this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
1482 points (98.8% liked)

Technology

59374 readers
3714 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.

By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 40 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (33 children)

I mean, Spotify is a great service for the consumer. One reasonable monthly fee for most of the music in the world.

If a similar video streaming service existed for 40€/month, I'd pay for it in a heartbeat. Now I have a plethora of arr apps and a vpn, and Plex. But it's a hassle sometimes.

We're all aware of the issues it created for the artists, and I'd be willing to double the fee if that money directly went to the artists, but this is where the capitalist model fails, as that won't maximize the profits for shareholders.

If we ever come up with a way to fix the underlying greed models that come with publicly traded companies, that would be great.

As it stands, it is what it is, but I'm glad we have this, instead of a "different Spotify per music publisher".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Spotify is a great service for the consumer. One reasonable monthly fee for most of the music in the world.

Plus ads.

instead of a “different Spotify per music publisher”.

I was perfectly happy with Napster, before it got blown up.

As it stands, I've been leaning on SoundCloud and Bandcamp when I'm hunting for something indie and pirating or going vinyl for anything mainstream.

Spotify's model is doomed to fail over time. Far better to own the media than stream it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not sure about the ads? If you mean when the app notifies you about live gigs etc. then yeah, that's shittification. Luckily it doesn't happen on my desk or car, but I wish it didn't sometimes appear on my phone. That's the one thing that might push me to add music to my video streaming arr stack.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Certain content (podcasts, most notably) insert ads into the feed above and beyond what Spotify Premium ostensibly removes. There's also Spotify's persistent need to blow up your phone with notifications and bloat your in-app screen, but at least some of that you can silence manually.

My wife has Spotify and she's noticed the increased pressure to be always-online, as well. We were on a flight, and she's got her take-off chill music, when she discovered putting the phone in airplane mood before starting up the app caused a bunch of bugs in her selection screen. Which - in the middle of a take-off that she did not enjoy - fucking sucked.

The service is definitely getting worse over time. And when you can keep an enormous library of music locally, the service becomes harder and harder to justify imho.

I'm perfectly happen to send $30/mo to Patreon for a few of my favorite artists. $12/mo for Spotify just feels like money down a well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I'm not familiar with the free tier, but if you don't pay anything, I think ads are fine.

Paying and seeing ads is wrong on the other hand.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (30 replies)