Oh I quite agree with you and I’m not saying that Artists should put their music out ‘for free’ or that we have the right to complain if they don’t.
I’m just making the point that the income stream generated by Spotify isn’t necessarily limited to the measly money that Spotify themselves give you.
I think that if Joanna Newsom was just starting out as an artist she would probably find it much harder to attract a fanbase. Right now if she releases an LP a lot of people know that they love her and will rush to buy it but they’d be much less likely to take a punt on it as an unknown quantity.
You are right, there are lots of ways that people can listen to music before buying it, but if like me you listen to music whilst commuting away from wifi and the ability to download your ‘stream’ makes it accessible to you then it is so much easier to listen to it.
More music is released every week than I will ever be able to properly listen to. I have to use some filters in order to narrow it down. I actually have lots of these, but one is definitely “is it on Spotify”? If there are two interesting black metal releases and one I can listen to effortlessly wherever as it’s on spotify and one is only ‘on youtube’ (why is that better??) so I can’t listen to it at work or in the car then I know which of the two I’m going to check out that week.
It’s definitely not perfect but before Spotify people were far more prone just to illegally download stuff which is arguably far more devaluing. I respect her right not to use them but I think the issue should be more with negotiating a fairer deal with her label than blaming the service issue. These days many unsigned artists who put their stuff on Spotify are able to get a far better payout (percentage wise) than most established artists which is clearly unfair.
when brand new artists take an anti-streaming stance i tend to think they’re being a bit naive as you’re unlikely to get off to a start these days without. previously established artists though are obviously in a position where they can better afford to give it a miss though.
tbf this is a step in the process from music buying to music streaming that is surprisingly left out of so many discussions. remember debating this a few times with people who seemed to have forgotten just how widespread it was - maybe it’s an age thing but i was of an age where almost everyone i knew downloaded albums for free and found the idea of still paying for them absurd. even music nerds into DiS-type bands would reel out the “well it’s actually fine because i go to gigs instead and sometimes buy a t-shirt, that’s where they really make money” (i would usually counter with “i do all three, it’s not really an either/or scenario”). streaming was obviously the only thing that was ever going to counter that, the price of a Spotify subscription is more than most people i know were paying for music a few years ago and i guess is a small but important step back into the idea of music having a price (even if it’s a tenner a month for basically EVERYTHING), though it’s a shame the difference to an artist is negligible.
i don’t blame artists who want to keep themselves off it though - there are other ways of checking them out even if they’re very mildly less convenient to us.
And to be fair… it’s decent? I think you can’t download via the app though. I guess the point is you’ve that right by buying it so they don’t make it part of the system. It does occasionally lose connection but my internet is always a git so it’s hard to know if it’s the app or just a phone drop out.
(Also possible the app works differently for those using a dark side phone where downloading a zip file, unzipping it and then playing the music from it can all be accomplished without a computer even being involved.)
