very annoying to see a link to a song on socials media only to discover it's a spotify link. we get it—you pay 11 dollars a month to a company who most likely doesn't pay the artist anything for their work, which the company needs to get your 11 dollars
as a musician, my research to find the best service to promote shows that Spotify is bad and pretty much all streaming is bad, but for example YT Music and iTunes actual payout is worse
i do not know anyone with a Tidal account, and there is evidence that Tidal will screw over smaller artists even though their standard payout is greater than the other services
Ampled closed up shop at the end of last year, so there goes the most accessible indie option
the founder of Spotify funds literal military AI, i think that is probably a bigger ethical concern - but so does YT/Google/Alphabet and Apple they're just usually more discrete about it - not to whatabout but it does not seem to me that there is an ethical source for streaming music
but i basically do not see anyone running this campaign against YT, people are happy to get YT links to music, the same ones who are (rightfully!) unhappy with Spotify
i do not make money from any of them anyway, but Spotify has the greatest potential of contributing to discovery, so unless someone has better info and a better alternative i am not clear how this stance is productive for musicians
i do want more info on this, this is a data-driven decision and not an ideological one, i will be thrilled for a better, more fair, and more ethical option out there
to be honest i wasn't trying to be productive, i'm just a broke indie artist feeling bitter about the state of the music industry & the general culture of Content Consumption
but i guess if i were to try and be a little less of a blackpilled hater and try to come up with something productive to say, well... yeah i agree with you, there is no ethical streaming platform. it's all bad. it is literally better for musicians to put their work on Soulseek than Spotify imho. or Apple Music or Tidal or Deezer or whatever
if reach is what you're concerned about, putting stuff out there for free is better than behind a paywall. not everyone has a Spotify account after all
if getting money for the work is more the issue then, idk. Bandcamp is fantastic but i worry about the future of it, what with the new ownership. personally i'm thinking about hosting mp3s on my own website and figuring out the best way for people to pay what they want for the downloads. itch.io comes to mind as well, i've seen people sell their music there
it's just kind of hard for someone completely independent to get people to pay for their music these days. because of, well, Spotify partially. it's basically the face of the streaming era so more people are vocally mad about them than the other corporate actors also ruining the industry
i wish i had better answers. it's not all doom & gloom though. art will survive well beyond the lifespan of capitalism. music still matters and always will
the simple answer, imo, is to normalise sharing music links that offer users a direct line of purchase. bandcamp, faircamp, generic neocities page with a stripe checkout, mailing a cheque, etc. if you like something by an artist, find where you can directly give them money and share that. if you see an artist's stuff appear on your timeline, share it. you don't know who on your follows might be looking for some happy hardcore, some basement crustpunk, some otamatone jazz, or some field recordings of trains running over pennies
spotify's power is twofold - its low cost of entry for listeners, and its discoverability engine. the cost is a trap of convenience that i have no real answer for, but we as a greater internet community beyond the cozy walls of eggbug have the capability to create a web of passionate music listeners that can help others find the cool music they need and how they can support the smaller voices that make the stuff too uncool for spotify playlists
in the 00s, i followed dozens of music blogs, all of which had particular niches they served with mp3 copies of albums you could grab from mediafire or rapidshare or wherever else. stonerrobixx was the cool motherfucker who had all the mezcal-soaked psychedelic stoner desert rock, holyfuckingshit40000 originated from 4chan but were all clearly far too good for that place with the sheer breadthe of unique artists they covered, toxicplasmosis (i may be misremembering this one, it was re-branded a few times over its course) was the place to pick up quality midwest emo, grungy shoegaze, and non-nazi black metal, and that's only naming a scant few. i visited each daily for updates
they all opened me up to genres and musical styles i never even dreamed of, all without some shitty algorithm to game. i dream of a return to this, an emphasis on sharing genuine and inspired works. there are a couple out there still, like foxy digitalis (disclaimer: brad has covered my work before, but i've been a fan of his for a long time prior to that) but if more people took some time to highlight and shoutout works, that could be a huge step towards liberating the music community from the mercy of the spotify game