We’ve been covering artist efforts to increase their Spotify streaming royalties, including demands to pay one penny per stream. Now, we’re getting a better sense of how Spotify really feels about this.
Ashley Jana is like a lot of independent artists struggling to make money from streaming platforms. She has a few million streams on Spotify, but draws very little from those plays thanks to an extremely low per-stream royalty rate. While Apple Music recently upped its per-stream royalty payout to one penny per stream, Spotify’s per-stream rate remains a fraction of that. At last count, Spotify’s per-stream payouts were hovering between $0.003 and $0.005, which is — at best — one-half of what Apple pays, but usually far lower according to our data.
A number of Spotify alternatives are also paying substantially higher rates, according to information shared by artists and various labels.
So why isn’t Spotify paying more? Ashley Jana presented that question to Jim Anderson, who is credited with architecting (and even ‘inventing’) the Spotify platform, at a music industry conference in New York. Anderson was a keynote interview at the SyncSummit New York, where he was lauded as “the man who built out the system architecture of Spotify.” But that build-out didn’t seem to include much consideration for artist payments — which Anderson made exceedingly clear.
“The problem was to distribute music. Not to give you money, okay?”
At the end of the interview, Ashley Jana bluntly asked Anderson why Spotify doesn’t pay more, specifically suggesting a rate of one penny per stream. She also recorded the conversation. Incidentally, this all went down in 2019, though Jana said she held onto the recording for more than a year because she feared industry retribution.
In response to the question, Anderson repeatedly berated Jana for being ‘entitled,’ while explaining that Spotify has no obligation to solve the issue of artist compensation.
“Do you guys want to talk about entitlement now?” Anderson asked the audience and moderator after repeatedly using ‘entitlement’ to characterize the question presented by Jana. Then, Anderson declared that Spotify was never created to make artists money — while criticizing demands for exactly that.
“I think Taylor Swift doesn’t need .00001 more a stream,” Anderson stated, referring to public demands by Swift for better Spotify compensation for artists.
“The problem is this: Spotify was created to solve a problem. The problem was this: piracy and music distribution. The problem was to get artists’ music out there. The problem was not to pay people money.”
Here’s the detailed back-and-forth between Ashley Jana, Jim Anderson, and interviewer (and SyncSummit CEO) Mark Frieser. A clip of the recording is also below:
Ashley Jana: Hi, you’re awesome for what you created, and I can’t believe you’re here because I’ve been thinking about you for a while —
[audience laughter]
I’m an artist, and I’m not begging you or asking you to do anything. I’m just asking you to consider something, the idea of having a ten dollar-a-month service plus one cent per song; it would make people so much more money, and everybody is really broke —
Jim Anderson: More money?
Jana: — well the artists are really broke.
Audience member: We need more money!
Jana: We’re not making any money off of the streams. And I know that you know this, and I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I’m just saying, one cent is really not even that much money if you add 2 million times .01, it’s still not that much. And if you would just consider —
Anderson: Oh, I’m going to go down this road, you know that.
Interviewer (Mark Frieser): This is really not a road we’ve talked about before, but I’m gonna let him do this —
Jana: Thank you again.
Anderson: Do you want me to go down this road? I’m gonna go down this road.
Frieser: Well, if you need to.
Anderson: Wait, do I go down the entitlement road now, or do I wait a minute?
Frieser: Well, you know what, I think you should do what you need to do.
Anderson: Should we do it now?
Frieser: Yeah, whatever you feel you need to do.
Anderson: So maybe I should go down the entitlement road now? Or should I wait a few minutes?
Frieser: Do you want to wait a few minutes? Maybe take another question or two?
Anderson: [to the audience] Do you guys want to talk about entitlement now? Or do we talk about —
[Crowd voices interest in hearing the answer from Anderson]
Jana: I don’t think it’s entitlement to ask for normal rates, like before.
Anderson: Normal rates?
Jana: No, the idea is to make it a win-win situation for all parties.
Anderson: Okay, okay. So we should talk about entitlement. I mean, I have an issue with Taylor Swift’s comments. I have this issue with it, and we’ll call it entitlement. I mean, I consider myself an artist because I’m an inventor, okay? Now, I freely give away my patents for nothing. I never collect royalties on anything.
I think Taylor Swift doesn’t need .00001 more a stream. The problem is this: Spotify was created to solve a problem. The problem was this: piracy and music distribution. The problem was to get artists’ music out there. The problem was not to pay people money.
