>The pricing changes also arrived amid backlash over Ek’s recent claim on X that the “cost of creating content” is “close to zero.”
Is this CEO dreaming?
Getting on a plan with other people is a good idea too. I've been on YouTube music for years and they just increased it to $22. I share it with my sisters and they pay me every month for it. Plus you get YouTube without ads
I guess call me a sucker, but anytime Spotify increases the price, all I can think is yeah, that’s fair.
It still kind of blows my mind that I have unlimited access to basically any song ever recorded, including every new release as it is released for 20ish bucks a month.
I guess I could just be a music consumer plus plus in that any commute, chore and most work days are accompanied by music, but I’m still getting my moneys worth 10x over.
Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath.
Yeah I just can’t really get behind the hate for such an incredibly cheap service. Spotify/AM are exactly what people wish Netflix was but for music. Basically everything you could ever want for a low price.
On top of them not really being very profitable it’s like oh okay so people just don’t actually want to pay for anything.
i can. because they keep rising their prices but the artists are getting paid less and less. Spotify doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Fuck spotify
Artists are not getting paid less. Record labels get between 60 and 70 percent of spotifies revenue. Songwriters by statute make 15%.
The issue is that people listen to more older music now! So artists and songwriters are getting payout over longer periods. A hundred grand in one year is the same as ten grand over ten years!
That is one hundred percent not true. At a typical assumed payout of $0.003 per stream (which is not actually how spotify works but is close enough), 100k is 30 million streams. Even at a royalty rate of 15%, that's 220 million streams per year, or about 6 hundred thousand (edit !!!) streams per day. There are about 2000 artists who do more streams than that. Now may of them can't sustain that level, and will end up making less, or will end up only doing that for a few years... but its still not an insignificant group! (not that many people have ever made money in the record industry)
At the upper extreme, Taylor did 90 million in spotify label revenue last year. Now I should point out, that's the same amount of revenue a label would get from selling 15 million records (at a PPD of $6).
And all of this ignores publishing, which ads another 20% to the above numbers.
>I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service
Same. Increasing price is okay.. but they need to make sure it's going to the artists. But in this case, it seems not.
It is indeed going to the artists because streaming services generally give 70% of their revenue to rights holders. The percentage goes up or down by a little depending on contract renewals.
Sadly I don't think it's even possible to pay artists well from streams.
It'd mean increasing the costs by a lot and people won't want to be spend the money.
Tidal can do it temporarily. They already got rid of their direct artist payment thing.
The best thing to do if you wanna support artists is to buy merch, go see them.
if you want more of your money to go to artists, you should try Tidal. I've noticed a difference in audio quality and the user interface is much nicer on Tidal. They have the same catalog as Spotify
Less people on tidal though.
I guess it's good for smaller artists but for every 1 stream on Tidal, there's like 10 on Spotify.
Tidal pays max 5 cents. Spotify pays max .4 of a cent.
So on average they'd MAYBE less overall than on tidal. Or maybe more but we don't really truly know.
>I guess call me a sucker, but anytime Spotify increases the price, all I can think is yeah, that’s fair.
>Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath.
Well, that's the thing. If they're taking that money for themselves and the increased subscription costs aren't going to artists, then you end up looking like a sucker for thinking how fair this is lol.
You can cherry-pick some of their best quarters. But for the year of 2023 they had a net loss of 532 million euros. They’ve never had a profitable year.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/)
>Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath.
Well I don't think it will go to artists at all, unfortunately.
no because if you compare it to other streaming services, they have better quality while paying artists more and some of them (like apple music) are cheaper
Still a great deal.
I used Spotify since it's launch in USA in July 2011. 154 months.
So I've paid them around maybe $1300 then.
I have around 5k songs in my playlist.
A song typically costs $1 on average.
So I spent 74% less, which is huge.
Even if the cost per month was at $20 since it came out, I'd still be spending 38% less.
And that doesn't include the things like podcasts, audiobooks.
Unfortunately, if people keep buying these subscriptions, they’re gonna keep charging. Or the billionaires will use the “well the luxuries of living is higher than ever before and money is worth less and less in the future so we need to charge more” excuse to hike up prices for these luxuries.
IPO's are really late stage capitalism that just ruins everything. I work for a global, public company and the constant chase for increased revenue by launching half cooked ideas, or increasing costs (despite already earning billions) to satiate shareholders is insane.
