Spotify Is Good Actually 

0:04 Sounds like something Eminem would say

i still can’t spot the guy talking bout spotify

It'd be way funnier if the sponsor was Spotify

Evil Fantano be like:

"I don't care if they whip their employees for being 1 minute late. They have all my favorite albums in one place!" - Fantano

When they say something is 'generating' money that's purely for the benefit of their investors, the only people they care about keeping happy. The rest is plain old corporate doublespeak

I just wrote a whole essay on why Spotify is evil and it’s due tomorrow… Now I have to redo the whole thing. Thanks Fantano 😘

I'm a small artist. Wanna know how much I've made from Spotify? $0.00. I haven't made enough money to be paid out by Spotify over the past year. And now with them introducing the new rule that an artist has to surpass 1,000 streams annually to even qualify for compensation, it might be a while before I even see any money. On the flipside, a couple album sales recently put money right in my pocket. Thank you to those who bought my music. Support the artist, buy their album if you like it, it goes way further than a stream ever will.

As long as you keep using youtube links instead of spotify links for tracks of the week, ill be happy.

vaporwave mentioned

I'm not pro-Spotify, I'm an independent record producer (and financial analyst) and I'd love to see my artists get paid more for their music. I think these are some fair criticisms of their press release, but I also think it entirely misses the economics of the problem by failing to look at Spotify's financial statements and quarterly performance. $13.3B revenue -$9.9B cost of revenue ($9B payouts to artists) -$3.8B operating cost (R&D, Sales, marketing) --I mean it's not exactly like there's a whole lot more cashflow Spotify could just pay out. If in theory they doubled their revenue for the same amount of streams and cut all operating costs, and paid out every penny of revenue to artists - I think the per-stream model still fails to pay well. One of my bands made about $25 last year on thousands of streams. Unless Spotify does something like 100x their revenue without additional cost, that band would probably still be operating net negative. Again, I'm sure there are execs with huge comp packages, I'm sure there are wasteful things they spend money on within the company in R&D or marketing. But without generating A LOT more revenue, a per-stream model will fail to compensate artists fairly. Perhaps the answer isn't per-stream. In the old days of iTunes, or CD's, or vinyl, people paid for the song up front and listened as many times as they liked. Assuming they didn't steal physical copies, and pirating is similar, the audience had financial constraints as to how much music they could listen to. It's an amazing privilege to be able to listen to virtually any music at any time in any place, but that's part of why the economics are so tricky.

Anthony, as someone who earns his full time living in the music industry, thank you for talking about this. It’s important and I feel like many people don’t know just how little music has really been devalued. So again, thank you 🙏🏻

the skies of earth are so beautiful this time of day.

genuinely thank you for staying on top of spotify for all the garbage they pull because i dont hear anyone else talk about this stuff

The more i think about spotify, the clearer it seems that the problem is not the company - its that the service is too cheap. In 2023, spotify paid $9b in royalties against $13b in total revenue. Even if spotify paid ALL the money to artists, this would only mean a 40% increase. Earning .0056 cents a stream instead of .004 probably changes nothing for the vast majority of artists on spotify. Spotify posted a loss for 2023 anyway. I don't see how Spotify is supposed to come up with the money to fairly compensate artists, and I don't see people likely being willing to pay on the magnitude of $50 a month (or more) for their music streaming.

Spotify Restore Reputation Any% Glitchless Speedrun 11:57

Uruguay mentioned 🇺🇾🐮🤠

I think the biggest advantage of Spotify is their better cross platform support. Especially on PC.

Spotify … not inviting Fantano to another loud and clear 😂

"THE ONE PIECE IS REAL" -Anthony Fantano, probably

"Generating", meaning they don't want to use the word that could infer that Spotify should be subject to labor laws. That should tell you enough about how much they care about artists.

Who on Gods Green Earth working for Spotify thought inviting Melon to that call was the move?

I’m mad hyped for The Needle Drop streaming platform. I feel like you have great ideas for how to make streaming services better for artists

🎶Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies🎶

My understanding is that most of spotify's revenue goes to artists/labels, so the only way for them to pay artists significantly more would be to charge more for the service. If we, the listeners, aren't willing to pay a fair amount for the music then I don't see how spotify can be expected to solve the problem.

i never thought i would hear melon say he likes his worst enemy

I mean, Napster was also getting a lot of exposure for artists and lowered barriers. Are the 'lowered barriers' increasing the volume of content, making it harder for artists to get high play counts? $9B+ sounds like a lot of money, until you divide that by 9 billion artists. It's not what they tell us, but it's what they don't. Personally I don't expect Spotify to change the game when they think they control the game, changing the game will come down to the consumer and the labels, what do we do?