Jana: But now it’s a problem, it’s a problem now —
Anderson: The problem, the problem was to distribute music. Not to give you money, okay? The problem was to distribute music.
[later in the discussion]
We didn’t make the [label] deals. I mean, those — those aren’t our problems.
Jana: But people would pay one cent a song. It’s literally one cent.
Anderson: Right, but you don’t understand. The deal is this — you ready? If the infrastructure doesn’t work, that’s not my issue.
[later in the discussion]
This world that we live in is built on entitlement. Right now today, everybody here in this younger world here — everybody seems to think about entitlement —
Jana: It’s not the same.
Anderson: What do you mean it’s not the same?
Jana: Entitlement is when you want more than is normal —
Anderson: Correct!
Jana: We’re getting way less than is normal.
Anderson: What do you think is considered the norm right now?
Jana: When you were young, that was the norm. People made money off of selling songs that they worked really hard on for a really long time. And now we’re giving it away for free.
[later in the discussion]
It’s just about compassion. It’s about win-win situations. The best business deals are win-win, and there’s — you solved a problem, but now there’s another one! And I’m just saying, you’re here, I’m here, and I’m not trying to attack whatever you’re doing, but I’m not going to agree with you and say that musicians are entitled because they don’t want to be flat broke.
Ashley Jana is getting about 2000 streams a day on Spotify.
She’s a moron who doesn’t understand economics.
Quit giving idiots the spotlight, Paul.
lol, if only you knew how hard it is to get 2K/streams a day as an independent artist.
Actually, Bob, I do know how to get 2000 streams a day on Spotify as an independent artist. I’m way beyond that number. It’s not that difficult.
Real streams from advertising – not playlist bots. Here are some real stats for you from a song that generates 1.2K streams per day. Stream count: 363,945. Listeners: 73,847. Song saves: 28,305. Advertising campaign cost: $4,216.08. Royalties from Spotify on 363,345 streams: $886.80. If the payment was 1 cent (Like Apple Music), the payout would be $3633.45. STILL less money than the cost of promotion. You can sit there and tell people to TRY harder all you want. The game is not laid out correctly. As for people who have songs that take off from Tiktok – they should be paid more as well. The cost of screen time for advertisements is deeply undervalued right now, and Spotify needs to pay up lol.
You’ve just proven that “advertising” doesn’t work. Unless you’re Mark Zuckerberg. Anybody with two brain cells knew that already.
Yes? And what is your artist/band name?
Whats Your band name. Show some proof behind your words as you stand in your ivory tower lol.
You’re a liar and a shill. Show your face and your artist name if you want any credibility in this discussion.
What’s your agenda clown. D Throating more corporate coq? GFY. SPotify and Daniel Eck are the musician’s world most wanted and I hope his bald head seems some heavy metal coming his way.
Of course generation snotnose thinks they should only pay $10 month for every music ever made, thanks to Spotify, Apple and the major media companies. People should be charged $1000 for a concert ticket.
it doesnt matter how many streams they get if they’re making literal fractions of a penny per stream dipshit if you’re so fucking worried that someone that you consider undeserving might potentially earn more money than you think they should then rest assured its still PROPORTIONAL TO THE AMOUNT OF STREAMS.
never seen someone dick ride a company that 100% doesn’t know who they are this hard before
“Under Achiever try harder”, you’re conflating all these unrelated issues to force a point. Your logic is off. You deviate from the point the artist is making.
Underachiever aka “Spotify operative”
I guarantee Jana has TURNED DOWN more opportunities than you’ll ever see in your lifetime, let alone all her accomplishments! The fact that she’s even sticking up for struggling artists LIKE YOU is a godsend!
Such a dumb remark. Like the world is flat for some, in actual fact it is not for most. The system of streaming is staggeringly unfair. Streaming is the new distribution model and is taking in far more than it deserves. Playing live has been hit, the lifeblood sucked out. Tech giants controlling our choice of smart phone operating system is down to two choices, and they are directly deciding what music you hear through their monopoly.
First of all, it does not matter how many streams a day someone is getting. Economically speaking, Spotify is growing TREMENDOUSLY while their creators are not. You do not understand the depth at which the music industry steals from artists. Asking for proper compensation is no different than raising minimum wage alongside inflation.
The issue is real but an engineer is the wrong person to confront. As he said, their only mission was to solve the problem of piracy and distribution. So like a horse with blinders, that’s what they did.
