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Spotify has plans to raise prices and still no plan to pay normally the artists the platform lives on.
They recently just changed to stiff the artists even further.
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Viewed in portrait mode, that looks like a man giving a toast holding a Champaign flute. Also ironically appropriate.
rofl I had to check it on mobile and I totally agree with What you saw
btw I've set up my own audiobookshelf server a few months ago for my audiobooks and podcasts. Being able to start something on my phone and keep tracking of my listening then switch on my computer to continue is pure gold. It's what I was looking for for ages.
Just a heads up to everyone, quitting Spotify and buying / "procuring" your own music and playing it via a music player makes reading this quite cathartic. Do it for the moral superiority and self esteem boost for no effort you come to the internet for anyways.
How do you even buy music anymore?
There's quite a few ways actually:
If none of the above has worked, this is no longer an issue about whether you want to pay for the product or not, it's a supplier problem.
Can I play devil's advocate a little bit here, because I was really unaware that this ever worked for anything except indie artists on Bandcamp. So Bandcamp works for them or for discovering new music obviously.
I didn't know artists ever sold digital music on their websites, but that does make sense, so I checked - if I google Taylor Swift and go to her website, there it is, digital music purchase. Great.
I went to U2's website, and the only music I can buy there is vinyl. I don't want vinyl, I want digital. You can buy merch, but I'm after music, not merch. Looking further, there's all sorts of galleries and information about each album and song, but you still can't buy the music.
Other mainstream artists I googled didn't even go that far. Googling them brought up a wikipedia link, social media links, tours. All stuff I don't want. Now your list has "contact artist via social media" - setting aside the fact that it's unlikely a popular mainstream artist will even reply to anyone at all about anything, this is a real point of friction. I don't want to have to contact an artist to find out some alternative way to get their music. If I'm buying something online, there needs to be some way to buy it online and ready to go. If we have to wait a couple of days or weeks for a reply that may or may not come - the process failed.
If I had to guess, they would probably say something like "it's on spotify".
So yes it probably is a supplier problem, but it seems to me that this is happening for the majority of popular artists if a majority of music people like is mainstream. I assume if you like the majority of indie music then that's probably not the case.
No worries, I'll take your U2 example and try it from my end (I don't listen to them so I can't decide on what album(s) specifically you are looking for). I'm going to be frank, it was a pain, but I did find zdigital (7digital outside of Australia) selling their albums without physical media. But getting there, I had to see that the U2 website/publisher website did not even advertise it. It was like the 5th option on duckduckgo after searching for
u2 digital download
I'm sure you would have better luck if you slide in the specific album that you were looking for.
Important to note is that you aren't googling for that artist or album, you're googling
artist album digital download
I do agree with you that mainstream artists and publishers are going down this route probably due to some deals with streaming services, but unfortunately that is the reality we live in now. Additional work will be required by the consumer to get what they want. If the publishers start completely stopping this at some point all I can say is that I have the disposable income to buy the products I want and I am going to get it. Whether the publishers sell it to me or not is their decision to make.
I've never seen an artist on Bandcamp that I actually recognize.
Telling anyone to "just Google it" is proof that you have no interest in a good faith discussion.
Bandcamp is good for indie artists and if you want to discover new artists. I've found quite a few diamonds in the rough on there. A surprising amount of metal / punk artists sell via Bandcamp if you're into that.
How is 'just Google it" not a valid option? This is literally how you can find 99% of all problems about the internet especially for finding where to legally buy digital products within the first few websites. You know what is good for business when you're trying to sell a product? Making sure its one of the first few, if not the first choice the customer gets when looking at the default search engine.
Moving on from that I'm guessing getting in contact with the artist is not an option? Y'know the other 2 points?
Are you sure you responded to the correct comment? 🤔
I feel like piracy and moral superiority don't really belong together
You are clearly not aware of the windfall profits corporations are making, and that they are then passing exactly none of it on to the workers generating that profit
Yeah the moral thing to do is pay a third party company $130 per year who then pays an artist $0.20 per billion streams of their work.
It is a moral imperative to pirate EA, Ubisoft and Nintendo.
A popular myth, but a myth nonetheless.
I always try to buy my music first, digital only though. I don't have space for CDs or the like. If the option is not available (not common), the tricorn goes on. And normally I would go through any loophole I can find to get it legally. But damn, the Japanese really don't like doing business with foreigners.
I'd take a lower-priced plan with limited listening time. They're getting too expensive for the few hours a month I use it. If they bump it up more I will quit for sure.
The only reason I still use them is the qt-spotify third party client. None of the other services work on my OS (they all need DRM on the browser or other nastiness I don't have).
Spotify is making bank on musicians who get jack squat in return. Don't use Spotify.
Should probably suggest an alternative.
Why? Streaming has become a scam and everyone seems okay with it. Like everything online. Everything is an expensive subscription to rent entertainment. My suggestion? Buy CDs. Buy directly from the artists. Or pirate it, at least Spotify won't make any money from it.
at least Spotify won’t make any money from it.
And the artists still won't. So given in either case, the artist don't make squat; using Spotify is easier. So, use spotify.
So you care more about yourself and Spotify than the artists who give you hours and hours of entertainment. Cool.
Bandcamp Fridays.
Y'all keeping paying, they keep raising prices... there is a solution but nobody can figure out what tit is!
You're right - Apple Music is cool
I’ve had an excellent experience with Apple Music as well. Plus, lossless!
Stream your own music at whatever quality you have it in!
I’ll probably bin it. Every playlist goes into the same few songs recently.
I call on all small artists to boycott Spotify.
You will make no money on it but they depend on you for their business.
Do not perpetuate or support the continued impoverishment and humiliation of musicians and the degradation of artistic culture.
Cool, I already use AntennaPod and it's great!
Can someone recommend kid/family friendly alternative? Is Tidal easy to use/navigate?
If the raise prices too much I'm going to finalise my plan to move to YouTube Music family plan. Additional bonus will be no more adds on YouTube.
Don't fall for this self hosting stuff. It's well meant and great for single tech enthusiasts, but with family, you won't have enough time to do the required upkeep and the whinning you will here from dependents when stuff goes wrong isn't worth it.
They're all pretty straight forward and Tidal has a better record of crediting and paying artists than Spotify. But ultimately, I would suggest self hosting.
How is self hosting better than paying artists?
I often buy albums on Bandcamp and supposedly artists get a good cut of that. They have an app too, so you can stream content from there (or self host the files you get when you buy)
The revenue from streaming services always pales in comparison to buying the music directly from an artist. The streaming model has been hijacked by record labels who take the majority share, such are the deals they force artists to sign.
A decent number of artists offer digital downloads of their music directly either for a flat fee or in a pay what you wish system.
It is nowhere near as convenient unfortunately. Benn Jordan mentions some options in several of their videos about their experience with Spotify, but i’m admittedly not certain I just linked the right one.
Doesn't seem so bad, if you don't want the price hike just change your plan to not include audiobooks. A little scummy that you need to opt out but not the worst.
I'll believe it when I see it- Spotify lossless was announced years ago. I don't believe them.
Hmm, I use Spotify to stream a wake up mix (approved by my SO,) to an Amazon Echo via Home Assistant. Currently, I know of no way to stream arbitrary music files to an Echo. And I know of no consumer grade device that can accept the command to "Shut your cake hole" when we're tired of listening to stuff while being compatible with HA. This is ... inconvenient.