Thank you, Anthony, for being a voice of truth out here. All the “little guy” musicians/artists appreciate you, sir. 💜

I don't hold the ad reads against him, but I'm just taken aback by, after all these years of just selling the Ridge and sort of just talking about it as if it were an afterthought, he's suddenly doing full-on, complete shift of gears ad reads. He should do Blue Chew.

Spotify doesn’t rep musicians it reps rights holders for music. How can they disintermediate on behalf of those who assigned their rights to another party before even Spotify is in the mix? Kind of a weird focus. If I have rights to my music I can go to Spotify directly. If I sign away my music without Spotify involved I can’t cry about Spotify.

"smaller indie artists" "Phoebe Bridgers and the Arctic Monkeys". Like I don't want to seem pretentious but that's the list of underground small artists of someone who exclusively listens to Taylor Swift. Those are huge international artists who are incredibly famous and sell out stadiums. A small Indië artist is my cousin James or some band playing at a bar for like 20-50 people, not The Arctic Monkeys.

The internet unbundled albums and made all information free to distribute. This hurt all industries who had a monopoly on distributing information in the physical world: not just record labels, but also newspapers. Spotify may not necessarily be increasing the value of music, but this doesn't mean that it's to blame for it's decline. I mostly think of it as offering a service to consumers that makes it easier to get music without having to get limewire. Because piracy is always an option, Spotify can't charge much more to consumers. Even now, Spotify doesn't make much profit on music -- it's profits have come from things like podcasts where it doesn't have to pay labels and can insert ads. If music streaming disappeared tomorrow, they wouldn't suddenly be able to make more money. In that context, I think the real evil is labels. They no longer have a monopoly on distribution, and are not that helpful at promoting artists, since artists can promote directly on the internet. But labels still stand between artists and a larger share of their Spotify profits.

Spotify is the gateway I use to find and listen to artists, fall in love then buy their albums. Sort of how I borrow books from the library before I buy them. Except I do pay for Spotify. And the library doesn't penalize indie authors.

I'm honestly just here for the ad read.

take a shot every time anthony says "loud and clear"

I DONT KNOW WHAT OPINION TO HAVE AHHHH!!!

Good video but you should also know independent artists don't necessarily see all their revenue as well which might make it difficult for spotify to tally. Many smaller artists like myself use the free tier of music distributors to get their music to streaming platforms which foregoes an up front fee but gives the distributor a % of revenue.

I guess I’m a little confused. I’d love for artists to somehow make more money from streaming - but how would Spotify know/ why would they care what the artists get given it’s the rights holders with whom they hold the contracts. Am I missing something obvious here?

artists need to be paid more for this to continue

Four Tet- Three Review That was great content. Absolutely made my day. “Not so loud and clear” 😂

reaffirms my switch to Tidal

Rock that soundboard man you deserve it! 😂

Spotify is my most used app for discovering new music band but it needs to add more like older albums

Yo fantano my boy you NEED to check out Opus Kink. My favorite alternative/post punk band of recent memory. They randomly popped up on my recommended for Spotify and I’ve loved them ever since.

3:58 its giving "katy perry is the first woman to reach the top 10 of the billboard hot dance chart with a song produced by zedd in 2019"

As an Australian based artist, Spotty Face only pays me $0.007 (1 700th of a cent) per play. My band has had more streams on Spotty Face than on RU-vid Music but we've earned at least double the amount from RU-vid Music. I will give Spotty Face this though, they do at least pay better than TikTok as we had a song that had something like 10,000 plays through TikTok and we earned NOTHING.

I'm from uruguay, spotify didnt actually pull out, it was used as a threat until the government accepted spotifys policies

Alternative honest title: "Spotify Is Actually Bad"

I think it’s a little rash to suggest boycotting music altogether just to affect Spotify’s bottom line

Theyre never inviting you to another meeting ever again

Shoutout to Uruguay 🇺🇾

Maybe it's time to go back to piracy? If the money I pay to Spotify isn't reaching the artists I care about then what's the point?

I've been trying to imagine a world where bean counting is the hobby and actual real world value is placed on those who dedicate themselves to art and craft.

Insane that they invited you to this lmao

9:55 “if Spotify ACKCHEWAULLY”

"generating" includes the distribution percentage?

Hi @fantano for someone who wants o support the artist as much as possible, what streaming is the best? Ofc buying the albums from the artist and going to their concerts is the best way to support (i dont know for sure the best way, would be happy if i could get suggestions) but i still want to be able to stream the artists aswell.

