The platform just needs to launder more money for Swedish crime gangs. Then it can take a cut and make profit…uuuuuhh undeclared.
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Spotify Raises Prices for Second Time in 12 Months, Now More Expensive Than Apple Music
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Spotify Q1 Results: User Growth Slows, Streamer Swings to Profit as It Hits 239 Million Premium Subscribers
Spotify netted fewer new users than expected in Q1 2024, but the audio-streaming giant touted "record strength" in profitability.
variety.com
Spotify reeled in fewer new users overall than it expected in the first quarter of 2024, but the audio-streaming giant touted “record strength” in profitability.
[ . . . ]
Revenue in the quarter increased 19.5%, to €3.64 billion, and gross margin topped guidance by 121 basis points, reaching 27.6%, with gross profit hitting €1.0 billion (the first time that’s hit the billion-euro mark). Operating income improved to a new quarterly high of €168 million. Net income for the quarter came in at €197 million, compared with a net loss of €225 million in the year-earlier period.
It's just that everything is a subscription and goes up a buck or two once or twice a year. Soon you're spending $30 more a month and you're like "WTF happened??"
Since my last reply got removed, I'll try explain this more gently.
Artists are largely not fine with Spotify, but they use it because that's where a lot of people get their music and most artists don't have a large, dedicated enough following to ignore streaming audiences.
They participate because the alternative to almost nothing is nothing, so engaging with Spotify is the ever-so-slightly lesser of two evils.
There is a streaming increase fatigue, its not just a $1 increase but everything is going up.
I am not a fan of the price increase, but it is highway robbery to be paying the same or less for Spotify over Apple Music (I've used both). Spotify easily has 100x the features, from being able to swap songs on my Windows 11 PC from my Apple Watch, to a collaborative 'blend' playlist that mixes together songs my brother and I both enjoy, and refreshes daily, to being able to see what your friends are listening to in the sidebar, to podcast and audiobook offerings.
To some, these aren't valuable, but once again, Spotify easily has 100x the features of Apple Music, $1 extra per year is worth it to me.
To some, these aren't valuable, but once again, Spotify easily has 100x the features of Apple Music, $1 extra per year is worth it to me.
I have 2 questions for each of you:
1) How much, exactly, should an artist get paid per stream of a song?
2) Please tell me exactly what you would be willing to pay per stream, no subscription, just a la carte.
Seems there are a lot of folks that want artists to get paid more but then also complain about subscription prices.
$12 a year here, $12 a year there... it adds up.
It's currently $17NZD a month for Spotify Premium - which I'm happy with as I listen to enough music to justify it.
I would love to see the Audio book time limit dropped or increased, 15 hours isn't enough for some books
I would love to see the Audio book time limit dropped or increased, 15 hours isn't enough for some books
Very true.
Unfortunately, while Apple is better than Spotify in paying the artists… it isn’t substantial by any means. Being the top three in this space is a matter of fractions of a penny for the artist.
Supporting the artist on tour is the best way, or supporting them on their web page, Bandcamp or anything that is deemed “official.”
I think point (1) is a red herring. The issue is that Spotify already pays out so little to artists, yet is still not profitable, which suggests that the real issue is that streaming was never a sustainable business model in itself. Over the past year, we have seen Spotify dial back on their podcast ambitions, retrench a whole bunch of employees (right around Christmas too!) and now trying to boost revenue by hiking prices.
For (2), I have actually stopped paying for Apple One because I found I wasn't using music streaming all that much (listen more to podcasts these days, and between Stratechery and Mactories, they provide me with more than enough listening content to fill up my spare time. In the meantime, I am using the YouTube music app since that comes bundled with my YouTube premium subscription, but I am not really a fan of the app (feels like the folks at Google did the bare minimum to cobble a music streaming app together). Since I also found myself listening to large the same few albums over and over again, I may probably just purchase them from iTunes ultimately because I do find myself missing the Siri and shortcuts integration. The artist will likely earn more from me from the sale of that 1 song than they ever will from me in a lifetime.
And third, the problem here is that the price increase is not going towards paying artists any more money. If anything, Spotify is actually using audiobooks as a means of paying them less.
Just so we are clear, I do agree that Spotify placing greater emphasis on paid subscriptions and higher pricing is the right strategy, for the same reason I prefer to pay more for a premium experience (which extends to doing away with ads). However, are subscribers here really okay with the app becoming a hodgepodge of various audio services?