Once again an artist totally misses the point.
Back in the day she’s referring to, she would not have the money to even record her music properly.
Any item’s price partly depends upon the manufacturing costs. Manufacturing pop songs now costs next to zero, which is certainly good for the break-even point but not so good to easily make a living out of it.
Why does this seem so hard to get ?
You’re just wrong. The cost of manufacturing a master product has no bearing on the value of that product sold in a digital format. That’s the problem – authors are not able to authorize the value of their work. If I spend a billion dollars to manufacture a master product and then distribute that product digitally, I would be paid the same amount as if I only spent a dollar to manufacture a master product. What dictatorial streaming platforms like YouTube and Spotify do is drive down the inherent value of manufacturing a master product, forcing the entire supply chain to cut corners in order to remain solvent. We all work in dollar stores now. Bottom-dollar products and services at bottom-dollar prices across the entire industry. It doesn’t last. Eventually, we’re all going to be listening to spiritless music made by computer algorithms. There’ll only be one genre: elevator music.
ANyone who sides with Spotify is not a musician and probably fellating Scooter Braun on the down low. ALL YALL GFY.
Hold up.
How is Apple Music paying 1 cent a stream yet Spotify calls that “Entitled”?
How does Apple Music pay more than a penny per stream? It’s easy. Apple Music has a lot of people paying and nobody listening. Apple Music’s subscription numbers have always been questionable. It’s all creative accounting with those “free subscriptions” from cell phone companies. And like grandma still paying for AOL in 2017, Apple gets recurring payments from people who don’t pay attention to their credit card statement and don’t use Apple Music. That’s the business model for any company other than Spotify.
Look at YouTube Music. It also typically pays over a penny a stream. YouTube Music is an extra $2 a month service for those wanting no ads on You Tube the video streaming service, which costs $9.99 a month. Not many are using YouTube Music, hence the higher per stream.
Same with Amazon Music Unlimited, which has been paying over a penny and a half in recent months. The per stream keeps going up because nobody uses that service, or people are leaving it.
You’d know this if you actually released music and knew how to filter the columns of your royalty statements in Excel.
I make more money from Apple Music despite having more streams from Spotify
“Underachievers try harder”, your numbers about compensation are grossly off. And regardless, it changes nothing. Her point is “unfair business practice”. Your best argument against it is, essentially, “I disagree”. All your points are mutually exclusive of the argument .
Apple don’t pay 1c a stream.
There must be some mistake here. Spotify executives genuinely care about artists getting paid instead of engorging themselves.
Excellent use of “engorging” in a sentence.
Wow! Entitled? That’s a terrible thing to say – as are some of the comments above. He may not have been the best person to ask but even so. He was being totally disingenuous to say he was solving a ‘get the music out there’ issue because of piracy. The music was out there but artists weren’t getting paid.
Also, music does cost a lot to make. There may not be studio costs but in terms of hardware, software and, most importantly, time it’s far from free. Most artists, not just music, create for very little money. I thought it wasn’t a bad idea – subscription plus a cent a stream. Spotify might actually break even and artists would start to be paid appropriately. Plus, a larger one time only fee for downloading / adding to your own library.
Whatever, there’s way too much aggressive posturing when people simply want to earn a living. If you’ve brought a bit of pleasure to a million people, maybe that’s something you deserve a decent reward for.
>He was being totally disingenuous to say he was solving a ‘get the music out there’ issue because of piracy.
Also, piracy was only ever a problem when it was simple – Napster: one click, centralized directories, as easy to use as an email client. Once the RIAA was able to shut down Napster and its variant clones, widespread music piracy was stifled. The amount of P2P piracy today is infinitesimally small compared to the years 1998-2004.
Spotify was founded in 2006. Widespread music piracy was already well in retreat. They have had little to no effect on widespread music piracy because, as long as they’ve existed, there hasn’t been enough widespread music piracy on which to have an effect.
The reason they bring up piracy is because that serves the major record labels (which are among the owners of Spotify.) Piracy is the “WMDs in Iraq” of the music industry. It’s a talking point that keeps everyone distracted from the flex of major labels – acting through the exhibitors in which they have a stake – as they wipe out and consume competition by shifting the industry to an exclusively long-term revenue model, essentially sucking the life out of any indie label or artist that had been reliant on short-term revenue.
Good clarification. Cheers ?
“Subscription plus a penny per stream” is a stupid idea. Where has that worked? You don’t have a clue, but somehow you’re smarter than everybody else because you’re virtue signaling for idiot artists who know nothing about economics or markets.