Can you talk about the secret composer (Johan Rörs) that has over 600 pseudonym on spotify and all together are the most stremd person from Sweden bigger then Avicii

The Nails shirt goes hard

I appreciate you calling out Spotify for taking credit for simple technological progression and spread of the internet. Viral technologies will just spread, they’re not doing anything special, and if it wasn’t the internet or them, it would be something else

What if spotify pushed more things that you can buy from a creator? More focus on concerts, merch, vinyls, cds and more. They make it like a social network for artists to reach out to their fans, interact with them, and even possibly have "premium content", where you have to subscribe to the artist individually / buy certain limited content. And let's say they would only take a very small cut of those. Something a bit like patreon? Because "all-you-can-eat" streaming feels difficult to fill the monetary needs of artists, since I for instance listen to many thousands of songs a month, paying a total of 10$. That's .01 $ per stream (for 1000 streams / month) in total which is very little, especially since the artist probably only get's a small fraction of it... Would also be cooler if the earning of the artist was relative towards your listened minutes, because for instance listening to the entirety 20 min long Close to the Edge by Yes is not really the same as streaming a 1 minute song, but Spotify seems to think so.

Little indie bands like The Cure and The Pixies have so much to thank Spotify who would've known any of these bands existed without exposure on Spotify?

Honestly thought that was Mike Judge in the thumbnail, at first. 😅

you keep reminding me i need to buy nails merch

Now I can use Spotify thanks for your approval melon !

Streaming thinks outreach is the priority. Really we need to prioritize fandom and artists

great points here, but... when was the last time you reviewed an unsigned artist yourself, mr. melonman?

i would like to see numbers including industry music vs independent music instead of English spoken vs the rest..

This is so good. Thank you! ❤ Please can you and Benn Jordan do a collab? 👏🏻

The title got me, ngl

Disco ball going crazy in the back. Having a hard time focusing on the lecture

Imagine the wealth of art and music that would be available to all of us if only there were no incentive for ghoulish companies like Spotify to squeeze creative people for their labor. Not just Spotify, but all companies and all creative people. Even Gary who's stuck working the drive through at Taco Bell and can't afford a distortion pedal. Think of poor Gary.

Wooph, thought the thousands and thousands of songs saved to my Spotify playlists were dead for a second. Thank goodness Sir Anthony changed his mind.

Honest question, why is the unfairness of music right agreements thrown as something that is Spotify's fault? From my point of view what Spotify has provided is a great service for the customer. They did not change the way the music industry works but that is not their responsability so..

Anthony, that third letter on your shirt being obscured by the microphone was a bit worrying

It’s not April yet bro

I was worried for a few years that we’d lost you to the same sort of corporation-fueled poptimism we lost Pitchfork to. I hope seeing them dig their own grave woke you up. Thank you so much for sticking up for indie artists!!!

I will buy the product you promoted :) I want you to have money to live. Please live Andy

that's great. now back to listening to Corey Feldman

I've been free of subscription-based music streaming services for a year and I do not miss them. All my money spent on music goes directly to artists and it's way more than if I kept paying for Spotify

Spotify is actually entirely beholden to music labels like UMG and Sony. Spotify is a dying business because of them.

Honestly I’m 50/50, I feel like they’re giving a little too much to indie artists in terms of money+a platform

Wish he would have spoke a bit louder about the fact that Spotify really wasn’t as loud and clear as they claimed to be in this meeting. Would clear up a lot of confusion around the video.

my brother is in a band with 13k monthly listeners, they make ~$200 a month from spotify and ~$2000 a month from bandcamp. That’s the “mystery generation of small independent artists” that spotify describes lol

NAH, THEY KEPT HIDING NCT 127 And their songs aND PUSHING BP BECAUSE CEO HAD A DEAL WITH THEM AND AUTOPLAYED THEIR SONGS AND PUSH THEM TO ALL USERS

Most people in South Africa’s first language would be english

I’m the vapourwave producer from South Africa

Now I don’t have to read the email

What happened to the old backdrop?

streams can also be bought

i havent watched the vid yet but this vid fyeee

Geez if you're so excited about Angelic 2 the Core being taken down why'd you go buy the CD

Praise God, drop them drops. THAT'S IN THE BIIIIBLE

“Generating” is what Spotify gets. Then they give 70 percent to the artists or Labels. Then half is gone for taxes. So, off of that 10k the artist probably made 3k maximum.

I mean Spotify is good at recommending indie artist, but compare to their competition it is not even close to their selling point. You get and buy Spotify so you can listen to big artists who don't put their music on other platforms. When you see smaller artists take down music on Spotify because it isn't worth to keep it up it is hard to agree. All in all as a consumer i am happy with spotify. (Quick question, i feel like youtube premium should be the best app for music, small and big artists have music on youtube, i like the music i get recommended on youtube the most. Only concern i have is if premium makes downloading and offline listening bearable, and that it doesn't f*ck my normal recommend on youtube.)

So its a strong 8 then?

Looking fit my guy

anthony fantano what do you think about ronald reagan

Melon in his bipolar ye phase.

In the book chokepoint capitalism, Cory Doctorow talks about how the model rewards low level listenable tracks. Long albums and playlists that people put on in the background I am betting the lion share of those non household names generating $5m are these artists