“In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties.

Enea Lecas

@jonhicks thanks for calling that out. They're adopting a business model similar to the one of YouTube, where one needs 1000 subscribers and >4000 watched hours per year in order to be monetized. And the majority of YouTubers are not able to reach it. Indeed theft, as some people pointed out. Or exploitation. In any case, such business practices should have no place in our society.

inpc

@jonhicks anyone using Spotify is a cunt.

Sarah

@jonhicks@mastodon.social

A friend of mine had their music on spotify for a while, quite the popular band. Tens of thousands of plays.

His royalty was so meager the transfer fees in banks would eat the profits.

I'd rather give my music away for free.

Cleverson

@andrewleland @jonhicks Terrifying. Those big services are more inhumane than ever.

Oma_Trisha_F

@jonhicks

Shit. I guess it's time to see if I can find another streaming service that plays what I like to listen to and doesn't cost more than I can afford.

Ryek Darkener

@jonhicks

So Spotify is a platform for mainstream-music? I’m not surprised.

In Germany we say: The devil shits on the highest heap.

jer

@jonhicks fewer

M☆

@jonhicks Could you share your source please? The article linked doesn't seem to even mention Spotify (unless it was edited?)

�

@_RyekDarkener_ @jonhicks that's why the white house is expanding

John Maxwell

@jonhicks "But we have to have copyright for the sake of the creators!"

devolute

@jonhicks Steal everything. Go to gigs.

MegatronicThronBanks

@jonhicks BandCamp

🇨🇦 Maverick ✊🇲🇲🇺🇦

@jonhicks Not going to be a popular comment here because it’s so cool to hate on Apple, but Apple Music pays about double to artists compared with Spotify and doesn’t have a free tier (so *all* listens are paid). Still better to support your favourite artists directly but Apple Music is clearly better than Spotify in this regard. Always has been.

Jon Hicks

@devolute or… buy physical media AND go to gigs AND stream as well?

devolute

@jonhicks Music is too important to rely on someone else's trickles down from a cloud.

Jon Hicks

@obrhoff @nevyn the core problem of Spotify has always been there - that they took advantage of an industry worried about Napster. I’ve always justified using it because I buy music as well, but not with decisions like adverts for ICE and investing in Helsing AI .

My work with them was quite brief in the end - I think my icons only lasted a year before they replaced them with thin iOS 7 style ones!

Bojan Landekić

@jonhicks I am a musician but I never make any money. I quit being a Spotify customer when I discovered their CEO was financially supporting military AI from Germany or something evil like that. That money should have gone to the musicians. Now my music is on Bandcamp.

Banapana

@jonhicks @myrobotfriend Ugh. I thought independence would screw the music industry but then the tech bros took over the music industry and showed them how to *really* screw, nickel and dime artists and the audience.

Colin Devroe

@jonhicks this is unbelievable. Spotify had/has the best recommendation “algorithm” I’ve ever experienced. But they seem to be artist hostile.

miki

@jonhicks This is not unexpected, I guess there are plenty of scammers around that just spam Spotify with keyword stuffing or whatever.

What's a lot more interesting to me is how many *listens* have been demonetized. That's not such a "tech is evil" statistic though, so the media better not report it I guess.