799 karma · joined December 22, 2012
Also note the terms of his deal with Columbia are unlike most major deals in that he has a 50/50 profit split after his advance payment got recouped, retains either full control or 50/50 control of masters, etc.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but how much money do you think the 7500 creators on Spotify making $100k+ [1] would be making without Spotify or other streaming platforms? My guess is closer to zero than 100k.
Also 0.09 percent of 8 million creators making 100k+ [1] sounds horrible, but my guess is that should be taken with a grain of salt. How many folks are included in that 8 million who registered, but uploaded nothing? How many uploaded once or twice? How many uploaded and did ZERO promo of themselves? How many are just plain terrible musicians?
A number of years ago when I stumbled on him, Russ was pulling in a few hundred thousand per year from streaming. Looks like he’s making 100k per week as of a couple of years ago [2]. Yes, he’s probably an outlier. But he works his butt off on his craft, handles production and writing himself, and markets himself well.
Headlines like “Big tech and AI destroying the indie music industry” get more clicks and attention than “Streaming platforms provide income where once there was none” so shrug.
[1] https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2021/02/24/spotify-artist-e... [2] https://twitter.com/russdiemon/status/1325853093074923520
EDIT: Not making Taylor Swift money, but not many are
Are you saying you are only OK with Z-wave and Zigbee?
For me at least, I think most of my "suffering" has come from expectations like this that are incongruent with reality. Who said it should be great all the time? I'm right there with you. I have add all sorts of expectations like this in life that when put to the test via my own experience, and the experiences of others, just don't add up.