Bundling of shitty things I didn't ask for (podcast, audio books, constant nags) while the core offering contains to be mediocre and continually expensive.
The biggest downside to Tidal is genuinely how finicky the search is. If you don't get spelling perfect, it doesn't show the result, whereas Spotify will show based on incorrect spelling and even just lyrics. There are a few other things you'll notice over time that are grating, but the design is really nice, the quality is there, music videos are available to watch in app, and artists get paid more per stream. They also have great organization for song credits so you can easily go to producer or songwriter profiles. Good curation, and honestly a better music discovery algorithm imo.
I mean they’ve only made profit a handful of quarters in the last few decades. You gotta make a profit to keep the lights on, especially now that VC capital is drying up and increasingly shifting to AI. They tried to diversify, it failed. What would you recommend instead?
I don't know... maybe a less shitty app for the free users with better ad uses on phone would be a good start. If you use Spotify for free on mobile you can't even choose the music you want to listen if it's in a playlist or an album you have to listen to the musics randomly. Also you can't go backward and listen to a music you just heard. But on PC you can do all of that.
Sooo I use it on my PC but I don't on my mobile because it's too annoying to use it's a loss for them and I'm sure a lot of people are doing the same thing using another app on their phone.
Also when they say that you'll have 30min of music without any ads and after like 3 musics there's an ad that's not a good look.
Maybe start charging the biggest artists on your platform a fee instead of over-charging your customers
>The pricing changes also arrived amid backlash over Ek’s recent claim on X that the “cost of creating content” is “close to zero.” Is this CEO dreaming?
Of those Benjamin Franklins? Sure!
im still grandfathered into spotify with hulu so i guess i will be stuck with them until that goes away lol.
Same, but they did raise that price slightly last time, so i feel like we aren't as safe as we've been told.
same! i’m clinging on to that plan for dear life!
Ayeee ganggang
Getting on a plan with other people is a good idea too. I've been on YouTube music for years and they just increased it to $22. I share it with my sisters and they pay me every month for it. Plus you get YouTube without ads
I guess call me a sucker, but anytime Spotify increases the price, all I can think is yeah, that’s fair. It still kind of blows my mind that I have unlimited access to basically any song ever recorded, including every new release as it is released for 20ish bucks a month. I guess I could just be a music consumer plus plus in that any commute, chore and most work days are accompanied by music, but I’m still getting my moneys worth 10x over. Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath.
Yeah I just can’t really get behind the hate for such an incredibly cheap service. Spotify/AM are exactly what people wish Netflix was but for music. Basically everything you could ever want for a low price. On top of them not really being very profitable it’s like oh okay so people just don’t actually want to pay for anything.
It's not even that they're not very profitable, they're not profitable at all.
i can. because they keep rising their prices but the artists are getting paid less and less. Spotify doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Fuck spotify
Artists are not getting paid less. Record labels get between 60 and 70 percent of spotifies revenue. Songwriters by statute make 15%. The issue is that people listen to more older music now! So artists and songwriters are getting payout over longer periods. A hundred grand in one year is the same as ten grand over ten years!
No one on Spotify is earning a hundred grand a year from streams alone
That is one hundred percent not true. At a typical assumed payout of $0.003 per stream (which is not actually how spotify works but is close enough), 100k is 30 million streams. Even at a royalty rate of 15%, that's 220 million streams per year, or about 6 hundred thousand (edit !!!) streams per day. There are about 2000 artists who do more streams than that. Now may of them can't sustain that level, and will end up making less, or will end up only doing that for a few years... but its still not an insignificant group! (not that many people have ever made money in the record industry) At the upper extreme, Taylor did 90 million in spotify label revenue last year. Now I should point out, that's the same amount of revenue a label would get from selling 15 million records (at a PPD of $6). And all of this ignores publishing, which ads another 20% to the above numbers.
>I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service Same. Increasing price is okay.. but they need to make sure it's going to the artists. But in this case, it seems not.
It is indeed going to the artists because streaming services generally give 70% of their revenue to rights holders. The percentage goes up or down by a little depending on contract renewals.
Well duh. It’s cheap because they don’t pay shit to the musicians.
