The difference is Apple isn’t profiting off of somebody else’s work.
They paid someone to design and engineer, Spotify didn’t pay anyone to make music.
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Spotify Raises Prices for Second Time in 12 Months, Now More Expensive Than Apple Music
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They paid someone to design and engineer, Spotify didn’t pay anyone to make music.
Right now, the EU has come in and forced Apple to open up their App Store so that developers can steer consumers outside of the App Store, allowing them to keep 100% of app proceeds (minus payment processing fees).
Perhaps the same could be done for music streaming as well? Maybe come in and institute some form of "minimum wage" for musicians and ensure they are paid more? I am aware of a proposal being raised earlier this year by the EU, but there seems to have been no updates on this issue since.
Music streaming platforms must pay artists more, says EU
The European Parliament says “pre-digital royalty rates” need revising.
www.theverge.com
Yes they are. They absolutely are.
If people only realized that we control the market. If they did, they would stop paying these outlandish increases and these companies would eventually have to lower their prices. Two price increases a year. Get the heck out of here! Instead, the sheep just keep on paying. It is only going to get worse. I love Spotify, but I'm out. I can get XM for $5 a month and while it isn't as nice as having Spotify, it is better than constantly getting bent over a barrel by these greedy swine. I'd rather listen to FM radio than give this pigs another dime and trust me, money isn't an issue, it's the principle.
I'm going to have to do the same. I'm done with Spotify and I hate YouTube ads. Two birds for $11.66 a month (I'll pay 12 months at a time).
Ahhhh good ole Planet Fitness...where motivation and gains go to die.
Sure. Why not?
Artists SHOULD be cognizant of how the industry is or is not paying them adequately for the revenue they are generating. You don't think artists should care about this?
Spotify is in an untenable business situation; they don't pay enough AND they are losing money. It's a bit like Uber, Uber Eats, LYFT, etc. Many of these gig-economy apps are propped up by VC cash and don't yet have a workable model. If Spotify is in it to make money, they are failing.
Ummm...that's all sleight of hand. Spotify had a net LOSS of 532 Million Euros in 2023.
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.
My move a few months back to Apple Music is now seeming even better.
Little pain moving playlists (with an app).
Better sound quality.
Remember all the posts complaining about Apple not allowing Spotify to direct customers to their own payment option which was going to lead to competition and LOWER PRICES for consumers. Great job EU. It did the opposite.
Little pain moving playlists (with an app).
Better sound quality.
Remember all the posts complaining about Apple not allowing Spotify to direct customers to their own payment option which was going to lead to competition and LOWER PRICES for consumers. Great job EU. It did the opposite.
I highly doubt this. Access to the entire library of music, on demand, is a much different service than buying or downloading 1 song at a time. I don't think the world will ever go back to pirating music (or movies, etc) because it was always a horrible service and a huge suck to time and effort.
The truth of the matter is that consumers are paying TOO LITTLE for the service. The business models are broken.
That's strange. Do you own 100% of the rights on your songs or does a record company keep a big share? And as far as I know there are algorithms that are built in as a protection from bots so that if you stream a song 24/4 it won't count at all.
The reality in ALL of these business models is that put frankly, despite so many of you groaning about paying too much for subscriptions, these services are charging way too little for what they are providing. For those of you saying "just go back to buying CDs!" ...hahaha. A CD costs about $12 each. So, for an equal cost, you'd buy 12 CDs in a year? Have access to only 180 new songs every year? And frequently, especially in the modern era, Artists are focused on singles rather than albums. So of those 180 songs on the CD's, you'd probably only like/listen to about 10% of them, giving you essentially 18 new songs a year that you listen to. Not. Going. To. Happen.
For example, I added 287 new songs to my Apple Music Library in 2023. These are mostly singles. Let's be generous and say that this would be the equivalent of adding 20% of a given CD to my collection. That would mean that I would have needed to buy 96 CDs in 2023 to get the 287 songs that I like. At $12/CD, that means I'd have spent $1152. Compare that to the approximately $144 I spent on Apple Music. And if I were only buying CDs, what service am I using to discover new music? Take chances? Music stores, for the most part, don't exist. Radio is a thing of the past. And we haven't even mentioned the time spent in going to some music store or ordering the CD online and waiting for delivery.
Music streaming services are here to stay; but in order to maintain the service, CONSUMERS are going to have to pay more.
For example, I added 287 new songs to my Apple Music Library in 2023. These are mostly singles. Let's be generous and say that this would be the equivalent of adding 20% of a given CD to my collection. That would mean that I would have needed to buy 96 CDs in 2023 to get the 287 songs that I like. At $12/CD, that means I'd have spent $1152. Compare that to the approximately $144 I spent on Apple Music. And if I were only buying CDs, what service am I using to discover new music? Take chances? Music stores, for the most part, don't exist. Radio is a thing of the past. And we haven't even mentioned the time spent in going to some music store or ordering the CD online and waiting for delivery.
