this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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How much money would they want to skim to distribute the music? 33-66 split doesn’t sound so bad considered that they don’t produce the music, sign artist, promote them, etc
They can always start their own label if they believe that vertical integration will be more profitable for them.
They tried that with podcasts and it didn’t go as planned
33% is a massive amount for effectively just being a download service. massive
For reference, the Steam store of the gaming distributor Valve charges 30% of each sale, however the Steam service provides quite a bit of incentive. Having community and discussions easily accessible, cloud storage that links to screenshots and saves, branches, I'm sure there's more.
Meanwhile Spotify gives you, what, playlist creations?
Because servers and traffic are free. Totally forgot how you don't have to pay the people keeping the service alive either. A steam game you download once? Maybe once a year? Music gets streamed (downloaded) every single time unless you decide to download it. Can we maybe not pretend like Spotify does fucking nothing?
servers and traffic are basically free, it's very low cost - their expenses are salaries not servers.
I didn't mention servers because that is their only cost next to employees.
If they aren't paying artists well, well what's the point of having servers.
Maybe can we not pretend like Spotify is some up and coming startup that barely breaks even because of their benevolence?
Because apparently these servers cost enough that even with 400mil users they aren't making profit? The point of Spotify is giving paying customers what they want so that hopefully Spotify can make a profit. Unsure why that's so unacceptable for you? And small artists have been paid like shit long before Spotify was an idea. Take that up with the actual music industry. Or maybe accept that turning your hobby (making music) into a job just doesn't pay the bills for everybody that tries. I have no idea how you can blame Spotify for payouts bigger than on YouTube or Twitch when it's the music industry fucking with the numbers.
Many of their executives make over $300,000 and the CEO is a billionaire. I don't know how you can't blame Spotify for payouts.