The Adblockers you get from the appstore do work, although they seem to slow down your system for some reason, even when safari isnt running.
“If you’re like me and dont know anything about music theory and blah blah 
”
Not really. I dont know about you, but my record label gets 50%.
A spotify stream pays about 0,006$. Times 50.000 = 300. Divided by 2 is
150. At best. In the end you end up with like 50 bucks. I get excels every quarter year. I can look up the numbers. It is peanuts. Theres also taxes etc
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Is that the midi pack guy? I also get that ad all the time. The most irritating thing is the exceptionally low production quality of the video. And for something that has more views than the last season of Game of Trones! hehe
People are very aware of the conditions that the clothes for sale in Primark/target etc are made in. A shit lot of people still choose to shop there, though.
My point is simple, Spotify, YouTube are pretty evil, but consumers and artists use them because the available alternatives are either more expensive or have less content/audience.
You can spend all day raising awareness, most consumers will generally go for what works for them, regardless of the consequences for others and what works for most people is what Spotify/YouTube are offering.
I would argue that, if artists feel that Spotify is ripping them off, they shouldn’t use it. They should organise themselves and support/promote/create better alternatives, but they haven’t managed to do this in any meaningful way as of yet (Tidal comes close, but in reality isn’t much better), because the likes of Spotify/YouTube have such a monopoly over audiences that they’re afraid to leave those platforms for fear of falling into obscurity (which is probably fair enough). This then creates a problem with putting pressure on consumers not to use it if all the artists we’re lobbying to protect are still on it.
In short, if you want to cater for “the average consumer” on a global scale, you probably have to be an evil bastard. There are always alternatives to using the evil bastard companies for the small minority of consumers who don’t like bastards but the only way for them to replace the evil bastards is to become evil bastards themselves, because that’s what “the average consumer” requires them to be.
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Even when I’m watching some random lets play of a random game this guy with the curly hair sits there behind his desk. Dude is there all the friggin’ time!
Idont know if hes the midi pack guy. I dont pay much attention to ads. I dont really know what the man is selling. I just know he doesnt know music theory
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I’m increasingly of the opinion that Bandcamp is the best thing for both artist and consumer.
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…that’s the overall problem with streaming…
the back catalogues are already endless and still growing every day…
so any payments from users must be shared on everchanging profit splits…
and from all streaming farms, spotify is trying the hardest to keep that fair as much as possible…
which is battle that will never see any real winners…
and as mentioned…50thousand monthly listeners on spotify alone is an achievable goal, where it starts to pay off…
u just can’t expect the same amounts of payment these days…
no one can make a fortune on selling music in any way these days, if ur not gigging and/or sublicensing to further usage…
even the big ones can’t…let’s take beyonce for example…she sold her new project, she’s calling it an audio visual release now, for now exclusively to disney+…good money, i guess…but all that streams never gonna make her the same amount of money as back in the days when she had a hit with destinys child…
…yup…if u really wanna support one of ur favourite artists, go and BUY some merch or a recording THERE…
and put a few tracks of that artist on ur personal liked playlist on the streaming farm of ur choice also helps…at least a bit…
Sure. It is peanuts. But 50k listeners a month isnt gonna pay the bills I’m afraid.
I agree with you and therein lies the issue. Consumers want the cheapest and most convenient, consequences be damned. This is the kind of position that has allowed conglomerates to monopolize the market (let alone put us under existential threat).
It is not “impossible” to use alternatives to Spotify. They exist (a 300% better pay out is far from “not much better”) It’ll be less convenient (whatever that means…am I missing something not being on Spotify?), certainly. But by choosing less convenience (the standard of which has been determined by conglomerates) you are choosing better values.
I understand that most consumers don’t give a damn (tbh I don’t know how well people know about these payouts…raise awareness). I feel strongly that they don’t mostly because they’ve been conditioned to prioritize convenience. Which is why I stated in the beginning “true music fans”. If your priority is music as opposed to convenience, there are alternatives.
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The 80s people dubbed music. In the 90s we copied cds and illegally downloaded music. The artist didn’t get their fair share and the industry was completely run by labels. We all were effectively stealing and not supporting artists. But we got exposed to more music and we went to concerts, where the artist did get a cut and we bought a tshirt.
Today, the industry is democratized a lot more. You don’t need a label (well, you probably need one if you want to get rich). Almost no one steals music. The artist gets paid for their work. But you have to produce more quality tunes because you can’t fill an album with two good songs and a bunch of crap.
Big artists still make most of their money from tours and merch, but they also now have easy platforms for making money via endorsements.
There were local indie bands I loved in college. We would go see them play but I still ripped their music. Now when I feel nostalgic and listen on Apple Music, they are actually getting paid for their work.
Songs from the 70s are getting continued revenue streams as my parents listen to them. As my kids listen to them. Or as I do. I didn’t know any kids in high school spending money on cds their parents liked.
Honestly I think you all are acting like fuddy duddies telling kids to get off your lawn. The world always changes. It always will. Today’s way isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just different.
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Unfortunately we are living through a time when music is of less value, social media and gaming is where the ‘smart money’ is. This means that artists find it harder to make a living from music, which then leads to only people who are rich enough can afford to become musicians.
edit: my kids would rather become Youtubers than musicians. Content creators like ‘Mr Beast’ throw money around like old hip-hop videos (although he seems slightly more altruistic ).
I miss playing dj sets of b-sides and lesser known album tracks… I might just be old!
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Definitely - although I’m talking more about indies/self releases rather than big labels, which pretty much were just as bad as streaming services (prolly the same lot of sharks LOL)
Indies typically still offer 50/50 deals, which is quite fair I think.
Yeah, it is a concern but in reality (unless you are a vinyl collector or old school DJ) most vinyl buyers will be quite selective from what they buy on vinyl, so will own less, probably partly from a storage perspective, party a cost perspective, and also from a justification perspective i.e like a special edition or something rare etc.
As for the likes of Ed Sheeran and Lady Gaga doing vinyl just because it is trendy, fuck those people, the artist, the label and the buyers, but there us a special place in hell for people who buy re-issues of vinyl which is readily still available in thrift/charity shops.
Most indie vinyl now will be runs of less than 500, or even less than 300.
But yeah the supermarket vinyl section chock full of major label vinyl, with ‘retro” crosley record decks merchandised nearby make me want to throw up. 
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I think it may have been mentioned at the top, but google music is great and includes youtube premium. I havn’t seen an ad on youtube in years, I forgot they existed.
Buying used records doesn’t pay the artist 
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Quite possibly. And you raise some good points - taping off the radio, ripping CDs, napster and so on, I think genuine music lovers will try to support artists whose work they love, there always were and always will be freeloaders who don’t value anything other than their own time/work but those people are extremely dumb and shortsighted.
I think the difference today though is the meat has been picked clean from the bone from a smaller artists perspective, if you are getting tons of streams then you are probably laughing.
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No but they were paid the first time it sold, right?
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I just mean buying a reissue support’s the band
Yeah true, although Pink Floyd, Queen etc is more what I’m talking about, as in exactly the type of stuff you see in supermarkets.
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Has it though? As a small artist before the Internet, how did you sell albums? SamGoody didn’t carry you. You had word of mouth and selling tapes at gigs. (and people making copies on tapes)
How has today made it worse? You have a chance at global exposure and you still only make enough to support yourself touring