Yes, 
bloody %
Frivolous is the right word.
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I have to disagree strongly here. Totalizing thinking is usually dangerous. It is unrealistic to expect that every human and every unit of currency is dedicated to solving abuse, homelessness, COVID, etc. The vast majority of people lack the skills and motivation to work on these problems. The problem is really connecting the right people with the right projects and then funding them appropriately.
An instructive example is the Effective Altruists - a movement that attempts to quantify and optimize the impact of charitable giving. EA is also the cover that SBF and FTX flew under with the argument that if your social goal is sufficiently good, it is valid to commit massive financial fraud to achieve it. Whether or not SBF was truly a committed EA or simply used the cause as cover for his fraud is irrelevant - pushing all levers towards a single goal without regard to consequences is at the root of the problem here.
Additionally, a world without art sounds like a cold, dark place to me. I donāt want to live in a world without art, and Iām highly skeptical of anyone who thinks they would.
Some good news: venture-backed technology startups are generally a positive-sum game. What that means is that new value is being created out of thin air via new products and services rather than simply taking existing market share from someone else. It is unclear if streaming is positive sum compared to the traditional music industry, but streaming is a drop in the bucket compared to the broader tech industry.
The reason this matters is that if you have a single dollar that could be invested in a venture fund that returns, on average, $4 over ten years or put that dollar to use for a social good that has no monetary return you can have your cake and eat it too. You just have to work out how much of the dollar to invest such that compounding interest allows you to contribute socially at your desired rate.
The key here is that you donāt want to invest directly in Spotify, or any other streaming service. You want to invest in a fund that will invest in hundreds or thousands of startups. 90% or more will fail utterly, returning nothing. But those that do succeed produce returns that more than make up for the losses, averaging around $4 per dollar invested per ten years.
Incidentally, the only way most people can invest in venture funds is indirectly, via their retirement funds. Public employee retirement funds are a significant source of capital for venture funds and a significant beneficiary. Thus there is also a positive redistribution of wealth going on here.
TL;DR:
- It is good that people with relevant skills and motivation are working to solve social issues
- It is also good to make reasonable contributions to such causes
- Not all business is a zero-sum game, it is possible to create new value, and do it at scale.
- A wisely invested dollar can do more social good than that same dollar directly contributed. The correct answer is a careful balance, not 100% invested nor 100% spent on good causes. (nor 100% spent on bonghits and sick playlists)
- I believe that art itself is a social good, and the production, distribution and consumption of art, while imperfect, is a worthy use of time and effort.
- Totalizing thinking characterizes many of the most horrific episodes of the 20th century and also underlies massive recent financial fraud. If you find yourself thinking that āeveryone should do Xā or āno one should ever do Y,ā check yourself - this is a danger sign!
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I agree with most of the above, but I would be hard pressed to say that thereās real long-term value in spending several billion dollars to keep a particular streaming platform alive, when there are others with mostly the same content, and when that money could go toward improving the lives of millions of humans in other tangible ways.
Clean water, access to housing, lifting people out of poverty, etc are more important than a music delivery platform, or any other form of art for that matter*. I wouldnāt want to live in a world without art either, but I also agree with the definition āfrivolousā mentioned above. If Spotify ceased to exist tomorrow, the only lives that would be actually impacted a negative way are the lives of the employees. Everyone else would move on and find a different way to consume the music.
*on an individual basis. Art is a necessary, powerful tool for everyone, especially oppressed people in a given society. Itās part of what makes human culture lovely, and I certainly donāt want to live in a world without it and Iām not saying that we should value productivity and practicality above art in all circumstances.
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If Spotify fails itās not as if the world of music will once again be bathed in the healing power of people paying for musicā¦
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I sort of hate myself when I assume that people who donāt live in ā1st worldā conditions or are lacking basic necessities donāt have the same interior lives/needs as those that do. Iām sure there is a world of tabla players (or fill in your own example) out there who struggle to feed their family while also dreaming of having their music one day heard paid for it, just like us here.
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If youāre talking about the video I think you are, I believe he said that his friend - Telefon Tel Aviv - doesnāt make enough money from Spotify because they release music very infrequently, but that he (as the flashbulb) does comparatively ok because he releases a lot of albums, and tours them a lot.
For what itās worth, he seems to be one of the few YouTubers who doesnāt actually need money from sponsors and therefore seems to say what he wants. he talks about turning down a lot of money for doing adverts he didnāt want to do, he seems to give a lot of money to charitable foundations.
Sure sometimes it is a bit smug and opinionated, but it always seems well researched. I am confident in my own ability to decipher fact from opinion - so I donāt mind a presented argument. I prefer that to someone just saying whatever they think wonāt annoy the people who send them free stuff.
Iām not a fan or anything, I just think - why waste so much of your energy shitting on people on YouTube, calling them failures? Who cares?
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Absolute trash.
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More moves from a company who wants unlimited growth from feeding people scams and garbage-
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I have a love hate relationship with Spotify. I should and one day will delete it but I do use it to preview music which if I like I go and buy on bandcamp. They also have an algorithm which actually manages to suggest me stuff Iām into unlike youtube which is convinced I want to watch videos of people doing yoga in dresses. Just the other day spotify cued an artist which is now a new favorite, Thomas Felhmann; I guess I will wait until tomorrow to buy his splendid album Honigpumpe.
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Yeah, I know itād be impossible in a post-Pandora world but I just want the curation that can come from all those users when I donāt have the same time to listen to new music as i had AND to make music!
I suppose I donāt need to pay for it to create weekly playlistsā¦
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I donāt understand why itās not possible for Spotify to give us all the information about an album that Bandcamp provides, for exampleā¦ for example: musician, producer, liner notesā¦ like in the good olā days of vinyl and CDs.
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A few months ago I wanted to abandon Spotify completely. Deleted my distrokid account and canceled my Spotify sub. Tinkered around with Plex. Set up an unraid home instance. Learned some basics Unix codes and a bit of coding. Discovered home assistant. Anyways. Plex and plexamp is a nice way of listening to music with a great user experience.
Sorry but were people unable to find new music before algorithms? As if friends, record shops, digging and music publications have never existed? I have no idea if Tidals suggestion algorithm is any good because peers, websites, forums, Discogs, searches, and Bandcamp keep me more than busy.
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Yeeah, Thomas Fehlmann was one of my first reaches into electronic music!
My favourite of his is the Manual album.
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I look forward to listening to that one. Discovering him is like completing the Kompakt holy trinity with GAS and The Field. Anything else on that label that isnāt straight ahead minimal or dub techno?
Edit: that Manual album isnāt on Spotify or Bandcamp but enjoying that Eraldo Bernocchi super group album Winter Garden with Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie.
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OT sorry, a question Iāve had for a while but couldnāt see a clear answer for on their website:
Have you released stuff on Spotify or other services using distrokid? If you cancel your distrokid account, do the stuff you released remain on the streaming services?
As I understood their terms when I signed up, if you ever stop paying for Distrokid, your stuff disappears from all platforms you used them to release on. I could be completely wrong though.
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apparently you can opt in to a Leave a Legacy feature and nothing will be deleted
thereās a dedicated faq explaining this under Saying Goodbye section
https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001876613-Subscriptions
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Youtube works fantastic as music suggesting tool if you log-out and search for some bands one likes. Then itāll show only suggestions based on that.
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Iām thinking of switching to YouTube Premium since I generally have been able to find everything I want on Spotify there and then the added bonus of being free of ads really sweetens the deal. Also itās true, YouTube does actually suggest me good music from time to time.