Spotify is Adding DMs, Still Doesn't Pay Artists

[cmdr_nova]

While I patiently wait for Distrokid to give me (and other artists) the ability to remove our music specifically from Spotify, I'm forced to watch as the dunces behind Spotify make wrong move after wrong move. First, it was their partnership with Joe Rogan, then it was their announcement that they'd no longer be paying artists who don't have one thousand yearly streams or more (a move I'm sure they were expecting the rest of the industry to follow, which fell flat, for them), then it was flooding their platform with generative-slop music to pad their own pockets, and now it's "We've spent development time and money on adding a direct message function for no reason." Regardless, you can now connect Apple Music to your Spotify account and exfiltrate your playlists.

More on moving your Spotify playlists to Apple Music, whom actually pay artists, regardless of amount of streams they have.

I've been with Distrokid for years, and their partnership, or sponsorship, with Spotify has only become more and more of a detriment. As the years have gone on, I've become more and more open-source minded, and learning further into the realm of hosting my own work, myself, and even selling it, myself. If Distrokid goes on without giving the ability to revoke your work from exploitative platforms like Spotify, I might just have to revoke all of my work from their distribution platform and find an alternative. But, that's the nuclear option. I'd like to avoid that, because moving elsewhere would take a lot of work.

Anyway, here are sources on what I've mentioned in the first paragraph:

* 1: Joe Rogan signs 250 million USD deal with Spotify

I realize that many people use Spotify, much like they use Bluesky, because it's easy. A lot of people like the "easy" option. And, coincidentally, doing everything the easy way quite often results in the violation of your privacy, info security, and in this case, your affiliation with an app that's openly endorsing a man with a massive platform who regularly boosts misinformation and conspiracy theories to an audience of millions, without a care, or without regard for the kind of damage that does (among many other things wrong with this guy).

I'm reminded of the five foot seven steroids user I knew in a previous work location who loved Joe Rogan, had an inferiority complex, and spent a year stalking a seventeen year old girl.

* 2: Spotify makes millions in profit while paying artists nothing

Look, I know 1000 streams in a year isn't much, and for some, this is really easy to hit. But consider that, since Musk's takeover of Twitter, and the mass exodus of users away from the app to a myriad of others, which includes Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr, Tiktok, etc., self promotion has become even more of a monster than it used to be. Good luck finding your audience, and good luck getting those streams. At the peak of Twitter, before it's hostile takeover, I had thousands of followers, and much more than 1000 streams every month.

But that was years ago.

I don't make money from Spotify anymore, and this is true for many, many other artists.

* 3: Spotify making their own AI music?

This one was harder to source, and that's even if you consider a Reddit post a "source." Whether or not Spotify is juicing their own stats and wallets with AI-generated slop, the platform is obviously being flooded with it by bad actors who value cash over authenticity. Every other article I could find on this topic is pay-walled, and I try not to link to content that you can't read unless you pay.

I tend to think the general population doesn't much care for AI, so who's really making all that slop? Is it random people throwing sludge at the wall hoping it doesn't get them banned from the platform? Or, is it the platform itself?

Suffice to say, AI is a problem and a threat to every creative platform and medium in the world today, and Spotify being overrun with garbage is like icing on a shitcake.

* 4: Spotify is adding DMs

This is probably the least controversial thing they've done in the past two years. But one has to wonder, how much did they spend developing a feature that's intended to keep people in the app, rather than sharing music elsewhere? How much of that development cost could've gone to the millions of artists they refuse to pay?

But, okay, you've read all of this, or, you know all of this already, but you're still using Spotify because you don't know any alternatives.

If you have an iPhone, just use Apple music, it's cheaper! Plus, the audio quality you get takes a huge fart all over Spotify.

There's also Pandora, Tidal, Bandcamp, and more.

Personally, I use Apple Music while I'm driving, and then when I'm at home, I use Clementine, a Linux music app, to organize my music (that I buy from Bandcamp), listen to online streaming radio, and to backup my library to my iPod. Yes, my iPod! I am prepared for a future where streaming is dead. And, also, it's a good idea to have actual copies of your music, that you own. Because, surprise, you do not own anything that you're streaming on any of these apps, and I've widely regarded this as a bad thing for decades.

So, sure, keep the easy option, or don't. I guess it all depends on what's most important to you: Easy access to music with an app you don't have to think much about, or showing a little bit more consideration for all of the artists who have been the enemy of the music industry since day one.

Also, Distrokid, let's go already!

Source: https://mkultra.monster/social-media/20 ... otify-dms/

[albinanigans]

How *is* Pandora these days? I haven't touched that app in years, tho I have fond memories of using it. Some of my favorite artists, I discovered through there.

Honestly, I'm scared to give it a look, in fear that like almost everything else these days it had Enshittified itself...

[cmdr_nova]

To be honest, I'm not sure haha I also haven't use Pandora in a while and am pretty surprised it's still running. It would be pretty devastating to load it up, though, and find out it's littered with AI