Music streaming services are here to stay; but in order to maintain the service, CONSUMERS are going to have to pay more.
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Oh wow, I didn't know this! Gotta check that out. Thank you!
When in the history of music have artists every made good revenue? Radio plays, recorded music sales, selling sheet music - the artists have always made **** while the publishers and distributors have always taken the bulk of the revenue. Even touring is actually not that profitable. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying the problem is a lot deeper and bigger than streaming services.
Interesting, I have seen .01 talked about as well and I posted this in a different thread:
From the services standpoint: Assuming copyright holders get .01 per stream. If Apple charges 10.99/mo a user can stream 1099 songs a month for a break even on your subscription. Apple of course is losing money on that because they handle all the backend and the service. If you listen to Apple Music all your waking hours, 16 hours times 60 is 960 potential listening minutes in a day and lets say the average song is 3.5 minutes... 960/3.5 is 274 songs a day. Your monthly "allotment" based on the sub cost would be used up in approximately 4 days. Or if you just take 1099 songs a month divided by 30 days your "allotment" is 36.6 songs a day.
From the artists standpoint: They could sell a song for 1.29 (current cost of Today's Hits on iTunes store). By the time profits from that amount hit the copyright holder... I'm gonna spitball it at .30, I have no idea but it seems reasonable by the time everyone gets their cut. Remember, Apple, Spotify, etc are not responsible for the ills of the music industry.
OR
They can hope that everyone just "rents" music forever. I think the artist wins in the streaming scenario, even at Spotify compensation.
It's easy to say "pay XXX person more" but that money comes from somewhere. If the general public would not be willing to pay .01 per stream a la carte then they might not be willing to pay what a subscription would cost either.
The cost of CDs and amount of music isn't the problem for me. The thing I would miss about Spotify is new music discovery and curated playlists.
From a price and amount of music perspective, CDs would probably save me money overall. I listen to the same ~30 albums over and over again mostly, and 20 of them are from when I was a teenager (i.e., can probably find the CD used on ebay for <$5). If I had those albums in CD already (unfortunately I don't, my old CD binder was stolen out of my car a long time ago), I would probably buy less than a new album per month.
But I am not sure how I would discover new music or get the playlists if I was relegated to CDs.
Also, sailing the high seas isn't really the answer here either. I can setup PlexAmp and fill it with 10,000 FLAC albums no problem. That still doesn't help me find music I like or provide curated playlists.
How is a comment noting that none of the price increase is going to artists who get paid a lower rate on Spotify than on Apple Music "crying a river?" The artists on Spotify are a captive audience. They take less because they have no choice with the number of customers Spotify has, but who knows what may happen if Spotify keeps raising prices while giving no benefit to customers or artists.
Only reason why I haven't jumped over to Apple Music is because of their horrific UI. Say what you want about Spotify, but their UI is still one of the best.
Maybe it's time to check out Tidal or Deezer?
Maybe it's time to check out Tidal or Deezer?
who said artists are going to leave? did you completely fail to understand the music business? yes, yes you did. artists have very little control over leaving Spotify. majority of music on Spotify is controlled by the labels 🤦♂️
talk about crying a river, lol. moving on.
fractions of a penny per play, sure.
if artists made music that the user will listen to for the rest of their lives, that's probably $50-70 per song. compare that to a $15 purchase album for 10 songs.
if 100,000 people listen to a single hit song for the rest of their lives, that's $5 million across 50 years. assuming artist makes $0.007 per play and increasing that to $0.008 would result in 14% increase. now possibly artist will be dead before they see that full $5 million, but, again, that's just from one song.
I beg to differ. I think having a baseline for "fair compensation" goes a long way towards determining if current subscription prices can support that "fair compensation".
You posted that you believe Spotify is not compensating copyright holders/artists fairly so it is reasonable to ask you what your expectation of "fair compensation" is. If you think getting up to what Apple is paying would be fair then just say that. From your post it is difficult to determine if you think the Apple level of compensation is fair or not.
True. My guess is they all gradually creep up to $15 - 20 a month or thereabouts in the coming years.
I think as @Timo_Existencia has posted above the current 'all you can eat' streaming model is here to stay but we will see gradual price hikes as we have seen with Netflix into more realistic (i.e higher) subscription pricing.
Not only did they brick their car hardware, they may have to give refunds, so they'll need some cash for that too:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/s...s-lawsuit-over-bricking-the-streaming-device/
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/s...s-lawsuit-over-bricking-the-streaming-device/