Recent news revealed that Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been investing heavily in military tech companies, which adds another ethical layer to a platform already criticized for how little it pays musicians !
Spotify only pays artists about $3–5 per 1,000 streams, using a pro-rata model that directs most money toward major stars… By contrast, Qobuz (≈$18–20 per 1,000 streams) and Tidal (≈$12–13) pay far more fairly!
However Tidal is far from ethical. Most of its revenue is controlled by private investors and founders and small artists still earn very little…
More fair-minded platforms like Bandcamp, Resonate, Ampled, or SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties prioritize musicians over investors.
With these more ethical alternatives available, why do we keep using Spotify?
Daniel Ek is investing in European defense companies. This is not unethical.
Spotify paying like shit to their artists and platforming Joe Rogan are totally valid reasons to move away though. But the thing is that Spotify is sort of like radio. How much did radio pay for artists for each time the song was played? Genuinely asking.
What I do is I do 90% of my listening on Spotify. Then when I hear something really good, I buy and download their album, usually on Bandcamp and mostly keep listening them on Spotify because it’s just so much lesser hassle. Seems like the best of both worlds. Thought about going to vinyls but I’m not hipster enough.
I’ve started on vinyls. They’re cool, but it’s some work. Gotta store it right, handle with care, clean them. And that doesn’t guarantee it won’t skip around or, worse, get stuck on a loop. I do like the big square that is the sleeve cover, and it’s just kind of cool. But I’ve been considering CDs instead. Cheaper, afaik, and can be ripped onto a PC with the right hardware (which I presume is allowed — so long as you don’t distribute it — given you pay for it). Cover art is unfortunately smaller, and I’ve seen some cool vinyl concepts that probably wouldn’t work as CDs (colourful? Semitransparent? Glow in the dark???). But far more convenient, and cheaper. Plus, with the right hardware, I could also listen to FM radio
Vinyls are cool, CDs more are convenient (or so I reckon)
LOL. “I’ve been considering CDs” is not something I’ve heard since the '80s. And you don’t really need specialized hardware to rip tracks to digital. Literally any optical drive can do that.
I prefer to pay artists I like directly either via merch, patreon, or going to their concerts.
for my music? soulseek/nicotine+ on my server.
the problem is Spotify is by far the best streaming platform out there, bar none. I’ve tried the other’s like Tidal and Deezer and what have you and just didn’t like them. Amazon Music was absolutely horrible. The only other alternative would be youtube music with an adblocker. How do I find new artists? youtube shorts believe it or not.
But yeah I’d rather pay the artists directly.
I buy stuff on bandcamp during bandcamp fridays (which allegedly gives all revenue to the artist), but you need the artist to be there in the first place.
It’s worse. My music is on Spotify - while I would no longer meet their minimum for payments, even before that change they refused to pay me or provide stats until I provided a twitter or Facebook page/IG page, none of which I have - despite publishing through an established publishing company who could absolutely handle payments and play stats.
Spotify is cancer.
I find Spotify is dogshit to navigate I can’t find anything. If I let it autoplay it’ll just start playing generic shitty dance music. I don’t get it. I’ve never discovered an artist through Spotify.
I exclusively use Bandcamp lately. Unfortunately, American owned. Looking into other suggestions here.
I used to discover artists on Pandora. That site was great.
Not just any American: Tim Sweeney! I’ve talked to artists and they have said that there hasn’t been any fallout yet. I have to imagine it’s just a matter of time if it doesn’t manage to buy itself back or something.
I heard that news. Swiney owned yeah, my future prediction is the same as yours.
Oops, my information was out of date: elsewhere in this thread
Oh good, even worse!
Generic and shitty is the most common form of electronica.
Source: was raver in the '90s.
I stream with Tidal and for my favourite bands I’ll buy their music on 7digital or Bandcamp.
I’d go with Qubuz but they have this whole Qubuz Coin thing that I really don’t like. If they removed that I’d switch immediately.
Note that Tidal is owned by Black rocks funds …which make it very non-ethical platform
Yeah, unfortunately I don’t have much choice at the moment. I refuse support platforms that in my opinion have anti-consumer pricing models, and I want artists to get the most money out of my streams, so it’s a bit of a catch-22.
I’m not sure about the coins but I’ve been using it for a few months now and have been thoroughly enjoying the service. I think the coins are literally just their store wallet, and whether you keep some store credit there or not doesn’t matter. It’s equivalent to buying an iTunes gift card or something. You can just pay for whatever you want outright.
Can some tell me how Deezer stacks up? I switched from Spotify to Deezer a little while ago, not for any real reason, other than Spotify kept increasing their prices and I don’t really listen to audio books or podcasts even. Plus Deezer streams hifi flacs as standard so it sounds way better. I’ve got no idea how ethical they are tho, but would be interested to learn.
