Recent news revealed that Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been investing heavily in military tech companies, which adds another ethical layer to a platform already criticized for how little it pays musicians !
Spotify only pays artists about $3–5 per 1,000 streams, using a pro-rata model that directs most money toward major stars… By contrast, Qobuz (≈$18–20 per 1,000 streams) and Tidal (≈$12–13) pay far more fairly!
However Tidal is far from ethical. Most of its revenue is controlled by private investors and founders and small artists still earn very little…
More fair-minded platforms like Bandcamp, Resonate, Ampled, or SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties prioritize musicians over investors.
With these more ethical alternatives available, why do we keep using Spotify?
I prefer to pay artists I like directly either via merch, patreon, or going to their concerts.
for my music? soulseek/nicotine+ on my server.
the problem is Spotify is by far the best streaming platform out there, bar none. I’ve tried the other’s like Tidal and Deezer and what have you and just didn’t like them. Amazon Music was absolutely horrible. The only other alternative would be youtube music with an adblocker. How do I find new artists? youtube shorts believe it or not.
But yeah I’d rather pay the artists directly.
I buy stuff on bandcamp during bandcamp fridays (which allegedly gives all revenue to the artist), but you need the artist to be there in the first place.
I find Spotify is dogshit to navigate I can’t find anything. If I let it autoplay it’ll just start playing generic shitty dance music. I don’t get it. I’ve never discovered an artist through Spotify.
I exclusively use Bandcamp lately. Unfortunately, American owned. Looking into other suggestions here.
Generic and shitty is the most common form of electronica.
Source: was raver in the '90s.
Not just any American: Tim Sweeney! I’ve talked to artists and they have said that there hasn’t been any fallout yet. I have to imagine it’s just a matter of time if it doesn’t manage to buy itself back or something.
I heard that news. Swiney owned yeah, my future prediction is the same as yours.
Oops, my information was out of date: elsewhere in this thread
Daniel Ek is investing in European defense companies. This is not unethical.
Spotify paying like shit to their artists and platforming Joe Rogan are totally valid reasons to move away though. But the thing is that Spotify is sort of like radio. How much did radio pay for artists for each time the song was played? Genuinely asking.
What I do is I do 90% of my listening on Spotify. Then when I hear something really good, I buy and download their album, usually on Bandcamp and mostly keep listening them on Spotify because it’s just so much lesser hassle. Seems like the best of both worlds. Thought about going to vinyls but I’m not hipster enough.
I’ve started on vinyls. They’re cool, but it’s some work. Gotta store it right, handle with care, clean them. And that doesn’t guarantee it won’t skip around or, worse, get stuck on a loop. I do like the big square that is the sleeve cover, and it’s just kind of cool. But I’ve been considering CDs instead. Cheaper, afaik, and can be ripped onto a PC with the right hardware (which I presume is allowed — so long as you don’t distribute it — given you pay for it). Cover art is unfortunately smaller, and I’ve seen some cool vinyl concepts that probably wouldn’t work as CDs (colourful? Semitransparent? Glow in the dark???). But far more convenient, and cheaper. Plus, with the right hardware, I could also listen to FM radio
Vinyls are cool, CDs more are convenient (or so I reckon)
LOL. “I’ve been considering CDs” is not something I’ve heard since the '80s. And you don’t really need specialized hardware to rip tracks to digital. Literally any optical drive can do that.
Can some tell me how Deezer stacks up? I switched from Spotify to Deezer a little while ago, not for any real reason, other than Spotify kept increasing their prices and I don’t really listen to audio books or podcasts even. Plus Deezer streams hifi flacs as standard so it sounds nds way better. I’ve got no idea how ethical they are tho, but would be interested to learn.
Edit: so I did my own research and like like Deezer posts sightly more per stream than Spotify, but marginally…
Never mind, I’m beginning to build my local music library and self host it. I buy lots of merch and I go to gigs regularly. Once my library is substantial enough I’ll quit the streaming apps
That’s been my take. Buy from the band or their merch whenever possible.
Bandcamp is a close second best, as is HDTracks although they’re both from murica.
Otherwise sail the high seas.I was never a fan of rent music until we stop you anyway.
I stream with Tidal and for my favourite bands I’ll buy their music on 7digital or Bandcamp.
I’d go with Qubuz but they have this whole Qubuz Coin thing that I really don’t like. If they removed that I’d switch immediately.
Note that Tidal is owned by Black rocks funds …which make it very non-ethical platform
Yeah, unfortunately I don’t have much choice at the moment. I refuse support platforms that in my opinion have anti-consumer pricing models, and I want artists to get the most money out of my streams, so it’s a bit of a catch-22.
I’m not sure about the coins but I’ve been using it for a few months now and have been thoroughly enjoying the service. I think the coins are literally just their store wallet, and whether you keep some store credit there or not doesn’t matter. It’s equivalent to buying an iTunes gift card or something. You can just pay for whatever you want outright.
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Qbittorrent
That pays exactly $0 per stream to the artists.
You can donate to the ones who deserve it and still have access to the drm free music locally
That doesn’t solve discoverability of new content, which is one of the good features of Spotify
That’s slowly being replaced with “AI content”, Spotify is literally becoming more shit by the day.
I don’t really use it myself, but you can scrobble to services like last.fm and get recommendations that way.
And if you want to sponsor your favorite artists, just go to their concerts or buy some music or merch. You’re paying them way more that way than your plays on streaming platforms ever will.
Do you want payola? Because that’s how you get payola.
Is it though? Seems like their algorithm gives everyone the same shit.