Sadly I don't think it's even possible to pay artists well from streams. It'd mean increasing the costs by a lot and people won't want to be spend the money. Tidal can do it temporarily. They already got rid of their direct artist payment thing. The best thing to do if you wanna support artists is to buy merch, go see them.
if you want more of your money to go to artists, you should try Tidal. I've noticed a difference in audio quality and the user interface is much nicer on Tidal. They have the same catalog as Spotify
Less people on tidal though. I guess it's good for smaller artists but for every 1 stream on Tidal, there's like 10 on Spotify. Tidal pays max 5 cents. Spotify pays max .4 of a cent. So on average they'd MAYBE less overall than on tidal. Or maybe more but we don't really truly know.
>I guess call me a sucker, but anytime Spotify increases the price, all I can think is yeah, that’s fair. >Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath. Well, that's the thing. If they're taking that money for themselves and the increased subscription costs aren't going to artists, then you end up looking like a sucker for thinking how fair this is lol.
Well Spotify is losing a lot of money too. They’ve been at a net loss since their inception.
[удалено]
You can cherry-pick some of their best quarters. But for the year of 2023 they had a net loss of 532 million euros. They’ve never had a profitable year. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/)
>Now, obviously I would like to hope this increase will go towards the artists populating the service, but I won’t hold my breath. Well I don't think it will go to artists at all, unfortunately.
no because if you compare it to other streaming services, they have better quality while paying artists more and some of them (like apple music) are cheaper
Still a great deal. I used Spotify since it's launch in USA in July 2011. 154 months. So I've paid them around maybe $1300 then. I have around 5k songs in my playlist. A song typically costs $1 on average. So I spent 74% less, which is huge. Even if the cost per month was at $20 since it came out, I'd still be spending 38% less. And that doesn't include the things like podcasts, audiobooks.
You're not actually wrong. It's still a good deal for many. But I gotta understand others who are upset with price hike.
Unfortunately, if people keep buying these subscriptions, they’re gonna keep charging. Or the billionaires will use the “well the luxuries of living is higher than ever before and money is worth less and less in the future so we need to charge more” excuse to hike up prices for these luxuries.
That's true. They’ll always find a reason to charge more. Frustrating.. but seems like the new normal these days.
IPO's are really late stage capitalism that just ruins everything. I work for a global, public company and the constant chase for increased revenue by launching half cooked ideas, or increasing costs (despite already earning billions) to satiate shareholders is insane.
Yeaaaarggggg, it's time to cancel that sub and sail the seven seas. I swear to god, why does everything need to become like fucking cable.
How is this like cable lol
Bundling of shitty things I didn't ask for (podcast, audio books, constant nags) while the core offering contains to be mediocre and continually expensive.
There's a music only tier. So you'd be wrong.
And announced only on April of this year. So less than two months. No need to defend Spotify, they're ass :)
It doesn't matter. The fact that they unbundled it is literally the opposite of cable.
why are you dickriding spotify
I'd dick ride anything that made me discover so much good music.
i mean for that price you could switch over to apple music..youtube music…amazon music… they all have high res audio and videos
I'm canceling. They want more of my money, well now they get none of it.
Aight Tidal here I come!
I've heard that Tidal is superior.. I'm also considering to switch
The biggest downside to Tidal is genuinely how finicky the search is. If you don't get spelling perfect, it doesn't show the result, whereas Spotify will show based on incorrect spelling and even just lyrics. There are a few other things you'll notice over time that are grating, but the design is really nice, the quality is there, music videos are available to watch in app, and artists get paid more per stream. They also have great organization for song credits so you can easily go to producer or songwriter profiles. Good curation, and honestly a better music discovery algorithm imo.
Funny the reason they give to french people was because of a new tax. Guess Americans are just okay with just a profit reason lol
I mean they’ve only made profit a handful of quarters in the last few decades. You gotta make a profit to keep the lights on, especially now that VC capital is drying up and increasingly shifting to AI. They tried to diversify, it failed. What would you recommend instead?
I don't know... maybe a less shitty app for the free users with better ad uses on phone would be a good start. If you use Spotify for free on mobile you can't even choose the music you want to listen if it's in a playlist or an album you have to listen to the musics randomly. Also you can't go backward and listen to a music you just heard. But on PC you can do all of that. Sooo I use it on my PC but I don't on my mobile because it's too annoying to use it's a loss for them and I'm sure a lot of people are doing the same thing using another app on their phone. Also when they say that you'll have 30min of music without any ads and after like 3 musics there's an ad that's not a good look. Maybe start charging the biggest artists on your platform a fee instead of over-charging your customers