Spotify Is An Enemy of Sustainable Arts

I don't dispute your essential point about how music is consumed, but I do see the labels themselves getting into the streaming business and cutting out the tech interlopers, as Disney is doing. The key is to minimize the number of operations though them collaborating on distribution; as you quite rightly say, it won't work if every label has their own system. It's possible it would run foul of anti-trust laws in the US, perhaps requiring some stake taken by established streamers to reassure the regulators, but in the rest of the world it would be an obvious and straightforward step to take.

 

Blasphemy. You do NOT polish a $22,000 Rolex. Polishing is the enemy of fine timepieces. You use warm tap water and a microfiber towel and you gently clean your watch.

I clean my collection in the master bath, ask my HomePod smart speaker to play Baby You're A Rich Man and off I go.

 

and then you wake up.

 

There's 200 of your 25 million CD's being sold to the current CD demographic at current CD prices.

 

What happens when you tell Siri to wipe your *ss for you?

 

Good post. And of course, I was wrong to say Napster did nothing original. In fact, they were revolutionary - in using peer-to-peer networking, for delivery, at least.

 

"That's not nice."

 

Sort of.

Another way to think of it is that labels and artists are being paid what they've always been paid. But instead of artists getting $100,000 in 3 months off of physical sales of a product that will last 30 years in someone's home, they are getting paid $150,000 but it takes 30 years to earn it. Instead of consumers like us being asked to buy the new Ed Sheeran CD for $13 which kicks Ed back $1.00, we are allowed to stream it as much as we like and he gets paid $0.06 cents each time. As soon as you've streamed the album about 13 times, Ed breaks even.

It's a timing issue, that's all.

 

More like 133 times, but yes.

EDIT: looking at my iTunes, I only have 8 tracks I've played 133 times or more, out of some 46,000. Sorry Ed.

 

Pretty hilarious that a guy with Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran at the top of his streaming playlist is mocking people for perceived uncoolness.

 

I keep tellling you that Rolex you bought off the guy on the Joisey street corner, and which turns your wrist green, is not a real Rolex. Kinda like having a streaming music "collection" is not having a real music collection.

 

I've got news for you. As more and more people subscribe to Streaming services the prices will come down. That's how it works. Because in the end it's all about the number of ears and the number of plays and the easiest way to increase subscribers is to lower subscription rates. Look at mobile phones. Back in 2007 a dataplan could cost $150 a month for 500mb. Now they're $10 for unlimited data. Because the amount of subscribers paying monthly fees went up markedly and the lower prices retained existing customers and allowed them to obtain new ones. Prices didn't go up. Prices came down.

And do not forget the value of the free tier, Rock. The more free users sign up, the higher the advertising rates the Streaming services can charge.

 

You mean like cable tv prices have gone down over the decades? Or internet service prices have gone down? You're clueless.

 

I'm not mocking anyone. Just showing you what the CD business really is. You think that CD's are being made for enthusiasts when actually you're just brainwashed by forum narratives into thinking they sound better than streams. CD's are an ancient technology being supported by people on fixed incomes who can't afford fancy dataplans and smartphones. Their 1990 Aiwa boombox still works, so CD's are still just fine. Nothing wrong with any of that. But their days are numbered.

 

Interrupting this thread, as a lifelong New Jersey resident, to say, I have never, ever heard anyone except Joe Piscopo say 'Joisey.' And now, back to our regularly-scheduled tail-chasing ...

 

133 times is not correct. An album has 12 songs. So for Ed to get his same $1.00 in album revenue, 12 songs at $0.006 cents each means the album needs to be streamed only 13 times.

12 songs x $0.006 cents per song = $0.072 cents per album play.

$1.00 artist revenue ÷ $0.072 cents per album play = 13.8 album plays.

My wife must have streamed Ed's last album 13.8 times in the first month alone. By now she must be up to 30 or 40 times. By the end of a compact disc's lifespan- say 30 years- she will have streamed that album 200 times, producing $14.40 for Ed instead of the measly $1.00 he used to get from a CD.

 

I have no idea who he is, though I tend to take most of his personal stats at face value. I mean, why not? There are more people making a good deal of money now than ever before in the country's history. Why is it *so insane* that one of these people might post to an audiophile message board? The trope of every person who claims to be affluent/highly educated/skilled professional actually being a kid living in Mom's basement is really quite lame at this point.

 

1990 Aiwa boombox? There are still CD players being made like $150 Onkyo or Yamaha, to high-end players in the 5 figures.
And the CD business is only like that in your deluded mind. Because you had some kind of emotionally traumatic experience in a Walmart, and insist on saying CDs are only sold in Walmart. To old people. Who can't afford streaming. Or a smartphone. When there are homeless people who have smartphones.
Again, more specious arguments.

 

People who have money don't feel the need to brag about it to strangers on internet forums. Seems fairly obvious.

 

Based on the content of his many posts on this topic, "R. Cat Conrad" doesn't have the greatest handle on the facts with respect to these things; hence the fairly wacky predictions and tinfoil-hat-wearing predilections.

I thought all your points here are spot-on. Hopefully it can be fertile ground for learning.

 

Thank you.

This is an entire forum of outliers, right? I'm no different.

 

Don't forget that 9 tracks are filler, though

 

That's an old wives tale. Download something called Instagram, do a search for "Rolex", the photos you will see are the very definition of "bragging to strangers on the internet". What about vacation photos on Facebook? That post about little Jimmy getting into private school perhaps? You act as if a discussion forum is somehow exempt from social media convention.

 

No, you're more like a paid Apple plant.

 

This is the forum for normies, the "outliers" are talking about 3 grand speaker cables next door ;-)