#41

Does it? I mean surely you would give kick back to an artist you enjoy. It’s no different to a patron/kickstarter really.

#42

Interesting …cos I can make more money in 10 minutes busking than I could make from a year of streaming

#43

But the artist is in control of their Kickstarter and Patron campaign. If it becomes a standard thing on streaming platforms, it sets a different precedent.

#44

Hey, wasn’t knocking busking at all (hence the at BEST busking part).

#45

oh, I didn’t take it as you knocking busking, just thought is was a comparison worth highlighting as it is fairly absurd that it’s easier to make money singing someone else’s songs on a street corner than it is to expose your own music to an entire globe :slight_smile:

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#46

You make a good point!

#47

I mean it does and it doesn’t, but the pay what you want/can afford model is so popular these days that I think musicians need to adapt rather than hope the market bends to their will. If there was an impulsive method such as a tip button along the other buttons on destiny that people who are really enjoying an album can throw them micro payments on top of the standardized streaming commission and maybe put a tier system in place where if you tip a certain amount you can put into rewards such as a CD/record/digital copy of an album.

#48

This is of course right but I think we’re talking about general fans of music rather than those of us who are very into it?

The old model used the proceeds gained from those who were casual listeners to help boost bands who weren’t. I recall back in the Britpop days that grumbles about the Spice Girls were usually met by music industry people pointing out the profits from Spice Girls music were directly helping to fund artists on the label who didn’t make vast amounts of money.

The only way for a modern streaming system to work is probably via money from other sources supporting people producing music. I mean this isn’t meant to be a real analogue, but: if we imagine that the ‘old’ bands die out and then Apple find fewer people want their music hardware because there are fewer types of music around (because only rich dilettantes can make it) then it’s conceivable they would fund artists off hardware profits, because they need the music that people essentially get for free to sell their hardware.

#49

Bandcamp’ 17th straight profitable quarter and suggestion of a festival at the end there maybe?

#50

Sprint have apparently bought a chunk of Tidal. I can see streaming becoming something consumers don’t think of as buying as it is part of a mobile contract or even included in the phone purchase. I’m sort of surprised Apple haven’t just made it free with new iPhones. Maybe regulations prevent it (& that may end soon in the US at least).
Then again presumably Spotify & Apple can see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of when subscriptions start to pay off the investment. As a model it makes sense once you start to get casual music buyers, who maybe used to buy a couple of CD’s a year, paying £120 every year without really thinking about it. So maybe it’s a case of seeing if anyone blinks.

Back to ethical streaming - would some sort of search with micro payments be possible in the future? Very few Spotify users will be streaming more than 2,000 tracks a month so 0.5p a stream would make sense. No idea if that is possible either technically or in terms of contracts etc but seems feasible to me.