Ashley Jana getting a penny per stream on Spotify means she’s earning $20 a day. Is that enough to live on in New York City, where she’s based? Of course not. She’ll need more of somebody else’s money, probably her daddy’s money. Maybe she’ll protest and want a dollar per stream. Or worse, she’ll want politicians and government bureaucrats to set prices for artist payment and subscriptions. Then we can end up with something like Medicare or defense contracts, but for “artists”.
Man, you’re just rude. There’s no need.
“but somehow you’re smarter than everybody else because you’re virtue signaling for idiot artists who know nothing about economics or markets.”
“he’ll need more of somebody else’s money, probably her daddy’s money.”
Dude wtf is your problem. Trying to win the competition for being the meanest person alive? Consider less adhominem maybe.
Wow, you have a complex.
Why in the world would there be a music revolution against corporations this greedy?
Penny per play is an idea of Musea zine , since 1992, leading the music revolution.
Here’s how it would work. The musician would get a penny for any click on his song anywhere on the net. No ads or gatekeepers would be in the way.
This would work for ANY creative comment, music, art, writing, videos, news articles, fashion, film, school classes, etc. etc.
This would dump the corporate stranglehold on all arts, and dump sponsors, and add mining etc.
Ex-Spotify Executive. According to his LinkedIn, Jim Anderson no longer works at Spotify
Asking companies that operate in the red to pay more isnt realistic, in fact it’s suicidal for both the artist and service.
Spotify could easily operate in a profit. They do it to avoid taxes. If Mr. Ek cared about that, perhaps he could sacrifice his stock options.
Certainly there are P&L realities, though Spotify typically blames its label partners for not equitably distributing its royalty payments to artists. That only goes so far, of course, given the millions of DIY artists (who are not signed) on the platform.
There are also issues with how the platform is constructed. Apple Music doggedly committed to pay-only (premium), even with massive free competitors like YouTube and Spotify. Jimmy Iovine made that clear from the beginning and the company has stuck with it — the result is that Apple’s per-stream royalty is much higher.
Paul, I’ve had US streams on Spotify getting me 0.0072 in recent months. Not just a few here or there, but a healthy amount. I haven’t seen numbers that high in a while.
Apple Music has creative accounting. They count those freebee subscriptions with cell phone companies in their numbers. How many of those roll over into paid subscriptions that nobody uses and nobody cancels? AOL survived for many years on that kind of scammy strategy.
While it may different for other artists, I’ve always done vastly better on Spotify than Apple Music. Ridiculously vastly better on Spotify. I do about as good on Amazon Music Unlimited as I do on Apple Music. I just don’t see the engagement on Apple Music. Again, it may be different for other artists, but none I know and talk with.
Of course Spotify is going to blame labels for paying artists properly. It’s not Spotify’s job to micromanage labels anymore than it’s Spotify’s job to micromanage The MLC or other mechanical and publishing societies around the world.
7 tenths a penny a stream from Spotify?! What you’re collecting is about double from mine. Mine from Spotify are usually a third a penny. If they’re from the third world, they’re even lower.
I’ve done even better with streams from Ireland, France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, etc. Upwards of 0.008978.
I believe the comments were based upon his personal opinions only, and not of the company. That said, everyone is entitled (no pun) to their own opinion.
I’m so old I remember putting $.25 into a jukebox to hear three plays. That’s $0.0833 per play in 1970 dollars. What’s that in today’s $$s $0.56? That’s like Daniel Ek money.
#EntitledBeggars
Pretty sure an exec found this page because anyone who can leave a comment justifying Spotify’s nonsense is just as greedy as Anderson. Spotify generated over 9 BILLION DOLLARS off of 14 MILLION ad supported listeners. Even the record companies at least offered pennies on cds/cassettes/vinyl sold. A small increase to a dollar does nothing to hurt that profit, this is greed and a continuation of what has been since day one in recorded music industry and that is the exploitation of artists to their own detriment. You are talking about peoples’ lives, they have every right to ask for a fair wage for busting their ass to create! Anyone who agrees otherwise is wrong based on the numbere alone.
We’re greedy if we support Spotify? Really???
Those of us who have done the heavy lifting over the years, and can sell our music on Spotify and elsewhere, can smell your type a mile away.
You seek to tear us down because you’re envious. Or you want the cheat codes, which we don’t have.
