And I did enjoy finding new artists through the algorithm there .. but I do made up my mind about letting go of the concenience and owning all my music again. It is a big effort, though and I don't enjoy it so much like you.
Almost like how people who haven't moved out of their hometown cite all sorts of reasons or apparent faults of the place they haven't moved to, like it's too expensive; it's too rainy; it's too busy; it's not sunny enough; but really, they weren't in the business of leaving anyway, because they're comfortable or don't know how to make friends, or they stubbornly try to love a place they actually hate, or they have family there and a support structure, or they have no ambition, or they actually just like the place. Either way, the moving goalposts and random critiques don't matter, it's not the hypothetical destination's burden to court someone who won't make that leap anyway, but there may be a select few fence sitters who are just waiting for a push.
I don't think Spotify's main objective is to persuade hobbyist music collectors to stop, but rather it's to persuade people who want to access music anywhere to pay for the service, which may or may not be someone forced to ditch their vinyl collection or Zune. Voting with your wallet only matters if the service you actually might pay for or are paying for stops being a compelling product.
If you already have a collection and are reasonably content in what you listen to, topping it up with a few albums a year is not that hard.
Or just use youtube music!
There are probably good local solutions for the last one especially, but a convenient UI that's already on all your devices helps.
No they are not. Hi there. We noticed you have been listening to Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and Deftones. Why not have a listen of this Robbie Williams song too ... blasts out some pop song at extra high volume.
Spotify is certainly convenient especially being multi-device, but after a few months you've probably exhausted its recommendations.
Spotify will never be able to pay out enough if people don’t think this music is worth paying for.
They want access to every new album but refuse to pay how much a single new CD would have cost back in the day
Why should I buy a tshirt from somebody because I like their music? Fashion design is its own unrelated art form.
Unless you’re the type of person that actively considers them a fan of something and goes out of their way to consume a specific niche, there isn’t much reason to pay much, or anything for entertainment.
to be fair, that's a billion dollar business of an audience. Bandcamp is still a thing because people like that exist. So I wouldn't readily dismiss that.
But yes. We're in an age where people treat TV shows as "second screen entertainment", the silver screen is dying out, and where Spotify is flooding its library with white noise and AI slop. And people at best shrug. There's never been less respect for the arts, and it reflects in wider consumer patterns. Any future artists will need to appeal to a shrinkingly few fanbase of those who care about quality.
Hint: Your subscription pays for the listening habits of free users. Who do those free users listen to?
The reason why Spotify is a raw deal for the artists you listen to is the same reason why it is possible to bot listens of your AI generated songs and get out more money than was paid for by the bot's subscription.
The entire Spotify business model is very peculiar in how stupid and wasteful it is and who the beneficiaries are.
What you should do instead is give yourself a fixed music budget, export your stream counts and subscribe to their patreons in proportion to how much you listened to them.
The issue even goes back to the days of CD's. The artist still wouldn't get that much back compared to the label publishing the disc. even in 2000 is was still more profitable to buy a tshirt than a CD from the artist.
I'm not very well versed in this area, but clearly something needs to change. Being able to independently published helps, but Spotify's model does indeed make it harder to sell your own albums despite it being easier than ever to distribute it without a middleman.
The pie that Spotify divides up among the artists is a global one. It's not like you listen to one artist, so they get your 10 bucks every month. You're paying Taylor Swift, even though you never listen to her.
If I listen to obscure indie band all month, some of my money will go to Taylor swift. But all those swifties are also paying obscure indie band.
Their relationship with the labels
ATLANTIC RECORDING CORPORATION;
ATLANTIC MUSIC GROUP LLC; BAD
BOY RECORDS LLC; ELEKTRA
ENTERTAINMENT LLC; ELEKTRA
ENTERTAINMENT GROUP INC.; FUELED
BY RAMEN LLC; WARNER MUSIC
INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LIMITED;
WARNER RECORDS INC.; WARNER
RECORDS LLC; SONY MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT; ARISTA MUSIC;
ARISTA RECORDS, LLC; ZOMBA
RECORDING LLC; UMG RECORDINGS,
INC.; CAPITOL RECORDS, LLC; and
SPOTIFY USA INC.,
Plaintiffs,
Factual Background - III
The Record Company Plaintiffs’ business model relies
in significant part on the licensing of their catalogs of sound recordings
to legitimate streaming services like Spotify.
Since "owners" take such a big chunk (50%) of paid royalties for streaming there is a strong incentive to only play music that is "owned" by labels and not directly by artists and performers. Controlling the number of "spins" an song or album of theirs gets is still a huge concern of the labels.
Spotify has exactly zero music "directly by artists and performers". Even indie artists have to go through distributors and labels. Because without "owners" that own 60-80% of all world music, and that Spotify pays 70% of revenue to there would be no Spotify (or any music streaming service).
Is it impossible for an artist to own their own label?
> or any music streaming service
That doesn't seem to follow from any part of your argument.
What happens when the Big Four pull their content from your platform because you started bypassing them?
Honestly, Spotify itself probably couldn't care less, for the obvious reasons you say.
But the music labels sure do. Their contracts with Spotify surely require it to implement appropriate DRM, stop all attempted piracy, etc. If Spotify wants to be on good negotiating terms with labels, they have absolutely no choice but to take as much legal action as possible.
I am still paying for streaming, though. Still. Not sure if it is really worth it - and once I have my local mp3 collection available for myself - not sure, if I need a paid streaming service. I am getting too old and I return more and more to the songs I grew up with. And to be honest - if I would be missing anything, I could easily yt-dlp it, store it on my server and have it available ti myself via self hosted streaming.
I am loosing more and more interest in streaming. For video and music.
Their response to litigation?
> NVIDIA defended its actions as fair use, noting that books are nothing more than statistical correlations to its AI models.
It's barely veiled these days how little they care for art.
I'd love to self host my music, but curating my collection is a lot of work. I made several attempts, but looking for music I like was too much work for me. If getting "illegal" music becomes easier I'll definitely eventually do this.
Even if you didnt want a DIY solution, I bet you would accept a free clone, along with every other customer
Credit where it's due, Spotify made it a lot harder to find pirated music in good quality