Edit: so I did my own research and looks like Deezer pays sightly more per stream than Spotify, but marginally…
Never mind, I’m beginning to build my local music library and self host it. I buy lots of merch and I go to gigs regularly. Once my library is substantial enough I’ll quit the streaming apps
That’s been my take. Buy from the band or their merch whenever possible.
Bandcamp is a close second best, as is HDTracks although they’re both from murica.
Otherwise sail the high seas.I was never a fan of rent music until we stop you anyway.
I buy on Bandcamp Fridays, but am suspicious of that platform since they changed owners so often without any input from the community or musicians.
I’m keeping my eye on https://subvert.fm/ as a hopefully more democratic option.
I’ve heard that Mirlo.space is a good alternative to Bandcamp, and as an artist myself, it looks to be a good replacement.
“So often?” I only heard about Epic acquiring them, have there been developments?
Well, shit!
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Epic Games bought Bandcamp in March 2022.
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In 2023, Bandcamp’s workers unionized under “Bandcamp United.”
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In late 2023 (October), Epic sold Bandcamp to Songtradr, a music licensing company.
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As part of that sale, many of the former Bandcamp employees were not offered positions by Songtradr, particularly those involved in union organizing.
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Songtradr stated it would continue Bandcamp’s marketplace model and its “artist-first revenue share,” but declined to confirm whether certain features (e.g. user experience, Bandcamp Daily editorial) would remain unchanged.
I had no idea. Union busting, now… What a great way to show you respect the people who generate your wealth.
Thanks for sharing, this is a better write-up than I would’ve done.
But yeah it really sucks because from the outside Bandcamp looks like a great “light touch” platform, but the truth is sadly much more cynical and anti-democratic.
I love your avi/handle combo
Thank you jerk face!!
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Qbittorrent
That pays exactly $0 per stream to the artists.
You can donate to the ones who deserve it and still have access to the drm free music locally
Tell me you don’t know how Qbittorrent works without doing so. It’s not a streaming service. If you’re redownloading on BT each time you want to listen, my god, are you wasting disk space.
You know what I meant, don’t deliberately misunderstand.
That doesn’t solve discoverability of new content, which is one of the good features of Spotify
That’s slowly being replaced with “AI content”, Spotify is literally becoming more shit by the day.
I don’t really use it myself, but you can scrobble to services like last.fm and get recommendations that way.
And if you want to sponsor your favorite artists, just go to their concerts or buy some music or merch. You’re paying them way more that way than your plays on streaming platforms ever will.
Do you want payola? Because that’s how you get payola.
Wdym listening to new music
This is a “those 10 good tracks on repeat” household !
Bandwagon, Faircamp, Love a Brother Radio, The Indie Beat. Probably not what you’re looking for, but direct creator support, Fedi powered, all wonder folks.
Also gonna suggest Mirlo.space as it’s open sourced.
Old fart checking in … why not just buy the tracks instead of paying for monthly access that screws artists? I mean, each song is unlikely to be more than $1.49, and then you own it. I don’t have a streaming music account and never will because the idea of paying repeatedly for the same thing – with the option of it being pulled at any time – is nauseating.
An old fart listens to entire albums! Fake!
I’m an old fart.
I prefer buying individual tracks to the Tower Records model of $20 before you know if that one song you’re getting it for is the only good one on the album.
I like getting the whole album because it exposes me to the whole brainchild. It’s a gamble but sometimes my favorites are not what I would first have thought!
So much money dropped at on cue / sam Goody’s back in the day only to get that tape / CD home and realize that one song on the radio was fire… but the rest of the album was just a train wreck of flaming garbage.
Isn’t that why we used to buy 45s? And if you discovered the B-side was good then maybe someone would buy the album and everyone else would tape it?
Why? They have more prog than the others. Believe me, I’d love to stick with Qobuz as the sound quality is magnificent. Unfortunately they just don’t have the music I listen to.
I had this problem at first, then I realized there’s so much music I never listened to before and I have enough new music between Qobuz and Bandcamp that I’m satisfied. But I see your point. I have pirated some music when the creator don’t allow me to purchase the songs.
I’m curious, which prog artists do you find on Qobuz that aren’t anywhere else?
I’m meant Spotify has the larger choice.
While I agree with you for most alternatives to Spotify, I have yet to not be able to find any song from anyone on SoundCloud particularly in more niche genres. I obviously don’t know everything you listen to but the reason you describe is the exact reason I can’t always use Spotify
this is an awesome video on why other streaming services are just marginally better than spotify and not a long term solution: https://youtu.be/gDfNRWsMRsU
with that in mind i’m trying to transition away from streaming but am using tidal as what i hope is the least bad option for now.
It’s the same old reason as always. Most users value their convenience more than anything.