If Spotify is so terrible, then what’s your suggestion? A penny a stream isn’t going to solve Ashley Jana’s problem. Nor would ten cents a stream as she lives in NYC.
Your attitude is that artists are special snowflakes who deserve to be subsidized by somebody else’s money, no matter how unpopular they are. Where did you pick this up? This is the actual problem, not how much Spotify pays per-stream.
You have the same attitude that Ashley Jana has. You’re acting “entitled”. You provide no solutions, or at least no solutions that are economically viable. Virtue signal all you want, but you come off to me as a complete loser. Give up.
Where is your next show?
“SINK OR SWIM BRO”
Libertarian spotted.
Worst reply of the week. Libertarian? You’re trying to prove any point by making a determination on political leaning? Idiot.
Smells like a tiny little selfish freedom bro doesn’t like someone else’s opinion and wet his tiny Gadsen flag diapers!
You are so obtuse and, ironically, the epitome of entitled!
1. You don’t know if any suggested solution will work or not if it hasn’t been tried. I’m not going to explain thinking behind suggested solutions any further. Work out the possible pros and, not just the cons, for yourself before you dismiss perfectly valid ideas.
2. Snowflake – the word was actually invented for people like you who get riled by someone suggesting something you, in your all knowing wisdom, think uneconomically viable. I’m happy to consider all options, that’s all.
3. You seem to think more streams makes you ‘better’ Get real – the long tail of creativity is bursting with life from people who, maybe, deserve a little more of the pie. No-one wants to take it from you, by the way. I’d be happy for you to retire off your increased income and take a long break.
3. Why are you so offended by people wanting to earn a little more? Again, you’re suggesting that someone with hundreds of thousands of listeners should suffer because they don’t have millions of listeners. It’s a false premise.
4. My ‘type’ ain’t envious of people like you, believe me. I’ve met plenty like you in real life. You’re not that special. So, you made it big. Great. Well done. Your next job is act like a real man and give something back, not pull up the ladder and accuse people of not trying hard enough. Any fool can do that.
I’m not entitled. I earned it.
1. You come up with a dumb idea that isn’t economically viable, but you want me to do all the heavy lifting to disprove it. That’s so lazy. Go get your shinebox. Coffee is for closers.
2. Snowflake – you’re the one who thinks all artists are special and precious. I’ve worked with enough to have a different opinion.
3. I’m not offended by artists wanting to earn more. You’re the one who can’t articulate how that can happen. You’re just virtue signaling and grandstanding.
4. Yes, you are envious. You’re constantly projecting.
I’m supposed to give something back?
Here I am, a seemingly successful indie musician. AMA.
You don’t want to hear what I have to say. You don’t want to consider my advice. You reject everything outright. That’s fine. Somebody has to bag my groceries.
lol @ seemingly successful indie musician
Why seemingly?
“successful” – probably on the backs of other musicians. Do the other musicians you play with know how you feel? The engineers and promoters? Your listeners?
You’re claiming that you’re talented enough to earn money through Spotify, but you’re not brave enough to publicly admit it, eh? Could it be that you know your opinion is terrible?
My guess would be that either a) you’re just a marketing intern that was told to do this or be fired, b) some mid-level manager at Spotify that is doing this between meetings, or c) you’re the kind of slimy jerk that has always festered in the corners of the industry – happy to push anyone out of the way to make it, gleefully hurting whoever you can for a buck. If you’re really an artist and this dedicated to being a jerk online, you likely treat everyone around you just as terribly. And truthfully, the likelihood that you’re both talented and famous enough to maintain that level of seething disregard for other humans without burning every bridge is pretty low.
Of course… considering the blatant balls-to-the-chin attitude you have towards industry/corporate messaging, there is also a good chance you’re an entitled little rich kid who got mommy and daddy to pay for your DJ equipment and shows in Ibiza and gaggles of yes-men to tell you your music is amazing and now you have no real context of how things work and absolutely no idea of how hard some people work for their art and don’t like being taken advantage of by some Valley bros and their PE enablers. It would explain why you don’t care if you make more or less, and why you don’t care if those around you make more or less…
“Under Achiever try harder”, you’re conflating all these unrelated issues to force a point. Your logic is off. You deviate from the point the artist is making.
1. “Seemingly successful indie musician” – success is relative to everybody. I don’t have any hit songs, but I earn enough from streaming to support myself without needing to work a regular job. I also earn money from downloads, syncs, and merch, but I do good enough with just streaming revenue. I don’t live in an expensive city. I live on the fringes of a metro area with about 500,000 people.