Wdym listening to new music
This is a “those 10 good tracks on repeat” household !
this is an awesome video on why other streaming services are just marginally better than spotify and not a long term solution: https://youtu.be/gDfNRWsMRsU
with that in mind i’m trying to transition away from streaming but am using tidal as what i hope is the least bad option for now.
Pirate and pay creators directly.
Pirating is the objectively best, most private and future proof user experience you’re gonna get.That just sounds like buying CDs but without the offline backup and booklet
Pirate and pay creators directly.
How does that even work?
Personally I do this by buying merch. If I buy a shirt from a band than not only do I get a cool shirt but the band also gets paid more in that single transaction than if I listened to their music 5000 times on spotify.
Sure, but that doesn’t give you rights to pirate their music, does it? There is also the problem who gets paid what when you buy their merch.
Ask any artist: they make most of their money from merch and ticket sales (depending on venue).
I assume that depends on the contract they have with their label, but usually it’s a way for them to earn more.
Are most artists still aligned with labels these days? I was under the impression that there’s been a massive shift to going independent.
Its standard across the industry. Artists get paid very little in per unit sales of media.
The bulk of money they earn comes from tours (which they cover the bill for, and cut some of the profits from), and merch (which they take the largest cut from).
That’s the standard, yes. And the solution is to pirate their music instead? But seriously, why do they even bother with labels then? Don’t get me wrong, I’d like for them to be better paid and for streaming services to allocate bigger cut to them, however, piracy doesn’t help with this at all. Usually it’s just an average Joe excuse to not pay anything at all.
I’m not really worried about whether a label or corporation deems me to have the “right” to listen to their music. The only thing I’m concerned with outside of consuming the art is the artist who made it. I highly doubt any artist would genuinely care if someone pirated their music but still payed them through other means (like buying merch, tickets, etc).
I think the argument of who gets paid what when you buy merch is irrelevant when you consider the alternative being the artist gets virtually nothing. I would have to listen to an artist 200 times for them to maybe get a singular dollar from spotify. If whoever is handling their merch store is giving them less than that for each sale of a shirt then it’s the artists fault at that point for still working with them.
I highly doubt any artist would genuinely care if someone pirated their music
That’s literally what happened with Napster. Metallica were rather pissed, and Napster shut down, leading to the fun P2P days of Whac-a-Mole.
“This is Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica. This month he was planning to install a gold plated shark tank bar beside his pool, but thanks to people like you downloading his music, he must now wait a few months before he can afford it.”
My late 20s partner has no idea what Napster is and it breaks my heart.
Fuuuuuuuuck Metallica of course it was one of the grotesquely wealthy ones that tried to kill sharing. Maybe the entire industry eat itself and collapse !
go to their gigs
Contact them, ask for ways to donate. Until they publicly provide that info.
You realize that bands have by their choice a contract with a label which in turn provides services to them (bands without a label don’t count since they would sell their music themselves)? If the band sells their music directly is one thing, but what you’re suggesting is simply wrong. Also donations are not meant as a mean of purchasing stuff. 🤷♂️
Yes, it is well known that Band merely contract out the business of distribution and they are not being exploited by this arrangement. Lars Ulrich told me that.
However, I still think all intellectual property should be abolished and all art should be paid in full before production starts and I will pirate everything until then. I may send donations with my own terms to certain artists as I see fit, I do agree this is not “purchasing” I do not “purchase” art, I take it and do not recognize any need or right for compensation.
But I do like giving them money regardless, I sent 1500$USD last year to various small artists I like to motivate them, make of that what you will. This is the only arrangement that I find acceptable.
Focusing on one part of your response that really rubs me the wrong way, you believe artists don’t need to be compensated for their work?
I think their point is that in an economy that isn’t profit-driven, artists (just like everyone else) would not rely on their art/labor for survival.
Artists generally prefer this model as well, since they don’t have to tailor their art to anyone else’s tastes. We already see models moving towards this, like Patreon, where you pay the artist to produce whatever art they want, rather than buying a completed work. The next step is this being UBI (which is essentially a public patronage system), not private patrons.
No, it is an artefact of a heinous economic system that they are made to “art for money” which is gross. I rather there be no art until the economic system perishes.
“I think that something has to be cheaper or have a different business model” doesn’t give me rights to steal it.
Stealing means change of ownership.
You are not stealing music.
Call it whatever you want, you don’t have rights to get it unless its through a legal way.
It’s not theft obviously, information can be duplicated infinitely at no cost.
Also I don’t think you understand, I want it to actively stop existing.
I pirate stuff, that I’m not even going to watch or listen to out of principle.
I want intellectual property abolished AND made illegal, not merely “change the business model” what kind of weak sauce is that, I want it flattened by bulldozers and erased from history books, it’s perpetrators treated as criminals.It’s not theft obviously, information can be duplicated infinitely at no cost.
Yes it is cheaply duplicated, but you have no rights to duplicate it when this is not allowed. Do you think artists are not entitled to a wage though? Should the live by the mercy of fans?
It’s worse. My music is on Spotify - while I would no longer meet their minimum for payments, even before that change they refused to pay me or provide stats until I provided a twitter or Facebook page/IG page, none of which I have - despite publishing through an established publishing company who could absolutely handle payments and play stats.
Spotify is cancer.
Bandwagon, Faircamp, Love a Brother Radio, The Indie Beat. Probably not what you’re looking for, but direct creator support, Fedi powered, all wonder folks.
Also gonna suggest Mirlo.space as it’s open sourced.
It’s the same old reason as always. Most users value their convenience more than anything.
I have been using https://music.inlinestyle.it/ ( https://www.inlinestyle.it/ ). I buy albums by myself so that the full royalties go to the artist and them keep my collection there.
It’s also nice to be able to listen to fediverse indie music I didn’t know about.