What I see here is an opportunity for Apple to gain more mindshare for Apple Music through another round of aggressive advertising to further highlight the differences between the two.
1. Depends on the deal with their label. Streaming services pay the licence holders not the artist. Obviously some artists have better deals than others with their label.
Obviously someone like a Drake/Taylor Swift/Adele is going to earn more per play, they are an enormously established artist that has created a tonne of value to their label compared to a new act signing their first deal.
There isn't a one size fits all answer to this question.
2. To pay a la carte is obviously a terrible deal for the consumer l so wouldn't be willing to even entertain that model and I doubt anybody else would either.
1p per stream has been thrown about but that would obviously require price hikes but is probably fair in terms of what the platforms pay out.
You should see the outrage over planet fitness raising their price from $10 a month to $15. “A 50% increase?! Omg!” Like uhhh…dude for the price of a Big Mac meal you can get an entire month of access to a gym with showers and circuit training and everything. That’s still a killer deal
People are weird.
Well that's besides the point, it's just crazy that a service with fewer features and a smaller catalog of songs is more expensive.
Now maybe you can argue they make up for it with a better experience, but I'm not a fan of the UI and navigation. Just personally.
I beg to differ. All I am asking is what folks would consider fair compensation per stream.
Perhaps that is true. One of my reasons for asking how much people think an artist should be paid per stream is to extrapolate that out into what that would look like for subscription costs and then ask those same people if that would pay that cost.
Ditto. I never paid for any services and listen mostly to podcasts or my own collection of music.
Interesting take, can you expand on that? If people wouldn't be willing to pay a la carte "fair compensation" to the artists or license holders then I'm at a loss as to how artists or license holders would get that "fair compensation". If a consumer listens to streaming 24/7 then I assume the streaming service is losing money on that subscription. While another paying customer might only listen to streams 1 hour a day meaning the service is making bank on them. Subs of course average that out.
My issue is the number of people that complain about fair compensation for the artists but then don't want to pay. If one believes, for example, that fair compensation for a stream is .01 but they are themselves unwilling to pay .01 per stream a la carte then they are a hypocrite. Every time I ask this question no one responds.
"Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content."
- Spotify CEO
Perhaps he meant to say "...we can pay content creators close to zero."
Anyway, he will find a way to blame this all on Apple somehow.
fortune.com
- Spotify CEO
Perhaps he meant to say "...we can pay content creators close to zero."
Anyway, he will find a way to blame this all on Apple somehow.
Spotify’s CEO got roasted by artists after he said the cost of creating content is ‘close to zero.’ Now he’s trying to walk back his ‘clumsy’ remark
In a clarifying post, Daniel Ek said his earlier definition of content was “very reductive.”
I would cancel all streaming music and go back to buying but Apple Music classical got me hooked. I pretty much only listen to classical music.
So, Spotify still provides an inferior listening experience, and now costs more than TIDAL Hifi, which offers HiRes FLAC, and Dolby Atmos. Make it make sense. TIDAL streams a practically infinite library of CD-quality music through my 2-channel Yamaha receiver or DAC connected to my iPhone. The TIDAL HiRes library is arguably better than CD quality. Other than the novelty of physical media and nerding out over DAC performance, there is no reason to use anything else for audiophile quality digital music. Why do people still listen to Spotify? Do they just not know or care how badly it sucks?
Truth is, I don't know what a reason rate is or the impact it will have on monthly subscription plans. All I know here is that Spotify's rate isn't the best, none of this rate hike will go towards artistes, and suddenly, the usual spotify supporters are acting like it's no big issue.
Perhaps the best solution is if music streaming simply went away and everyone went back to purchasing music Ala-carte but I am not sure it is possible to put that genie back in the bottle anymore.
I don't know why but referring to music as "content" feels wrong in a way that referring to stuff like podcasts, movies, videos, audiobooks, etc doesn't."Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content."
- Spotify CEO
Perhaps he meant to say "...we can pay content creators close to zero."
Anyway, he will find a way to blame this all on Apple somehow.
Spotify’s CEO got roasted by artists after he said the cost of creating content is ‘close to zero.’ Now he’s trying to walk back his ‘clumsy’ remark
In a clarifying post, Daniel Ek said his earlier definition of content was “very reductive.”