2. Why should I give out my artist name on Spotify? So you haters can figure out a way to get me suspended or kicked off? I know how you people operate.
3. I’m “talented enough” to earn money on Spotify. Yes, we exist. I have followers. Spotify has kindly put some of my music into their playlists. Not the huge playlists, but I’m grateful for anything. Loads of random people have put my music into their playlists. I do well on Spotify Radio. I do OK on other platforms. Is that a crime?
4. I’m not a rich kid. My parents are working class. They didn’t want me to go into music. They wanted me to get a job working for the city or the hospital. Something with security or a pension. I worked manual labor and service industry when I was younger. If I wanted anything, I had to earn it myself.
5. Why do you assume that because I’ve “made it” that I’ve stepped all over everybody on the way up? I’ve not stepped on anybody. I’m completely independent. Hardly anybody knows that I make music outside of my immediate circle of friends because I don’t use my name except as composer/writer. My parents do not understand what I do. They have worried that I cannot pay my bills because I don’t work a regular job. I had to show them the payment statements. They still don’t really get it. I told them to tell their friends that I work with computers.
What is with all this hatred towards somebody who steps up, albeit anonymously, and proclaims that some people can actually earn a living from Spotify and streaming services? Do I sound like an intern? Do I sound like some rich kid who got everything handed to me? Do I sound like a Spotify employee? Have you read any LinkedIn profiles for Spotify employees? Those people are apparently industry alchemists. Nothing they do is wrong. They can spin straw into gold, deliver value, and cut costs with their Poison Ivy League MBA. Do you think I trust any of those people working for Spotify? Not a chance. Sure, I earn a living from Spotify and streaming, but I don’t trust them to keep the ball rolling in my favor. Just like I wouldn’t trust any label goomba or dudebro.
Ah, I’ve gone on too long. Nobody will read this anyway. Just venting. Go ahead, tear me down some more. Everybody hates artists, but nothing like other artists who aren’t doing as well.
Hey I know everybody’s been dragging you but I would love to get some advice on your strategies on how you get your music out there!
I remember you mentioned earlier in the thread that you don’t use advertising on like social media stuff so I was wondering any techniques or methods that you could pass on to somebody who is willing to listen
Oh I get it, you’re one of those people who thinks that, because you made it via a combo of hard work and luck, everybody else should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and fuck the idea of trying to make other, future, peoples’ lives easier, because then that would be “unfair”. Let’s all go churn butter now bc it would be unfair of us to have an easier time than our ancestors.
Kindness to one’s fellow man is really dead
are the execs salaries variable? nope.
remember, they’re making money even when your tracks plays for less than 30 seconds.
the spotify real business is selling subscriptions.
Those rates are equivalent to ad rates. Where advertisers pay tiny amounts for when people click an image or banner.
Music is worth a lot more than that. It has more meaning, more value, more people involved, and so on.
Jim, we know this is you and you’re just being a pissy-boy about the fact that no one thinks you’re an ‘artist’ because you write fucking code. Guillotine blades are being sharpened, are you getting nervous…?
Yeah, that was a stupid analogy of Jim, a “software artist” that gets a monthly salary from his government sponsors or hedge funds.
This is why boring squares like you don’t know shit about art or music. You like to profit of their shit but not give anything for them garnering attention to your shitty soulless apps that even a monkey can code. Y’all artists out there need to stop trusting these socialist software developers that don’t give a s*** about you and sell your work elsewhere.
Looks like Spotify is sending its fanboys into the wild – encountered at least one on Twitter recently and there seem to be a whole bunch in the comments here
Bandcamp is good – just wish they had better marketing worked out
If all of you hate Spotify so much then uncheck the box that says distribute to Spotify. It’s like arguing with an employer to pay you more and not quitting if they don’t. It’s like Walmart, if nobody was willing to work for the low salary and they needed workers so bad they would pay more. People are willing to underbid the next person to get that job, unfortunately.
If you say that Apple pays more and you make more from Apple, then stay with Apple and leave Spotify if you want to argue against them. If “exposure” is your game, we volunteered to Spotify. We all argue with a venue or gig that says “oh but I’ll pay you in exposure” but we also know exposure is part of the game. It sucks and the grind sucks.
The “problem” with Napster: music was being consumed freely without artist compensation. Spotify did *not* solve this problem; they capitalized on it.