individual purchases? It's probably be fairer to compare the economics to Microsoft Gamepass.
Can you clarify what you mean by "economics of Spotify work out"? Are you talking about how much money artists are getting from spotify compared to steam? If so, I think the answer is pretty obvious. Video games derive an overwhelming majority of their revenue from selling the product itself and associated DLC/microtransactions. All of that is done through steam or whatever storefront, so the storefronts can rightly claim they're paying hundreds of millions to the publishers/developers. This makes them look "fair". On the other hand for music, streaming is only a fraction of overall revenue. Artists also derive revenue from live performances, merch, and album sales. That makes streaming platforms seem "unfair", because they get so little revenue from them, even if the revenue split is the same. I don't see this as an issue though, only an issue of public perception.
Artists are free to take their works off streaming platforms if they don't like the deal, but I suspect most don't because the free publicity they get from being on streaming platforms drive other revenue sources. Streaming is a loss leader. Artists complaining about this makes as much sense as news publications complaining about how little money they get through subscribers, when their real revenue source is advertisers.
It really shouldn't be considered absurd, especially to people on hacker news. Many software projects are used by billions of devices (eg. linux, curl, openssl), but nobody is creating websites protesting how little github pays them. Just because people use your product, doesn't mean they're willing to pay money for it. If you can't make the economics work because nobody is willing to pay for your product, or there are tons of people lining up waiting to undercut you, blaming the platform is barking up the wrong tree.
I don’t think there’s a musical equivalent to that strategy.
Would it be that much though? Consider an artist with 20k unique regular listeners, which is successful territory but nowhere near big. If albums cost 3-5 bucks, an artist could make a good individual living releasing albums every 8 months or so, which is plenty of time to make em. Songs could then be maybe 30-50 cents. We’re never going back to such a model, but it wouldn’t be that expensive to fund artists.
also, of course it's a very frequently voiced "observation" that some percentage of a big amount of money... is a big amount itself, yet the marginal cost is - and you might not believe it, but - almost zero!
that's why people complain about taxes, bonuses, etc.
the usual complaints from small artists are usually about how the network effects are "biasing" the payout distribution toward big names. (ie. the fixed monthly subscription revenue split amongst all the artists weighted by plays.)