haptalaon | RE: spotify

Someone has actually done the maths: you can pirate six albums by your favourite artist and listen to them 50 times each then post them $20, which is exactly what they would have earned from streams on Spotify

this reminds me of a story that a particular music youtuber i watch has told, i think he mentions it at least once in this video. dissatisfied with streaming payouts, he released one of his albums on several pirating websites instead, including a small read me along side it that had a link to his paypal. and, as he tells it, he made more money off of that album than any other release before it

- source

part of why I dislike spotify is that these platforms can get away with stuff because they form monopolies. Resisting them in this way is better for artists immediately (they get paid better via bandcamp or even paypal or collectables) but also intangibly - it loosens that grip where artists must be on spotify to get ahead, & consequently must acquiece to whatever policies the platform prefers.

& the third factor in my dislike is the loss of a human touch. I associate piracy with being in my teens in the 00s, and how much music I encountered because people were running their own radio and curated download blogs - you lose all of that, and it's important because what value is access to all of recorded sound history without a psychopomp?

One stressful part of my life right now is, apparently you can't trust low end record players not to actually damage your records over time, & I'm freaked out because I adore my collection, so I guess I'm in the market for an Actual Record Player now, but the r/budgetaudiophile defines 'budget' sound equipment as 'under $1000 per component', which is terrifying, so I guess my records will just be...lovingly displayed for a little while until I can sort that problem out